great game, great series.

That explains the DeLorean in all of the screen shots.

Well that, and DeLoreans are the apex of 80s bad ass summed up in 4 wheels, an engine...and a thermonuclear reactor core lodged in the back. :D

I'm going to buy at the devs' site for full price as they deserve it, this is a truly great series... :)

I'm afraid the devs' site has been offline since release.
From what I hear, it was overloaded by too many people coming to buy the game and their service provider screwed up.

Dev posted an update about their site troubles at RPGWatch:

Mahaba Ne Tongo: Love is Blind

So I have to wait.
I like to support gog, but in this case I would like to have a box on my shelf as I have with book 1 and 2. Therefore my way is to order a physical copy on the dev-webside, when it's online again.

Hmm, from far this game looks like a generic RPG. In what sense does it stand out from the many similar games, if it does?

Devs did post alternate purchase and download links on their facebook page. It also includes the possibility to order game on CD for additional 9.85€ (wether that means media on standard CD-R or actual game DVD case, I don't know) for total of 28.44€ (with VAT included). The game, or rather registeration code as they put it, costs 18.59 € with VAT.

Thanks for the link, Petrell.
I guess, it's a standard DVD-Case like it was with the other two parts of the book. But I don't know the distributor, so I decided to wait another two days weather the dev-website will be up again. There will I be able to read anything about DVD, case and others.
Meantime I'll start the demo (link on facebook) and have fun.

Basilisk Games website is finally up. GoDaddy's PR department had to go whip some speed into techies in order to save what could be saved from this PR disaster. Wonder if Basilisk Games could sue for damages as it's squrely GoDaddy's fault. They screwed up the migration royally.

I've played all of 1 and 2, not 3 yet. From what I've seen in 1 and 2, for the most part, you are right, "generic RPG" applies.

The good: They have their modernity going for them (somewhat better graphics and effects than older isometric titles -- especially indie ones). And 1 and 2 (GOG version as of June 2013 when I got them) seemed to be pretty much bug free (though 3 is brand new, so for the same bug free experience it might be wise to wait a while). There's some nice little touches that showed up in 2 (and I would expect similar to be in 3, if not even more) such as taking elemental cold damage when traveling through icy areas during high wind or storms (with your elemental resistance giving a saving throw against such damage), and having problems getting torches started when it's raining out or really windy (making lanterns more useful as they are immune to these limitations). The game also includes a small amount of terrain destructibility (which affects gameplay). And it's an "open world" style RPG.

The bad: 1 and 2 did not have very interesting combat (though the blurbs for 3 say "Expanded stats for creatures give them new abilities, defenses and vulnerabilities. Combat will require new levels of strategy." so hopefully that's truly improved in 3). Both 1 and 2 were very easy (i.e., lacking challenge), and my guess is 3 will be the same. In 2 I went ahead and selected the "need food and water" option (which is supposed to add difficulty) but skipped the "can't save in dungeons, etc." option (as I need to be able to save/quit and get to work if my boss calls -- I can't tell him to give me an hour so I can get out of the dwarven mines -- I don't engage in save scumming so, ignoring real-life-interruptions, it would not have impacted difficulty anyways). Furthermore, I limited myself to light armor, and short swords for fighting baddies (though I hit a few that were running away with a "fire dart" spell before switching later in the game to using "haste" in that same scenario), and it turns out only the crappiest materials are used for short swords in the game (I only found copper ones, with the exception of a single bronze one). Despite my bottom-shelf weaponry, the game had no challenge at all except a very small amount at the very beginning (where spending gold on food slows you down a bit, and may bring worries about what happens if you run out of gold and go hungry, though I never found out). Other than a day/night cycle (that NPCs completely ignore), weather effects, and NPCs walking randomly around (who never have anything to say to you so don't even bother), this is not a "living world" RPG.

The ugly: The game is very happy to waste your time. (It has a built-in timer tied to your save games that tracks how much time you've played and tells you every time you save, and I have to wonder if padding that was a goal of the developer.) Don't have a (high enough) lockpick (or lockmelt) skill so you want to bash open a door? It may take something like 100+ bashes to do that. And the game has you sit there and click the mouse, wait for the bash (because early clicks get ignored), click again, wait for the bash, over and over until the door is open. (Then there's the next locked door...) Want to quick-travel somewhere you just got a quest to go to? Too bad. You have to walk. (There are a very limited number of "quick travel points" that you have to enable by reaching them. No other quick-travel is supported, and you are frequently prohibited from even using quick-travel points you have already enabled.) Spend a whole bunch of gold and level-up points to have enough intelligence and elemental magic to learn the portal spell just to avoid this manual walking crap? Too bad! The game disables the portal spell in a number of locations. Want to close the door when you walk in a building? Get ready to play "the pixel hunt game", and you're likely to accidentally steal someone's torch in the process. Don't want to miss out on several skill training options and other goodies? Be prepared to manually weave in and out of every forest edge trying to find paths (mostly using the minimap {where you are one big "pixel"} to do this, because you can't see many paths on the main screen, but can kind of see them in the minimap if you figure out the tricks).

Basically, the main reason to play this game would be that you've already played all of the better/"less bad" ones and want some new material. (Unless like me you're planning on making an RPG, in which case it can also be counted as "research" -- taking notes about what game play works, what to avoid, and any ideas thought of while playing.)

Thank you for the superb review! The 100+ bashes you need to get a door open is surely a design flaw because it just takes away time with an extremely boring task. Even 100 orcs and one of them has the key to the door would be more interesting. It seems like I rather pass this game and because of limited time for playing games nowadays I only play the really good RPGs.

As for playing as kind of research I know that. Trying to put a turn based strategy game together currently. Somehow I find it relatively easy to spot the design flaws in other games (although I am often surprised that other people may see it completely different) but making your own design better without introducing other flaws... is not so easy.

Also one thing I learned: I helps already thinking about possible implementations problems (path finding, AI, ...). Not all game elements one can think of are easy to implement.

For the walking part, I've heard that was a very intentional design decision on the part of the developer. I would not be surprised if this "fully interactive bashing" was as well (maybe to "reward" players who get high lockpick or lockmelt skills by punishing everyone else). My philosophy with RPGs is that the player should be aware of the time and effort the PC is spending, but the game should not require the player to directly experience it. I believe a big part of the problem is that other consequences which should be present are not modeled in the game, and their presence would be adequate motivation without making the player artificially suffer. For example, if time actually mattered in the game (e.g., events play out over game-time whether the PC is active or twiddling their thumbs), those who learn the portal spell would have a real in-game advantage (at least when it came to traveling) over those who walk everywhere. If bashing doors attracted unwanted attention (baddies coming at you all at once instead of in more manageable numbers), or the game-world (not real-world) time spent bashing meant sentries would find you and sound the alarm, or the weapon repair skill wasn't so over-the-top effective (able to repair your bashing weapon to 100% every time), those who learn lockpick/lockmelt to high levels would then have real in-game advantages over those who bash all/many of the locked doors.

I think identifying general philosophies and rules (such as the one indicated in my above paragraph) and sticking to them may help with this.

I have identified AI as one my top two "hard problems" to deal with. (Efficiency is the other simply because I am going for a full "living world" system, and want it to be very large -- I don't know that I'll be able to match the 62,000+ square miles Daggerfall provides, but that's the kind of scale I'm shooting for as I want to support "real", directed adventuring rather than having yet another "explore every nook and cranny of the whole tiny world" game.) For AI I plan on using a generic approach -- I will not be hard-coding AI behaviors into the NPCs (at least for the most part). Instead there will be a machine-readable description of the game-rules to which the AIs have access (partial access for some things as they will need to be discovered), and the AIs will have certain built-in goals (varying from one AI to another -- things like survive, get rich, have kids, be famous, have some adventure, etc.). (There may also be some other personal traits like moral disposition mixed in.) Between the rules, goals, and the AI's access to its internal "user interface" will be a generic AI system based to some degree on the work of Douglas R. Hofstadter and his grad students. (If you're interested, check out the book "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies". What they are doing makes a lot of sense to me as I see similar processes in my own brain. They've implemented their ideas in various contexts, and the results are pretty impressive even though they've only been tried in limited domains. An RPG with combat, trading and actual communication (actual information transfer) occurring both between NPCs and PC(s) and amongst NPCs, production and shipping of goods, theft, guards, government, etc. will make for a very interesting large-scale test case for their ideas.)

Not that you necessarily care (especially if you're focused on making the game you want to play rather than what others want), but... the two "key features" for me when it comes to TBS games:
1. have random maps
2. have a decent AI that can handle random maps (with limited or no cheating -- if it cheats, let the player control specifically in what ways it's allowed to cheat and how much)
(I also have more fun building things up than tearing them down, but that probably varies greatly from one player to another. And I generally don't care for campaigns, except Warlords Battlecry 2, but that's because its "campaign" wasn't some excuse-for-bad-storytelling-and-railroading/linearity but rather was an additional layer of strategy added on top -- I really wish more games would do that. If you haven't played it yet, I'd humbly suggest it's time for you to do some more "research"!)

(And just in case anyone still thinks I might be sane:) One of my goals for my RPG is for it to be kind of a "Swiss army game". Not only will someone be able to play it as an RPG, they'll be able to play it to some extent as other genres as well. Become a general in an army, and you may end up commanding troops like a strategy game (though direct "mind linking" to units may or may not be available). Become a (somewhat tyrannical) mayor of a city and start directing construction like a city-builder game. Buy some wagons and ships and hire some drivers and captains and start building a trading empire like a trading game. Or maybe just buy one ship and hire some scoundrels and start pirating your way to riches. (And of course the NPCs will also be engaging in these and other activities.)