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To its credit, while Avernum plays in a way that initially seems daunting and dense, it’s actually quite simple and accessible. A somewhat clunky interface requires you to periodically open your inventory to see if anything useful is on the ground nearby, but otherwise control is quite simple. You guide your party around as a unit with mouse clicks, but if they catch sight of an enemy (or have a random enemy encounter in the outdoor/world map area) the game switches to battle mode. This battle mode is more or less turn-based and superimposes grid lines on the area to denote the nature of motion in combat. You move each character individually until they have expended their allotment of action points for that turn. Moving across the battle grid, performing attacks, casting spells and fiddling with the inventory all use up action points, so choose your actions carefully. Any enemies will do the same when they get the chance. Thanks to some nasty enemy skills and a tendency to come at you en masse, the combat can be surprisingly difficult, with even routine enemies presenting a credible threat. When you come upon ‘boss’ characters – typically the target of a quest or similar – you really have to pay attention and use all your skills and items wisely. I found the sudden halt of my progress frustrating on more than one occasion, but in the end I always managed to triumph by experimenting with my approach.
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