Blades Of Exile

Blades of Exile is Spiderweb Software's 1997 shareware RPG and scenario editor, the fourth game in Jeff Vogel's Exile series. This upload mirrors the late shareware release on the original Exile III engine, bundling three Spiderweb-authored adventures with the authoring tools used to build them, and runs on classic Mac OS as a fat 68k/PowerPC binary.

Setting and story

Rather than a single continuous campaign, the game is structured as an anthology of short scenarios set throughout the Exile universe of subterranean refugee nations under the surface Empire. "Valley of Dying Things" introduces new players to the world via a lethal blight in a remote dale, "A Mild Rebellion" stages an Empire-occupation political plot, and "The Za-Khazi Run" pits low-level parties against a hostile wilderness. Custom scenarios authored with the editor expand the canvas to any setting a designer cares to build.

Gameplay

Six-character parties traverse outdoor, town, and combat modes on a tile grid, drawing on the same mage and priest spell schools and skill-point system as Exile III. Shareware status restricts the unregistered build to scenario one; the $30 registration code unlocks the remaining bundled scenarios and any third-party adventure.

The editor is the centerpiece. It exposes the same data structures Spiderweb used internally, allowing creation of custom terrain tiles, item definitions, dialog trees, scripted encounters, and full town and outdoor maps. The two halves ship in one package and load any well-formed scenario file at runtime.

Engine and technical changes

Under the hood this is the Exile III engine with the automap and improved dialog system retained, plus a new scenario file format that abstracts world data from executable code. Requirements are modest: System 7, a 13-inch monitor, 256 colors. The fat binary serves both 68k Macs and Power Macs, with no separate native PowerPC build needed.

Development and release

Vogel produced Blades over 1997 by reusing the Exile III engine almost intact and concentrating on tooling and documentation; the result shipped as $30 shareware in December 1997 directly via Spidweb.com and through Info-Mac mirrors, with Diversions Entertainment handling the February 1998 Windows port. Spiderweb continued to host the registered version for years before Vogel released the source code in 2007 under the Common Public License, spawning the OpenBoE community fork.

Reception and legacy

Critics applauded the editor's power and the design quality of the bundled scenarios; complaints centered on the carryover graphics and the slow turn-based combat. Reviewers consistently rated it among the best shareware RPGs of its era.

Its lasting impact is a fan-authored scenario library that grew for years after release, and the 2007 open-source release that has kept both the editor and player running on every subsequent Mac OS generation. The Avernum series remade Exile I-III in modern engines starting in 2000, but Blades of Exile remains the only Spiderweb title shipped as a player-extensible construction kit.