-Old-school dungeon crawling game inspired by Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder and Ultima Underworld.
-Explore a vast dungeon riddled with hidden switches, pressure plates, sliding walls, trapdoors and more.
-Discover secrets, cast spells with runes and craft potions with herbs.
-Fight murderous monsters and seek lost artifacts in ancient tombs.
-Create a party of four characters and customize them with different races, classes, skills and traits.
Remember those old school Gauntlet/Labyrinth tile based RPGs? The ones where you had a piece of graph paper and mapped out the dungeons as you played? Well this is a throwback to those, but with some pretty nice graphics.
Pre-orders have started. If you order directly from the developer's site (the link at the top) you receive 20% discount, which makes the game about $12, some pre-order stuff like printable grid paper to make your own maps, some art, etc., and you get a standalone installer + a key to redeem on Steam.
I saw some videos and just had to pre-order. It will release April 11. Go check out the site and their videos.
That does look kind of neat and definitely old-school. I've never really played a game with that grid system...it was interesting seeing how the character and mobs moved. What is the purpose of that?
That does look kind of neat and definitely old-school. I've never really played a game with that grid system...it was interesting seeing how the character and mobs moved. What is the purpose of that?
It's considered tile-based movement. I'm sure it was originally designed that way to replicate the kind of dungeon crawl movements you had in table-top games like D&D as well as a lack of computing power for fluid 3d movement in the 80's.
The only purpose it serves in this new game is to give that old-school feel for those who played the old dungeon crawlers.
Yeah it's real time but with a delay which makes it almost like it's turn based, yet not.. It's the same as dice rolls basically, but unlike more modern games like EverQuest where you attack and then pause, then attack again etc.. the older games were the same but movement was subject to the pause as well, not just the attacks. So the computer moves to stand toe to toe with you, and then waits a few seconds, and then it can move again or attack. But the player plays in real time, so if you are fast you can attack, then side step and wait a sec, as they side step to face you, you quickly side step back... The time they spent trying to follow you wastes their turn, so when they come back to face you again, you can attack and then repeat the maneuver. So basically you can fight stuff without ever being hit. But if you get multiple opponents they can surround you and corner you and then it's action stations!
Not sure if this works exactly the same way or what, but it's worth playing either way. These types of games were just cool. They were mostly D&D based so you only had a limited number of spells and then you needed to camp to rest, and sometimes you would not be able to camp or you would get attacked. So it made for some really tricky fights when all you had left was a few "Light Heals" and one "Burning Hands" and you had to made do with that to fight a whole bunch of mobs. They also usually had emphasis on puzzles too. Lots of pressure plates which you have to figure out which pattern to press them in, and hidden buttons on a wall and levers you have to pull in the right sequence or whatever. Riddles, trap doors, ancient scrolls which need to be deciphered and then give you a hint on how to solve a puzzle later on, and if you don't do it properly you trigger a trap and poison your whole party or something.
Basically... proper old school RPG's, the way they should be.. from the olden days of the 80's and 90's, when gamers were smart and liked challenges. :P
I won't have time to play it and it's a stinky single player game. I...I just can't do it.
Quote:
<Paveourroads> in a multiplayer game, you can be all, "Look, I have cooler shit than you." in a singleplayer game, you're like, "OK, my stuff is cool." and you show people who come over to your house and they're like, "You're a loser." so you cry and die. >
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised I hope so anyway. I read that it can take up to about 30 hours to complete on average. Character creation looks cool too. It doesn't look like the most deep and complex of things for RPG tinkerers, but it's still better than pretty much anything else I've seen for the past 10 years :P
Grimrock has released. I'm hearing good things about it. And I heard it can be fairly difficult. I can't play until I get off work in another four hours, but have any of you downloaded and fired it up?
Metacritic is at an 84 so far, which is really good for an indie game. It was also instantly the #1 seller on Steam.
Played it for about 4 hours, I'm absolutely blown away. I was always excited about it, but deep down I wondered whether it would actually be much fun for me. I loved the old RPG's like Eye of the Beholder etc, but looking back at them objectively, they were very basic and lacked a lot of the depth I want in modern games. I was worried that Grimrock might just be a faithful remake of that old genre but not really do anything new.
To my amazement... they have delivered more than I even dreamt of. The leap forwards in graphics compared to those old 80's and early 90's games, is equivalent to the leap forward in gameplay too. There is loads of depth and customisation and progression and spells and skills and loots and all the good stuff you would want. The combat is pretty much amazing. It's pretty challenging! But I can't believe how well they managed to get the pace. It's fast and fluid and sometimes you play on the edge of your seat, having to hack with weapons, choose spells and shoot them, all while maneuvering and dodging etc. And yet it all happens at slow enough pace that it's not twitchy or spammy or button bashy, and you can always think about what you are doing.
They seem to have done such a good job, and I am so relieved and happy that it turned out this well!
If anyone wants any tips or spoilers, let me know! I'm getting further in to the game and it sure gives you a challenge! So rare these days... I literally love it.
I'm gunna type this up before I forget and in case anyone wants it (including myself) in the future. I find that most of the puzzles take a few minutes of pondering but then you finally figure out. It's worth trying yourself so you get the satisfaction when you finally figure out OHHHH! But if you get totally stumped or are struggling with anything, here goes:
A sort of cheat, if all else fails and you find the game too hard:
There is a place a few hours in to the game, around dungeon level 4 or so, when you go to a menagerie type place, you gotta open some cages and mobs spawn and you have to trap one in each of 3 little cage room things and then a door opens. These mobs seem to constantly spawn, forever, so if all else fails you could grind out an extra level or so in here. I'm at a really hard point in the game now so it's making me wonder whether I should have at least got a level in there, but I'll press on. I can always back track if I need to anyway. There were some areas like this in Eye of the Beholder as well, and I'm convinced that game is impossible to complete without at least spending a bit of time boosting your characters. Maybe this game is the same?
General tips for playing:
- Collect all or most of the torches you find.
- So far it has been worth my while jumping down the trap door holes in the ground. I know it seems a bit crazy, and you do get injured doing it, but usually once you drop down there is either something to pick up down there, or something to fight, or both. And presumably it's worth fighting everything you can find for the XP.
- Occasionally you will find a wooden box or a sack with loot in. If you have a character that is strong enough, it's worth keeping these to extend your inventory space. My characters aren't very strong, but one of them has just enough strength to carry the sack and I keep it full of torches.
General tips for fighting:
- It seems to me that you can often stop an enemy's attack in it's tracks by attacking the creature just as it attacks you. Generally it seems best to just spam your attacks as fast as possible to get it dead, but if you ever find yourself forced to fight something toe to toe, it's worth trying this trick. Magic seems to be the best for it, just the split second as the creature is about to lunge at you, blast it with fire or whatever you have. The creature seems to recall and stop its attack. Then a second or so later, just before it decides to attack again, hit it with one of your melee attackers. Then wait another second, and attack again. If you time it right, it seems like the creature doesn't even fight back at all for that whole round. It will eventually get some hits through but it seems to be less to me.
- Zomg strafe! Maybe my party are wussies, but I find that toe to toe fighting is generally a bad idea. The only way to handle these fights, is to be constantly on the move. With some easier stuff (snails hehe) I can duke it out toe to toe, and occasionally take a few steps backwards while I set off some spells or something. But with harder enemies (just came across some REALLY nasty spiders!) I have to constantly move. I find that it becomes a lot easier if you put the majority of your brain's focus on your left hand, to move your party around. Don't worry if you aren't fighting back too well, as long as you are moving, you aren't being hit and can basically survive forever. Even with fast enemies, once you get good at using the WASD keys and the QE to rotate (or whatever you set the keys as), you can constantly keep one step ahead of your enemy so it never gets a chance to attack you. Then just use a little bit of your focus to click your attacks and shoot some spells as often as you can, while always making sure your main priority is keeping moving. With most enemies it doesn't matter if you screw up and take a few hits, but I find that with some enemies like the spiders, even taking one hit is bad because not only does it hit hard, but you can get poisoned too - which is bad. So yes, main priority! Strafe like a champ, make the creature chase you around and be as slippery a douchebag as you can possibly be, there is no shame in playing like a rogue, it's life and death after all. And distant second priority, click some buttons to do some attacks and chip away at the beasty.
- Some of the fights with nearby trapdoors - you can actually use the trapdoors against the enemy. Wait until an enemy stands on it, and then quickly stand on the button to drop the enemy through the hole. I tend to only do this to some of them to thin out the numbers, then fight the first bunch, heal up, then jump down the hole and fight the other ones so I get the XP for everything.
- Some items can be bunched together in a stack. Rocks and throwing knives and stuff are pretty powerful, so I have at least one of my guys with a big stack of these in his hands. On tough fights you can throw a few for a little extra boost in damage - and you get to collect them again after the fight too so you don't even need to worry about wasting them.
- When you finally get some spells to cast, you can select them and have them at the ready as you are exploring. So when you inevitably get jumped, you are ready to unload them. Although no matter what you do, the game seems determined to have you running around with one hand while focusing your eyes on clicking the runes to cast magic too. It's pretty challenging but oh so cool.
- Sometimes if you pull a chain to open a door to a room that's full of beasties, you can start fighting them in that doorway, and after you kill the first one or two, you can pull the chain again to close the room. Then just rest up, and continue.
- Green slimes: these wupped my party in no time. I found that the only way I could get past these guys was to lore them out and to follow me one by one to the doorway. Then I had to just kill them one by one, then pull the chain to lower the door and rest between fights. They disease you (not poison), but it seems to wear off by itself eventually so you can just keep resting.
- Big mushroom guys: It's all about kiting them up and down the full length of the room. I also used a couple of those little bombs I have been saving. I threw two fire bombs and that helped me kill one fast, and then the second one was easier to kite alone.
- There is a WTF room later in the game when you trigger the door to lock and a bunch of stuff spawns to attack you. Took me a few goes to do this. It seems that the little dudes who shoot poison bolts are easy to take down, so it's worth blasting them asap. Then you are just left with a big crap and a big mushroom guy. With only those two left you can kite them around the room.
Puzzle walkthroughs:
- Stick the two blue gems in the eyes, obvious. P.S. I also took the gems out afterwards incase I can sell them.
- Only a patient man will pass (or something). You just stand on the pressure plate for a while and eventually the door will open.
- Various pressure plates that need to be dealt with - leave a burned out torch or something useless on them. Sometimes you need to throw an item to land on them if you can't reach it.
- Various hmm what now? moments: Look on the walls nearby for one of the bricks with a little broken corner. This is a button that can be pressed.
- A pillar of light stands alone in the dark (or something like that): There is a wall like a pillar in the middle of that room with slots on 3 sides for torches. Put a lit torch in each of those.
- The two teleports that go in a circle around the room: Step in to the first square which is between the teleports, and then follow the teleport anti-clockwise (counter clockwise), keeping one step behind it. After moving twice, quickly turn left and chuck a rock or something over the hole in the ground, and it will hit a pressure plate on the far side which closes the trapdoor hole in the middle of the teleports room. Then reset by going back to the start. Now you just need to follow the teleport again, and either put or throw an item on to the other pressure plate in the corner of the room to open the door, and then you can quickly run through the door over the hole that you filled.
- I demand a sacrifice: You can just place an object on the ground behind the unopened gate/grate. I used a skull just because it seemed fitting for a sacrifice. Then press the nearby button on the wall and the trapdoor opens and your object falls down as a sacrifice. This will spawn a bunch of items on the ground next to you, and you also get back whatever you used as a sacrifice.
- Spectral Relay: stand on the pressure pad which fires something at you, but the bolt of lightning or whatever gets stopped by the door. Then drop something on to the pressure pad behind that door. Then step off the pressure pad you're on, back on it, and quickly back off it again. The bolt now fires in to the little circle on the nearby wall which powers the door.
- Time and tide: step on while it ticks to 4, then wait a second or so and chuck a rock or something through the portal that appears briefly.
- Teleports puzzle (Test of thought or something like that): I'll end this with this one cuz not sure anyone else is reading this? :P But this last puzzle had me stumped for a while. When you step on the first pressure plate, the door behind closes. There is a button to the left which opens a door to the far right corner. You need to walk in the following order: forward, forward, forward, turn right 90 degrees, forward, turn right 90 degrees, forward, turn right 90 degrees, forward, turn left 90 deg, forward, turn left 90 degrees, foward, ... err, I lost track, but you can hopefully figure out the rest from here. Remember you can just save the game once you get quite far, and then reload your save when you take a wrong step, rather than having to do it from the start.
I was only able to play an hour or two last night, but I think it's great fun. It's a really well designed game that captures that old-school gameplay with a new-school presentation.
I hate to admit it, but I got stuck on Level 2 and had to ask my friend for advice. It was one of those, "D'oh! I should have figured that out!" moments. I love that there are plenty of secrets and you get that old-school chime and words, "You have found a secret!" I was so proud of myself for finding my first secret, then I noticed a sign on the wall essentially telling me there was secret in the room. I didn't feel quite so proud after that.
How have you made your party? I went with two warriors in the front ranks. One is an ax wielding Minotaur with tons of strength. He's kind of my berserker guy. The other warrior is a human tank that I'm going to get all armored up with sword and board. My back rank is a human rogue who specializes in throwing weapons and a human mage who is currently learning ice magic.
I haven't quite figured out magic, yet. Every time I try to cast a spell it just says my spell fizzled. I know it's rune based and you can combine them, but with such low skill level, all I can do is ice magic. Maybe I was hitting the wrong rune icon for ice. I think it was the bottom right.
If you're on the fence still, this game is totally worth the $15 price tag. It's even 10% off right now.
Haha yeah finding secrets gives a real sense of wonder and a YAY ME! moment
As for solving puzzles and stuff, I find it's kinda random. I reckon it has more to do with what you have eaten that day (irl) and how much sleep you've had. I perform well at memory stuff when I'm in good form, but if I'm a bit weary or tired or hungry or something, I can't do shit basically. And if I'm reeeally tired then I need to stay well away from Everquest or I just end up de-leveling :P
As for my party, my first guy is a mino warrior and he has low to mid strength, as I put the majority of my points in to vitality and dexterity which seems to affect their ability to dodge and evade. I decided that I wanted him to focus mostly on surviving, and I would have my other guys do the damage. My second guy is a human rogue, and I cranked Dex but I think I put some points in to Vitality in him too, and maybe one or two in to strength. Both of these guys I chose avoidance as their skills too, I just want them to both be good at surviving and taking the brunt of all the damage, and let my back row do their thing.
In the back row I have two mages. One is an Earth/Lightning mage, and other is a Fire/Ice mage. So far though, with limited points, I have just been focusing all the points on their Spellpower and one of their talents. So Spellpower+Fire and Spellpower+Earth on the other guy. I was surprised to see no healer class, but it actually works out for the best imo because you don't have to fiddle around with little heals all the time and turns the focus entirely on actually fighting and running around dodging attacks
As for magic, it seems you have to play for a while until you can even use it, so the first while is spent with your melee guys doing all the work. Eventually you find spell tomes that show you a picture of what runes you need to click for that spell, or you can also figure it out through trial and error. But even once you know what runes to click, you also need to have the appropriate skill too, which only comes once you start leveling up and getting points to spend.
I freakin love this game I really hope it's a success so they can make more like it.
I freakin love this game I really hope it's a success so they can make more like it.
I guarantee it's a major success for these guys. They're getting great reviews. It's still the #1 seller on Steam and GOG today. The critic reviews are all very good and the user reviews are even better. Word of mouth is spreading that this is a true indie gem.
What has the potential to be really cool is that they are going to release editing tools for users to make their own dungeons. Some people out there will probably be very creative with their dungeons and possibly extend the life of this game for much longer than the initial Grimrock dungeon.
News
Legend of Grimrock
I hope so anyway. I read that it can take up to about 30 hours to complete on average. Character creation looks cool too. It doesn't look like the most deep and complex of things for RPG tinkerers, but it's still better than pretty much anything else I've seen for the past 10 years :P
I was always excited about it, but deep down I wondered whether it would actually be much fun for me. I loved the old RPG's like Eye of the Beholder etc, but looking back at them objectively, they were very basic and lacked a lot of the depth I want in modern games. I was worried that Grimrock might just be a faithful remake of that old genre but not really do anything new.
