Legend of Grimrock 3

[hexaae]

It is just matter of money at this state, question is if it is worthy or not.

It's not about money. LOG1 and LOG2 are how they are because of our preferences and vision of what kind of game we wanted to make. Even if we had 10x the budget, Grimrock games would not be modern open world (quest-based) games, which I personally don't find very interesting. In the early days of LOG2 development we tried to move into this direction, but found out we didn't like where that was leading us.

The best open world games for me are Ultima IV, Ultima V and ascii roguelikes, which tell simple stories on the surface but have compelling world and gameplay. Unfortunately translating these games into modern form is hard as you always seem to lose a lot of their appeal. The abstraction in these games is a really powerful tool for unlocking player's imagination. Ok, but now I'm starting to ramble...

Whatever you decide to do for LoG3, please consider this...:

A reminder for developers

It's important today to use open editable format for the string files (e.g. simple plain XML files like many other successful titles do). Hard-coding everything in the exe or data files should be a deprecable practice... Especially for small budget software houses, the fan community can really help providing other languages translations or corrections at virtually no cost.

[Dr.Disaster]

Whatever you decide to do for LoG3, please consider this...:

A reminder for developers

It's important today to use open editable format for the string files (e.g. simple plain XML files like many other successful titles do). Hard-coding everything in the exe or data files should be a deprecable practice... Especially for small budget software houses, the fan community can really help providing other languages translations or corrections at virtually no cost.

Seems you "forgot" to quote your real points made on the Steam forum:

So there's no hope for other languages support uh? No buy, what a pity.

A real pity is to see this kind of attitude being spread in the open while trying to play nice here.

[hexaae]

That's true. I'm simply honest. Didn't buy LoG2 (just LoG 1) because of no localization yet, as many others decided to do. Will buy for sure LoG3 with multilanguage support (official or fan-made). I'm sorry you got disturbed by this.

If they'll ever release an update with editable string files be sure I'll immediately buy LoG2 too...

[Isaac]

That's true. I'm simply honest. Didn't buy LoG2 (just LoG 1) because of no localization yet, as many others decided to do. Will buy for sure LoG3 with multilanguage support (official or fan-made). I'm sorry you got disturbed by this.

If they'll ever release an update with editable string files be sure I'll immediately buy LoG2 too...

What exactly is the point of contention? Clearly playing LoG2 would not be a problem for you; [to understand everything in it].

Myself... if I found a really interesting game ~that was only released in isiZulu... That wouldn't stop me from wanting to play it, or pay for it.
(It might even help me learn a bit of the language. )

[Ayreos]

I played LoG after LoG2 and all i can say is more classes, more traits and more item variety are great! A single dungeon feels considerably more exciting than a rich landscape to me, however.

[eon]

Are there any news about LOG3 ?

[Firia]

Other than making the game not tile based, what completely new features could be added to LoG3?

First of all, Never abandon the tiles. It's almost genre defining.

I trust the current team with the concept of NPC interactions. While I played LoG2, I got some very atmospheric charged experiences that took me back to when I was a pre-teen* playing old Zork games (the old ones that had graphics- not the strictly text based ones). There were npcs in the world, but the limits of the hardware and code prevented them from being really ingrained in the gameplay outside of a puzzle or two. I trust the current team to be able to maintain the atmosphere and sprinkle just the right amount of interaction with other living beings in the world.

Additionally, we spent a lot of LoG2 on an even plane. There were some cases of "hills" and separate floors you could fall/climb down to. I'd like to see Levitation explored as a function. Maybe not a spell, or item- at least not early game, but as a timed ability granted within areas. Maybe over time the player could be rewarded with scroll's of the spell here and there giving the player the ability to explore unusual areas not normally accessible. Then late game it's just a learnable spell with the right levels in Magic.

I also caught a glimpse of someone mention the idea of an alternate dimension. The Dark World in A link to the past; the nether in Minecraft; any plane outside the Material Plane in D&D. Just some examples. You could cook up a few puzzles that cross dimensions. Probably even bar access to areas until some abilities to dimension-leap are met. It seems like a pretty cool concept! Could even be tied into the story.


*
When I was a kid, the comedy in Return to Zork was overshadowed by the grim atmosphere. So even through the series got more and more tongue in cheek over time, I still remember a morose foreboding world.

[dahauns]

...

That is the most welcome sentiment I've read on any game forum all year.
[Glad to know it too; it makes it easy to look forward to whatever you fellows are cooking up next.]

Oh, I so much agree. Especially about abstraction being a powerful tool. Never stop making games, guys!

[Slynt]

I'm one (of the few, probably) who enjoyed the first game more than the second (enjoy both, just like the first better for a number of reasons).

That being said, here is my wishful thinking for a Legend of Grimrock III product, or another dungeon crawler made by the same great people.

* The atmosphere and mood of old D&D videogames like Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master
* More monsters and character races that allows players to create "high fantasy" mods (basically I'd love to create Forgotten Realms stories with Grimrock, I realize this is a very personal wish but I wouldn't mind orcs, elves, dwarves etc. In fact I played both Grimrock games with humans only because minotaurs and insects just don't do it for me)
* More story details
* NPCs (this one should probably be first on the list); perhaps a hamlet, with a smith, a shop, a tavern, a temple...stuff like that. Something akin to Hommlet, with the dungeon nearby (the Temple of Elemental Evil in this case)
* A megadungeon in the vein of Undermountain, Barrowmaze, Castle of the Mad Archmage, Castle Greyhawk, stuff like that.

[iamnotdeadyet]

My list (off the top of my head):

1. NPCs in villages/hamlets/cities/towns/desolate places...
2. Higher frequency of monster re-spawn and in larger numbers.
3. Larger areas/maps.
4. Diurnal/nocturnal monsters.
5. Experience in exchange for achievements/quests.
6. Quests/errands, etc.