Brilliant game up til Level 9. I won't be finishing it.

[M.M]

Grievance #1-4 are about endless streams of ice lizards. Grievance #6 is about starving

Bingo. I don't understand how both grievances can be possible at one time.

[Darklord]

We do seem to have had a sudden rash of people complaining for very odd reasons lately.

Daniel.

[t0tem]

We do seem to have had a sudden rash of people complaining for very odd reasons lately.
Daniel.

Yep. OP manages to answer his own question in one post. 360 degree whining.

[Disasterrific]

5 damage from a fighter? What's the OP attacking with? A damp sock? Did the OP realize that you can heal and resurrect at crystals or is the OP going to resolutely toil away with 3 characters until the end (despite not losing a single one in the first half of the game on his/her first play through on hard?!)?

The OP managed to solve the puzzle to get to level 10 and has only a minor bit of combat to go but has given up before going down?

The ice lizards are not infinite to the extent that you can't kill them all (for a limited period at least), yet still the OP complains. No mention of the pillared hallway? What a wasted opportunity to troll...

I would resolutely call bullshit. If not, we live in a sad world where a level that was actually a challenge to get through is lost on some poor loser who wants every victory served up on a silver plate.

[Hariolor]

Ice lizards were hard until I realized my party was fast enough (two fighters, two rogues) to keep any enemy effectively stun-locked for the three or four rounds of blows it takes to kill them. Even the

SpoilerShow

twisting hallway full of ogres

was easy once I got the rhythm of stun-locking down.

I thought games like EoB and DM were abusable because of circle-dancing (aka the DM two-step). Grimrock gives you stucklocking and circle-dancing. It's like candy from a baby.

As for puzzles that require lugging around crap from earlier in the game? I seem to recall being really pissed at DM's "riddle room" when I was little (identical premise), as well as the much much later "enlarge my view" puzzle that, at least on the atari ST, required either having

SpoilerShow

the mirror of dawn or the magnifier

, neither of which seemed all that useful when you find them, nor appeared anywhere near where they were needed.

That room on level 9 is more or less a huge inside joke referring back to the most frustrating kind of riddle puzzles in old-school crawlers. And yes, they were a pain in the butt back in 1989 also - so I see where the OP is coming from. But come on, if I were designing a dungeon, I sure wouldn't have the key to a puzzle in a room a few yards away from where it's needed

SpoilerShow

like the red gem on the next level down

[BlueSpace]

Glad to hear you enjoyed a lot of the game anyhow, also pleased to hear you payed for it!

Daniel.

Yeah it's nice that he now payed for it. He must have bought it between you locking his old thread and making this new one.

[Baroque]

Hungry? Have an ice lizard!

but really, if you made it to level 9 on hard old school, you should be able to figure out how to run past them or fight them in a doorway.

And why should we or they care if you don't finish the game? You payed for it and you won't be seeing all of its content, that's your loss not ours.

[dnk]

Grievance #1-4 are about endless streams of ice lizards. Grievance #6 is about starving

That strange, while you get edible meat after killing the ice lizards... I had more than I was able to carry.

[Jaelus]

Weird. I beat the game on hard. I remember the ice lizards being challenging (especially since my only mage was pure ice and couldn't damage them) but I was able to get through them without much issue. It's not like they're anywhere near as difficult as the fighter's challenge, and I was able to get through that with all 4 characters still alive (not easily though).

As for food, by that point in the game I quite literally had 5 crates full of food that I was lugging around. I would suspect there is more than enough food in the game for even a party of four minotaurs, unless maybe if you are resting an insane amount. Having said that, proper food management is part of the game and it's up to the player to either do it well or not. Also, yea you can just eat the ice lizards.

As for needing stuff for solving puzzles, that's all part of the genre. I mean, I was lugging around the green and blue gems for the whole game. If there's something unusual and you can take it with you, take it with you.

[Callipygous]

If there's something unusual and you can take it with you, take it with you.

Words to live by in this genre.