Grimrock links - ARTICLES and REVIEWS

[Bek]

Chris Avellone mentions Grimrock as an indie game he likes: http://indierpgs.com/2012/10/interview- ... -avellone/

(Control F 'Grimrock')

[rob49815]

I loved everything about this game, It reminded me of stonekeep which I played so much back in 96 i think, however the only thing it lacked was perhaps more enemies and a better thought out end boss, which was a huge disappointment. Come on!!! whats evil about a

SpoilerShow

mechanised rubiks cube![/spoiler/]! It's like almost human were in a rush to finish this game and thought " that'll do ". Imagine you're a player and you've fought your way for hours and days on end through the levels only to be faced with a faceless, personalityless final enemy. Does anyone agree with this ?? What kind of final boss did you envision before you got to the end??

[Neikun]

I think the cube had a lot of personality, actually.
They way the old god tricked you into thinking it was a person and on your side the whole time.

It should be noted that the whole dungeon hints at the cube. Or at least from the temple down. The dreams with gears moving in the background. The cube/goromorg stained glass windows.

[Darklord]

Grimrock just got Best Indie Game of the Year at RPGWatch!

http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/article?articleid=203

Daniel.

[Neikun]

It won by a lot too!
Out of five options, 61%!

[Demo_Seeker]

It won by a lot too!
Out of five options, 61%!

To be quite honest, I have never heard the slightest thing about the other four contenders.
Some of them do not even have Wikipedia entries. Doesn't seem to be the toughest competition ever.

[Neikun]

I'm familiar with Avernum. A really good isometric tactics rpg.
You should check it out.

[Sonic6424]

I have some Grimrock videos on my youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/Swaginthehat

[Halluinoid]

it goes straight to Orcs Must Die 2

I did a search on Dungeon Master but the word "Master" is "too common" to be searched on here so at the risk of anybody telling me we had a DM comparison before I DON'T KNOW, you can't search on it, too common!

Grimrock (2012) v Dungeon Master (1987)

Straight off the graphics in Grimrock are quite stunning, the lighting effects can be particularly impressive and obviously outshine DM ten times over!

Also the default "music" is obviously far far better than DM, as DM had none and the SFX were minimal.

So a big big plus for Grimrock, lighting effects and music and SFX all good, so onto the gameplay. Grimrock provides you with 4 characters and straight off loses that great fun part where you could choose your own from the DM "Hall of Champions."

Grimrock has no "Hall of Champions" yes the story is different and yes the intro tells you that, fine let's skip that and move onto Fireballs. The magical character on the backrow can throw fireballs from the off, wand or not, but how far do the fireballs travel? To me it appears they have no effect unless the hostiles are on the very next tile. If you launch a fireball even 3 tiles away to your intended monster, no effect. Maybe it's just my inexperienced magician but to me, a fireball should cause damage 1 tile or 9 tiles away. That to me, is a disappointment.

Mind you that is more than made up for by the inclusion of a Level Editor! Grimrock is supplied with a "Level Editor" included and also has the ability to load "Custom Levels" which are a pleasure to see in action. (We had to wait 10 years for a Level Editor on DM!)

Editing your own levels (creating your own levels) is almost as much fun as actually playing Grimrock's official version, I have got to Level 2 now and am being pursued by 4 vicious knights I have released from a dungeon which began with "No weapons allowed" and the next thing you know, 4 silent but deadly knights are steadily following you everywhere you go. I have managed to lock 2 into previous areas where you can then "shut them in" and escape but that still leaves 2 on the loose. Great atmospheric background "music" I have to say and plenty of "Restore life" points along the way, probably more than in DM, but then Grimrock has to cope with people of all skill levels, so better too many than too few

In DM when a member of the party was "killed" their bones would drop to the ground along with all their possessions. That doesn't happen in Grimrock. Instead they are simply classed as "Dead" with a skull replacing their profile portrait and that's it. When you come to a "Restore Point" in Grimrock, all your party's health bars are immediately put to maximum and off you go again totally intact.

In DM restoring a party member involved a little more than that and their life signs were brought back the absolute minimum of what was needed to actually "be alive." They required immediate food and water to "fully resuscitate them."

The teleporter systems look like a direct lift from DM, nothing bad in that and some of the puzzles look like a direct lift from DM too, no complaints from me, fine!! It's actually quite a pleasure to see these things repeated and they have been repeated extremely well in Grimrock although the sequence where the party go up or down stairs fades to black then fades in to scene as the party arrives at the new level, not sure the fading to black is so cool but obviously there was a technical reason for that. Moving on to PITS, I was quite impressed that if you lead monsters onto a trapdoor and pull the lever, the monster falls down the pit, what I liked about that was the monsters really have fallen down to the level below. I lured four knights onto a trapdoor and pulled the lever. I jumped down after them, only 1 had survived, the rest killed. I like that kind of continuity, full marks for that.

In TOMB RAIDER pulling a lever would trigger a gate and typically that gate would be round the corner up hill and down dale but in a location you had previously experienced. So in TOMB RAIDER you pull the lever and to clarify the situation, they would provide you with a 1 second "glance" of the gate now being opened round the corner and 2 corridors back, what's wrong with that? Too easy for gamers? Or just a standard idea to make the game flow? Well it hasn't been included in Grimrock (well certainly not Levels 1-2 anyway) which is a shame, doing so would provide potential for more advanced planning (in the Level Editor for sure).

Overall my opinion of Grimrock is 9/10 with 10/10 for the Level Editor, great stuff and is there going to be a sequel is the big question of everybody's lips now.

[Neikun]

Just want to say you're confusing the spell Fireburst with Fireball.
The mage can't cast a fireball until a higher level.