Legend of Grimrock 2 suggestions

[msyblade]

I really, really think that is a great Idea. Make a sort of Hub, and travel an overworld map choosing from an unlimited array of custom dungeons separated by difficulty/theme. Like travel to Snowland-2 and see the medium difficulty ice based dungeons....sounds very innovative...Maybe even run into other parties, trade items and even info on some of the dungeons.Or get authors permission to stack a 4 level easy dungeon on a 3 level hard dungeon, connect em and create frankenstien combo dungeons....

[Raggie]

I love Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, especially the map ingame and the high customization. I fall in love with Grimrock and its editor and I hope that someday, there will be a map similar with the ones mentioned before. A dynamic map where we can put all of our mods. It implicates an exterior world where to travel and so on. It would be, thinking in "minecraft ways" how large can be our customized world, maybe choosing for each mod in what point placing it... but maybe I'm a 30 years old with weird ideas

Grand idea! If the modding community would pull their efforts together...

[Ciccipicci]

Thanks for your supports. I think that if not all, something can be done. And I'll hope that traps will come too!

[Andy]

Reading all the comments I agree ,if you look at the map of the world where mount grimrock is ,
there is several locations .
I was thinking that the new adventure could be in other locations on that map
next part could be something like lands of lore perhaps .

[Raggie]

next part could be something like lands of lore perhaps .

I'd love a look close to Lands of Lore as well. I'm tired of games with nothing but brown in them.

[Nickydude]

How about a re-theme? Use the same engine and play style, but a different milieu?

Sci-fi would be an obvious choice, but I'd prefer something less obvious. How about horror? Explore graveyards, crypts, haunted mansions and vampire castles? The time period could be medieval, Victorian or even modern-day. Maybe something in the line of Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider. You could explore pyramids, discover the Atlantis etc. There are endless possibilities for different settings!

This is something I would like to see also, different themes using the same engine.. scfi, horror, caves, egyptian...

[Soorg]

Woo I see many players in that thread are just asking LoG2 to become a standard full RPG with outdoor and old school approach.

Seriously no way Ishar series should be taken as an example, it's very repetitive, very empty so boring, it's not suited to puzzles and many more weakness.

The problem of outdoor is:

• To not not have links between levels so it makes them too basic,
• It doesn't match well puzzles design that makes sense only in humanoid structures.
• That it will require a ton of graphic work multiplying by ten the game cost.
• That it will require a huge change from the engine and graphic design from stairs+holes+flat+right angles to curves+slopes+hills+much more details to not look totally weird, so a huge cost increase I can't even imagine.

Well if the team want take that huge risk to switch to outdoor I wish them good luck. But myself I can't be honest, realistic and request that. That would be an audacious and ambitious move but achieve it and finance it and sell it enough to cover the cost is another matter.

So from a much less ambitious point of view here some ideas, most if not all come from other games:

• Have a manual map system included in the game (few game did that already it's just cool and I would have tried it instead of automap, possibly an item in dungeons could transform it as automap or provide some alternate bonus for players that want stick to manual map).
• Have a more deep light system, with different light level and light tools (candle, spell, torch, lantern, flares, and more).
• That light idea and flares idea make wish few place with special monsters that require use flares to afraid them and open a path.
• Add party switching, you can split in two only, either 1 vs 3 or 2 vs 2. It's a great tool for puzzles and traps design. The player choose what fraction to control and the other fraction of the party is put in phase or something. At anytime and with some time delay to avoid exploit and because the game is real time, the player can switch to the other fraction of the party. Whe a fraction move to the place where is the other fraction of the party the party is merged if the player confirm.
• Add very special and mysterious functionalities on the special items you find, the dungeons could have various hints sources about those items and how or why use them. The point isn't to make those items too powerful, but to make them special and funny to discover and they could add a lot of mystery mood to the game, on how use them and for what. For example:
  • A small box could reduce the weight of 30% for few items that can fit in.
  • Or another box could cook food magically to make its weight a bit lower to to make it restore better.
  • A special magical lantern in a hand could replace a torch and have infinite duration, or would stop light and would require use it (right click on the hand) and use some mana to light again this providing a replacement for light spell but for a bit better lighting or just a longer duration.
  • A magical pencil transforming manual map during first levels to automap. But to use it a character should keep it in hand. Allow various upgrades to the pencil so it draw only very close walls,- but not doors and special stuff, then 1st upgrade draw walls you see with the light, another upgrade add doors and wells and some stuff, another add map drawing a bit further than light, and the last upgrade add few hint notes in automap. That could be just different items, not upgrades.
  • A crystal ball when in hand and used 3 time quickly provide some hints in some places. It could generate some reaction only when used in some places. From a more easy usage point of view, if in hand it could glows very slightly when in a place there's something special.
  • I noticed the game had at least one dynamic hint, when the game detects you are failing some puzzle too many times another clue appear. Well when it happened it was quite pointless because I aready knew what to do but just had pain the chains the quick series of commands. But it was very cool anyway. So one item when taken in the hand could provide similar hints automatically. The game should provide multiple hints on its use to avoid most player just drop the item and put it in inventory.
  • Some swords could glow when some type of monsters are around, cool wink and very pleasant to discover its use even if it's just for fun.
  • A chalice could autoregenerate some potion, you drink it, it heals you, it's empty, after 500 steps it is full again. There's possibly a chalice for healing and one for cure poison.
  • Some items could work only in pair when a character hand one and the same character or another hand the second item. For example, a magical light source a bit more powerful working only if two items are handed by one or two characters.
• Change the game setup for removing the crystal system and add a team roster approach, here some ideas inspired from various dungeon games using a roster approach:
  • The general idea is there's a safe place where you start the game. At this place you have few stuff and better keep it symbolic than try implement a town. That place is more an interface with graphics and texts. One option is the tavern. Here you can hire pre created characters or you can create new characters that then appears in the tavern. And at tavern you can make a party choosing 4 characters among those available and at any time of the game you can come back and make a new party, it's the same game. On that generic idea here some design ideas to exploit it:
  • The game needs more classes diversity so it makes more sense to have more than 4 characters.
  • Dead members become an item to carry, its weight doesn't match the original inventory and body weight, but it's still heavy enough to make the player organize a rescue to bring back bodies to the safe central place where resurrection is free. For that the roster approach can add a lot of spice, for example to bring back and resurrect 3 bodies with only one survivor in the party.
  • The player could leave entirely a party in the dungeon even if the party is alive for example a party stuck by a puzzle, trap or blocked by some fights to avoid. To start a new party from characters in the tavern and either try rescue the party from a trap, or even try attract some monsters to open a path.
  • Characters joining the player party are raised to 2/3 levels lower than the average of the 2 higher level characters the player has.
  • To match a bit character level and base equipment, each character could visit a symbolic shop or armory to get standard base equipment adapted to his skills and level, bellow the average stuff but better than nude character, and more stuff as character level is higher.
  • As the player highest character level up the game could provide more pre created character with matching level. There's no need to provide many pre created characters just a few for the mood.
• The game need a tool to get back in town fast enough. A pure town portal would just break the mood of such game. A funny idea matching well the idea of survival is an elevator linking the levels. Here some stuff around the elevator idea:
  • At each level but possibly few, you need have the key to open the door.
  • There's still stairs but not often close to the elevator so when you enter a new level you know where the escalator should be but not how reach it. At end of a level exploration some quicker path between stairs and elevator could open.
  • A level could not have issue to the escalator.
  • Stairs allow link easily two levels, an elevator allow link faster and easily more than one level.
  • A nasty progression puzzle would be to jump into a hole, to find access to the elevator. For example level 7 no elevator, stuck and no stairs, jump in hole to level 8, to take the elevator, and later levels the elevator could work even if level 7 has no access.
  • There could be a second secret elevator between some levels.
• A roster approach involves the problem of equipping more than 4 characters. Either it involves tedious items switching either it's an abundance of items found. To temperate a bit the problem a game tried build a special items system for the roster approach. You don't find new items but new material to build new items or new recipe or build instructions to make new items. Then at central place an option allows visit the blacksmith to bring a new type or base material and allow make new type of item and first could be for free. Or you just bring a new building instruction to also have available a new item. So you can buy the item found multiple time for more than one character. To preserve some mood, some items could be only found in maze and unique, then swapping items between characters when making a new party group, when it's only few items to swap this would be fun.

Ha well I must add that almost all ideas just come from one game, Citadel: Adventure of the Crystal Keep and a little bit from Etrian Odyssey.

[Ciccipicci]

For the outdoor I think it really hard to improve in "the classical style rpg" as you said and I wrote before. But I thinks also that the possibility to make dungeon section outside (like short passage in balcony, roofs etc) and not a full landmass to explore could be realistic, maybe implementi for the outside a skybox like the old quake 3 ones.

[Soorg]

I don't know just have some outdoor will require quite more focus on graphics. Yes a large landmass can hardly work the problem of outdoor is to have structures for the puzzles.

I have played a PRG on ios using that approach and using outdoor and dungeons, it has puzzles too but it's quite different and not as many. But also a forest of tree is an obstacle used as a wall and the graphics don't focus as much on realism and details.

I don't know, if they change the formula anyway the project scale will change significantly and include some outdoor could match. From that point of view use some outdoor would be perhaps not more expensive than increasing diversity of dungeons like add water, use parts more like caverns, use ruins, and more to add more diversity.

[Raggie]

The problem of outdoor is:

• To not not have links between levels so it makes them too basic,
• It doesn't match well puzzles design that makes sense only in humanoid structures.

Uh, I don't even understand what these mean...

[*]That it will require a ton of graphic work multiplying by ten the game cost.

Well, hardly. Might and Magic had similar open-world gameplay since 1986, so it's far from undoable. Grimrock already has the groundwork finished. All they'd need to do is new tilesets and areas. Less work than making a game from ground-up.

[*]That it will require a huge change from the engine and graphic design from stairs+holes+flat+right angles to curves+slopes+hills+much more details to not look totally weird, so a huge cost increase I can't even imagine.[/list]

Lands of Lore didn't have slopes and hills, and it didn't need them either.