Foooooooooooooooooooood!

[jfunk]

The game shouldn't say "no, we're not going to let you play if you take that long."

I suspect that's what jfunk wants, though, he wants to be able to laugh at people for not being able to complete a game he apparently breezed through.

No, that's not what I want. Obviously my post above got a touch hyperbolic. But what I want is for nearly everybody that has trouble with an aspect of the game to not suggest that the mechanics of the game be changed to mitigate their particular trouble.

There's more suggestions (or in some cases demands) that the game be CHANGED on this board than there are actual requests for help. It's not "hey, I'm having a hard time with this, can somebody give me some pointers?", it's "X is too hard for me, so clearly it's broken and the devs should adjust it to match my personal experience."

I mean, your OP suggests that the amount of food in the game was somehow mistakenly set by under the assumption that players would already know the puzzle solutions and the game is somehow nearly impossible in its current state. As though the amount of time you personally took is the right amount of time. The right amount of food for you is an over-abundance for some and still not enough for others.

Hapro is making the argument that food should be eliminated, as giving people a "timer" at all is inherently flawed design that has no purpose. I can respect that opinion and to be honest I would prefer it not exist either. I find any eat/drink requirements in games to be tedious (unless they're purely recovery items and not maintenance items). But I don't think it's flawed design, just a particular design choice. One the devs DID want...they wanted to put a timer on you and create a sense of urgency.

All that being said, don't give up on this play through just because you're "running low" on food. The very fact that you're "worrying" about it IS its intended purpose. You'll find more food more, and running out isn't "game over" either. You DO have the tools available to you in the dungeon to get through this.

[recurve7]

Totally running out of food is a very real possibility.

I'm not a lightweight gamer: I completed Zork without assistance in ~1984 and finished Demon's Souls and Dark Souls in 2011.

I'm on level 5 of Grimrock now and have totally run out of food. I have explored pretty thoroughly (completed every secret I've seen), so I know I must have most of the food that's been made available during my playthrough.

Nevertheless, I am now locked in a gated cell on level 5 (normal, auto-generated 2 Fighter, Rogue, Mage party): every piece of food is long gone from my inventory; all my characters' energy is gone; and hence the game obliges me now to exploit it: I move away from the locked gate until the monster outside paths away; I open the gate and wait for it to return; I hit it once or twice before it can obtain facing and then I re-close the gate. Since my characters have no energy, I have to get lucky or crit to do any damage at all (mostly misses and 0 damage hits). If I do even a couple points of damage without taking any, I have to re-save the game. Kills do not seem to be dropping food.

I have to do this over and over dozens of times to kill each monster, because I have no way of healing now. I can't afford to get hit at all anymore. Hopefully I can get to the unlimited food on level 6 without taking any further damage.

This is a pretty frustrating and significant oversight in the game design.

[seebs]

If you have completely run out of food, I would tend to suggest starting over, and evaluating things differently. (Much like DM, this game tends to reward people who never, ever, rest.) I had that problem in DM first time through, but after that, never again.

[Whisper]

Actualy, there is too much food.

Suggestion for Hard difficulty - also increase food consumption.

[citizengrim]

The game is about survival. If you keep running out of food, track back, see what u've done wrong, re roll do things differently. Don't spam food consumption too often. Manage it well. Up to lvl 10 and I got soo many food on my inventory I had to throw it away.

[Whisper]

Up to lvl 10 and I got soo many food on my inventory I had to throw it away.

That what i've meant when i say - there is too much food.

I have around 25 pieces of food in inventory and constantly either throwing new one away or eating them to keep food to 100% (even if it was almost full already).

For easy keep food same, but for normal and hard - there is too much food.

[citizengrim]

Up to lvl 10 and I got soo many food on my inventory I had to throw it away.

That what i've meant when i say - there is too much food.

I have around 25 pieces of food in inventory and constantly either throwing new one away or eating them to keep food to 100% (even if it was almost full already).

For easy keep food same, but for normal and hard - there is too much food.

Ah sorry i was replying to OP . But i believe when you play on Hard, starvation level got increase as far as i concern. At least that what Ive noticed so far. I could be wrong tho. But yes there are too much food

[Mystify]

Well, one thing that food does is limit how much you can rest. I can easily see a lot of abuse if you can just rest after every single scuffle without penalty. and it is another resource to manage with your carrying capacity. Even if you aren't running out of food, the presence of it still effects your game.

[lowzei]

Hmm, i didn't experience any lack of food until in ran into the secret area with the green slime monsters on level 4. Due to quite some resting i was running out of food. From there on i took more care of it, used it more wisely, rested less and getting the icebolt and later on the fireball helped as well. Since then i never had food issues again and it's quite the opposite that i can't carry all the food with me around, and all this although i'm sometimes having a hard time getting as many riddles solved as i can. For instance i went two levels back just to finally get that riddle door open on level 4, that was a hard one as i wasn't paying attention to the sound and i wanted to get into that cell below so badly.

I think playing on normal is quite normal, maybe sometimes things could be a little bit harder but sometimes i'm also facing situations like the fighters challenge where i need some trick to find out or to further improve until i can succeed. I think overall it's well balanced.

[Whisper]

I think playing on normal is quite normal, maybe sometimes things could be a little bit harder but sometimes i'm also facing situations like the fighters challenge where i need some trick to find out or to further improve until i can succeed. I think overall it's well balanced.

"Normal" in today games are "easy" in classic games.