Grimrock

First contact, I have said it already, the feeling is near my memories of Myst, I appreciate to be free of explore the whole island without noisy things, blockages or whatsoever.
The first clue seems to me confusing: forechamber for me isn't a cavern... anf a lever isn't a marker, so I have spent too much time to wander about this message. Perhaps it's me and others players don't worry about that
After that, the puzzles were easy with the clues given by the library, but each time I have had the same feeling: what about the others possiblities? I was expecting that these puzzles (the levers of the selenitic puzzle, the organ of selenitic hub, the indications of the observatory) brings others secrets or destinations. I have believed in your Myst-like story, so it was a natural way of thinking (good point for your story). Perhaps you planned to do so in the completed version?
Main critic now: soon I went across a portal, hell opened, boss fight begins and impossible to withdraw, prepared or not it's a death struggle with a short time limit, except for the Clan Beach. I should have preferred a coolest way, more in harmony with the first part of the story, but I understand that others players could enjoy this.
In Gobhobbler's Den, the fight was not so difficult (ratlings boss stucked in their compartments, waiting to be killed) but very time consuming (with so many little rats!!). Perhaps you could let ratling bosses move a little but with less life points and less of these damned little rats? (I know, I complain on difficulties of the others fights, and now I want more difficulty! Crazy man!)
Nevertheless I enjoy to play your mod "as is" and I hope you can complete it in the spirit of the first part!

A "fore-chamber" is actually a term that is often used more specifically in the field of engineering and "mining." So in reality, I feel like I may have done a better job of creating a Fore-Chamber by placing it inside a Mining tile. I purposely chose the Mining tile to represent the fore-chamber because of this fact. But maybe I'm being too technical? haha

I would have loved to use a real Organ for the Selenitic Puzzle, but I would need to create that asset from scratch, and I am not a graphic/animation designer. I am limited to the assets in Grimrock, and in this case, using buttons and levers to play music was best way to re-create the piano I could think of. If someone wants to make the Organ for me, omigosh I would use it in a heartbeat!

I probably will not add "other secrets" to the traditional Myst puzzles because I feel that such a thing would deviate too much from the original purpose. Although I do provide other destinations, since literally every map other than Myst Island is new. There will be plenty of extra secrets and added maps when I complete the other Ages, but I will not likely deviate the primary areas and puzzles from the original plot.

I do agree that I need to provide a way to escape from the Usurper battle, similar to being able to escape from Clan Beach and the Death Wall. I will do this in an update very soon. I like your ideas on the Gobhobbler's Den, I will think about it and see if there are some effective changes that could be made. The latest version of the game takes care of Frame Rate issues caused by Clan Beach. I will double-check to make sure I am not making the same mistake on any other map.

I don't critic the organ itself, I was saying only that I expected others combinaisons of sounds (for a real organ, have a look on minqmay's "Lost hall of the Drinns" (LOG1), it's really amazing, and the asset is free to use )

Story/Atmosphere/Aesthetics: 4/5

Generally speaking, I love the feel of your levels, in particular the void. It just felt mysterious and exciting - perhaps thats because it doesn't really compare to any of the original LOG2 maps. Having never played Myst, I don't really know how they compare to the original, but I definitely felt like I was in another world.

The only thing I found lacking was the story. I just don't really know exactly what was going on. What are the Ages? Who is Artus and why should I care (I guess he's the hero, but thats about it...)? As for the other characters, well I know basically nothing about them. And what are the gems/why do these matter? What about the travel instruments? I get that I have to find them... but why? A lot of the plot just feels kind of arbitrary. "You must find these things... because you must." Not to mention that the characters don't have much motivation, but maybe that ties in with the plot issues.

All in all, I'm willing to give this a pass since I feel like there was more story coming, but it's just not in this version - and I'm a big fan of mystery, so I can't complain. But again, I wonder how different this would be for someone who knows the story of Myst - just something to keep in mind for the future.


Puzzle Design: 5/5

I know that many of your puzzles were adapted from the original Myst game, but I still think you did a great job making them unique and interesting. I actually looked up a walkthrough for Myst, just to see how they compared and I think you did a great job converting puzzles that didn't quite fit in the Grimrock engine. Overall, I felt like they were challenging, but not so hard as to frustrate. I just wish there were more of them!


Combat and Balance: 3/5

Generally, I quite enjoyed your combat experiences. I found most of them to be of reasonable difficulty for a new party on easy, just as you suggested. I didn't try out a leveled party, though. I really enjoyed both the Usurper and Death Wall fights (I don't think these were too hard, nor do I think Gobhobbler was too easy as others have said).

Regarding combat, my only real complain is the stationary "turret" enemies. At first it was neat (actually, I really like using the frogs this way). And the first ratling boss was both a surprise and a unique challenge. But I felt like it was overused on Clash Beach. If the first was neat, the fifth was just painfully boring. This was compounded by the framerate issues others have noted and the tremendous health pool of the bosses. I feel like cutting this by a factor of 5 (but not in Gobhobblers, where other enemies actually make it interesting) would go a long way to make it less boring. Not to mention that people do play with melee only (or primarily) parties, so you might want to consider that if you're going to require the party to kill some of these enemies. This isn't really combat related, but since I'm on the topic of Clash Beach, it also would have been nice if the spring traps landed you somewhere relatively near where you started - it just got annoying walking around the fortress multiple times. Oh - and I didn't have a firearms guy, but I think the cannons probably would have made a lot of the rest of the ages pretty trivial if I did.

I did feel like some of the item allocation was a bit strange... I have no idea why I ended up with 120 arrows, for example. Otherwise, I felt like each party member had pretty good options available (of course they were all early to midgame, but thats fine given the scope of this release). I also really appreciate that you didn't give us >9000 bombs.


Miscellaneous Comments

You said in your description that for new parties it is best to follow the path of Artus. Having played the mod, I now understand that. But at first, I had no idea what this meant (the first age I went to was Selenic, where I was promptly stumped - but would have otherwise been wrecked). It would be nice if there was some indication of the intended path in-game, especially since some of these levels are pretty punishing in not letting you go back (others have addressed this, of course).

Speaking of the Selenic age, I didn't test this - but is it possible to get stuck there if you didn't bring the Crowern figurine?

I don't really have a huge desire to replay the mod. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I thought the puzzles were the best part, but maybe it's also my own preferences. Again, just food for thought.

Some custom assets would have been neat, but I understand the complications and time required to incorporate these. Maybe by the time the full version is done the community will have released some more neat assets that you can take advantage of.

Regarding the food situation... I can understand your decision to make food not a mechanic in the game (not one I agree with, but I can respect the idea). However, I don't really like the way it was done. The four neck chains is just... clunky. Pun intended. First of all, this just limits what items you can give the party. I could see this being interesting if you gave, say something like 2 chains, limited food and some great other neck items, but as-is its just a no-brainer that removes a game mechanic. This is only made worse by the sheer amount of food provided - again, I didn't test this, but I'm pretty sure a farmer would be rather overpowered in this game. I can understand wanting to use the racial foods, but even these just draw attention to the fact that you are intentionally removing a game mechanic. I guess it breaks the immersion a bit, perhaps? I think an alternate bonus for those three races to compensate would have been much more interesting and unique - and then you could provide no food at all. I think you could hard-code a hidden trait that would prevent the starvation mechanic to achieve the same thing, without the disadvantages that I mentioned before. The only down-side to this is that a farmer would be totally un-viable, but I would personally be willing to accept that so long as it was stated up front in the description.


Overall Impressions and Summary: 4/5

I really did enjoy this mod. It's clear that you put a lot of care and effort into crafting each level. Not to mention testing - the low number of bugs found goes a long way to tell how much time you must have spent on that.

The feel of the world was great, and I look forward to learning more about the world of Myst in future releases. The puzzles were a lot of fun and feel very rewarding, without making me want to bash my had against the keyboard. Again, very creative. Combat was fun, boss fights were great and unique. I just found Clash Beach to be very frustrating is all.

Overall, a very fun mod. I look forward to seeing the completed product! Best of luck to you and keep up the good work!