Grimrock

Old school games, like Grimrock have still a legion o fans today. Why is it so. Let me express my thoughts.
Games like DM, EOB, and many others of the old school (not necessarily rpgs), combined 2 very basic characteristics:
1) Simplicity of the interface (you can do almost everything with a few keys and the mouse)
2) A robust puzzling systems, which put your mind in work many times during the game

No let's see modern games
1) Much more complicated interfaces (with many many keys, hot keys, etc), as a result of the free movement.
2) Complete lack of puzzles

In my opinion Free movement is not very good after all. At least that' is my feeling. When you can move everywhere, with the camera view to change etc, the interface becomes complicated in most cases. I prefer tile-based movement much much more. It makes controlling your character/party much more efficient. And of course the puzzles. I played Dragon Age a year ago. Very good game indeed, decent graphics, good story, but but but ... I really don't remember to put my mind in work even for a second (or to be honest I put it in order to decide which path/quest to follow each time). No puzzles at all. Many quests indeed but the only thing you have to do to complete the game is killing and talking. And I am asking every serious gamer: Is that what we want from an rpg game? Ok the game is not linear, since you can perform quests in different orders, and you can follow different paths. But please compare it with the linear Grimrock and tell me honestly. Which is mos challenging for the gamer. The non linear Dragon age, or the completely linear Grimrock? What to do with non-linearity when I know that whatever I do I will complete the game and never been stuck?

Some people here in the forums (not many fortunately) are complaining about the difficulty of the puzzles, saying that they ruined their gaming experience!!!. I am sure they haven't played the OLD GAMES. It is evident that if they had, they wouldn't complaining but rather been enthusiastic, because good puzzles are what transform a good game to an excellent one. that is the case at least for games of these category (rpgs and adventures).
After all, guys you have an automap system. Please take a break and play eye of the beholder 2, to see what means difficulty!
And my final word is that when you get stuck playing a game it is good, because it means that the game developers struggled to create puzzles in order to make a challenging game. After all like in crosswords, there exist easy ones and difficult ones. Depending on your level of knowledge you play what it fits you. But even experienced/intelligent players get stuck on them. That is the case and with the games. There exist easy ones and difficult ones (although nowadays the latter is like an endangered species). And of course like in crossword you can get stuck on a puzzle. Would you consider solving crosswords challenging if you could always solve them in the first attempt? ME I Wouldn't! So for me, having lived my youth (I am 37 now), in the Golden era of adventures and rpgs, the key ingredient that make old games better than their modern counterparts is basically summed in one word: CHALLENGING!

Sorry for the long post, but as an core adventure and rpg gamer carrying fondly memories from the past, these are things I had to say to put thing in their right perspective. Because it seems that modern games focus too much on the presentation (graphics, sound, etc) and too little on the challenging factor.
Please I would like other people to share their thoughts on this issue.

I agree with ever word you said....

I enjoy the occasional hard game like this one but I am glad not all games are this hard. A big reason they used to make all games hard was to make the game last longer. Nowadays they make games last longer with massive game environments, massive dialogue options and 10 times as many quests.


I like hard games and easy games. I hope I continue to get both.

Well said. Everything in its place and a place for everything.

This game has its defined place, space and pace. I love how it is old school.

This game knows itself and its target audience hence why it is being successful.

I love new gaming too, but this game is meant to be old school and if you can embrace that then it is hard not to love this game.

Old school every time. When these games were made they had very little computing power and memory to play with so everything had to be planned to make it the longest and best experience possible.

These days we have army's of lazy programmers that waste memory and resources, usually making badly coded and bulky games. Not only that I am sure that they don't plan a game but make it up as they go along.

There are very few modern games that are worth the time never mind the money. And that's it, money, it's all about money and no love for the game. Game's made with love are usually major gaming hits, those for money, usually a waste of time.

I'm 15 and for me i prefer Hard combat and abuse of game mechanics to do well in a game over puzzles, maybe i think like this because i was raised with different games than you, and for an RPG all i would want would be Hard combat and ability to abuse game mechanics (when you know what to do)

What i want would be a game like Dark souls, Dark souls is the best RPG i have played, it's got everything i love in it and puzzles can be nice but i don't see it as a necessity for RPG's.

What i look for in a game would be, Good Graphics (Not that big of a deal most of the time), Good FOV, Hard Combat, In-depth customization, freedom to do whatever with my character, Fun game play, ability to abuse game mechanics and do things a new player couldn't do without number crunching or extensive game play and testing.

No let's see modern games
1) Much more complicated interfaces (with many many keys, hot keys, etc), as a result of the free movement.
2) Complete lack of puzzles

Number 1 Isn't that bad, i love the customization you can do with many keys and hot keys, and i have free movement specifically based on that.
Number 2, as i said up top, it's not a necessity for an RPG and i could live without it (Not to say i don't like it though) but i don't think it's more important than hard and tactical combat.

Old CRPGs were difficult because they required persistence and hard work to figure out how to get to the end. Newer CRPGs were challenging to finish because they get so boring you don't even want to finish them (c)

Whisper wrote:Old CRPGs were difficult because they required persistence and hard work to figure out how to get to the end. Newer CRPGs were challenging to finish because they get so boring you don't even want to finish them (c)

The best quote so far! Bravo!

Mr.Monopoly wrote:I'm 15 and for me i prefer Hard combat and abuse of game mechanics to do well in a game over puzzles, maybe i think like this because i was raised with different games than you, and for an RPG all i would want would be Hard combat and ability to abuse game mechanics (when you know what to do)

What i want would be a game like Dark souls, Dark souls is the best RPG i have played, it's got everything i love in it and puzzles can be nice but i don't see it as a necessity for RPG's.

What i look for in a game would be, Good Graphics (Not that big of a deal most of the time), Good FOV, Hard Combat, In-depth customization, freedom to do whatever with my character, Fun game play, ability to abuse game mechanics and do things a new player couldn't do without number crunching or extensive game play and testing.

No let's see modern games
1) Much more complicated interfaces (with many many keys, hot keys, etc), as a result of the free movement.
2) Complete lack of puzzles

Number 1 Isn't that bad, i love the customization you can do with many keys and hot keys, and i have free movement specifically based on that.
Number 2, as i said up top, it's not a necessity for an RPG and i could live without it (Not to say i don't like it though) but i don't think it's more important than hard and tactical combat.

I don't blame you, because it is obvious from your age that you have become accustomed to a different type of games. Hard combat is some kind of a puzzle also, since you have to device strategies to be able to win them. However, please find EOB2 and play it. It has no great graphics to contemporary standards (although they were descent back to its time), there you will see what hard combat is (those beholder's were nearly impossible), and all these come packed with puzzles and storyline. what more should a gamer desire? Modern RPGs, tend to be like First Person Shooters. Only levelling up makes the difference!

Dandy wrote:Old school every time. When these games were made they had very little computing power and memory to play with so everything had to be planned to make it the longest and best experience possible.

These days we have army's of lazy programmers that waste memory and resources, usually making badly coded and bulky games. Not only that I am sure that they don't plan a game but make it up as they go along.

There are very few modern games that are worth the time never mind the money. And that's it, money, it's all about money and no love for the game. Game's made with love are usually major gaming hits, those for money, usually a waste of time.

By theway to support your statement I will post another question? Do anybody know a modern adventure which which lasts more than a day of playing? 20 years the gaming industry thrived of games (mostly adventure and RPGs), which took days, not to mention months to complete them. Not to mention that many times without a proper hint, it was impossible to make it to the end. It seems that today, with the death of adventures, which were the main carriers of puzzling, puzzling has died from every other game as well. But why? Is it because nowadays players (the teenagers mostly), are frustrated to complete a game. Is it because we have two many games available, so we want to finsish them the soonest possible so that we move to another games? Is it because publisher's don't want puzzling, because they want their players to have the fieling that they are great players and can cope well with every game, so that they can sell them more in short time? Is it because they push developers to complete the game in strict timeframes so that they put it to market early enough, which makes designing good puzzles impossible? Is it lack of imagination of the developers?
The answer is difficult, but I think that more or less it is all the above. Publishers are a pain in the ass for modern developers. For me it is not starnge at all, that the only worth playing games lately have come from indie studios and mostly from Europe, where pressure of publishers is not so intensive.

After all if 4 people have manage to create such masterpiece Grimrock is, then what 40 people should have achieve. But in the end it seems that small development groups are better that huge. In my country we have a very good saying about it, which goes like this (in free translation): "Where too many roosters crow, the dawn is delayed"!