Grimrock

End-Game Spoiler below,

Did Gauntlet 2014 use the same writer from the original Grimrock (2012)? They are virtually the same game...

1) 4 adventurers come together to enter an underground layer. In Gauntlet it's 4 willing adventurers; in Grimrock it's 4 unwilling prisoners.

2) Throughout the game a "voice" visits you every so often with warnings and a brief encouragement. In Gauntlet the voice is Morak; in Grimrock the voice is the Undying.

3) The ultimate goal is to collect 4 items that combine to make something "whole" again. In Gauntlet you collect 4 sword pieces; in Grimrock you collect 4 gear pieces.

4) When you finally collect all 4 items, they combine to create something powerful, and the voice that guided you the entire game thanks you by trying to kill you in a Final Boss battle. In Gauntlet the 4 items become a powerful Sword that Morak uses to attack you; in Grimrock the 4 gear pieces give the Undying enough power to Rubik-Cube you to death.

5) After killing the final boss all 4 adventurers escape from underground and go home; both games have images of 4 adventures coming out of a mountain. I will admit that Grimrock's graphic looked better (the female mage on her knees looking exhausted was pretty damn cool).

Perhaps that is why during my Gauntlet gameplay when I would Quit for the day, Steam would throw up an advertisement for Grimrock. That Steam advertisement is the reason I bought Grimrock - and I'm glad I did! But wow, that is some direct advertising to be proud of: at the plot and end-game degree.

Heh, I didn't know. Maybe they are Grimrock fans?

My 2 cents: Grimrock released a full 2 years before Gauntlet, which is a reboot of a stand up arcade game from the mid 1980's. The original Gauntlet had none of the art direction, story, or ending of the new reboot. In fact, I can't remember exactly, but the original Gauntlet may have had no ending at all with the idea of "why put up a screen where they STOP pumping in quarters?" Making it a score based affair. (A thing in the early days, believe it or not.)

msyblade wrote:My 2 cents: Grimrock released a full 2 years before Gauntlet, which is a reboot of a stand up arcade game from the mid 1980's. The original Gauntlet had none of the art direction, story, or ending of the new reboot. In fact, I can't remember exactly, but the original Gauntlet may have had no ending at all with the idea of "why put up a screen where they STOP pumping in quarters?" Making it a score based affair. (A thing in the early days, believe it or not.)

Well the other Guantlet games that were released on console (Seven Sorrows, I believe was the title of one?) featured four characters, and an actual story. Although the reboot (newly released and mentioned in the original post) does indeed have quite a few similarities to LOG.

But look at anything in the same genre and you will find similarities. The idea of adventurers "gathering" pieces of something is so common that (if you old school RPGers) remember DUNGEON Magazine; one of the RULES about writing a submission included "No rescuing a damsel in distress, no go find X amount of pieces of a shattered relic,..." among other "cliche" type adventures.

Oh no doubt. Between Final Fantasy and most major MMO's, I have lost count of how many hours I have spent "gathering" things. In this case, however, the similarities are way more than just the general idea of collecting things.