Legend Of Grimrock

Tamren wrote:

Well I think I hit a brick wall. I'm on level 4 and I'm just totally stuck. Had a good run of it and I even managed to figure out how to get the gear key. I got the 4 scrolls and I think I'm supposed to put them in the alcoves, but none of the combinations I try do anything. Can anyone give me a push in the right direction?

Read the scrolls and read the inscriptions on the walls by the alcoves and pair them up with conceptually similar phrases that make sense. IIRC 2 of them are pretty obvious and you can just switch the other 2 until you've got it right.

I'm also VERY underwhelmed by my rogue. I put all my points into making her a backstabber, which sounds great on paper. Can't go wrong with triple damage right? Well as it turns out most enemies are far too fast to backstab, they just move and turn too quickly. And since the Assassination tree doesn't provide any weapon bonuses her damage and accuracy are terrible, even with the backstabs. Meanwhile my fighters are firing off special attacks left and right and flattening the enemies with 50-60 damage hits.

yeah the rogues suck except for as bow or thrown weapon fighters. Personally I found 2 fighters and 2 mages to be the optimal set.

The thing about backstab is that you have to be fast on your movement keys. Backstabbing is awesome against the slow-moving, slow-turning skeleton legionnaires and especially ogres if you can bait them like a bull and dodge out of the way.

I'll give the game another go as soon as I get some time. So far I have done pretty well, though I did have to look up the answer to a couple of puzzles. They were just SO unintuitive I couldn't figure them out. Specifically:

Spoiler:

- The puzzle with the "column of light standing alone" stumped me completely. I figured it out enough that I knew the solution involved the column in the middle and the position of the torch. But the game expects you to make such a huge leap of logic here because you expect the puzzle to be immediately solvable IF you can figure out the solution. It isn't. Step 1 of the puzzle is NOT "move the torch to the right position to open this door". It's actually "go back to the previous level and bring back more torches!". How the hell was I supposed to figure that out?

- A bit later on with the iron door puzzle on the same level. It again presents you a column with a bunch of sconces for putting torches onto it. Only this time lighting up the pillar does nothing. What now? It doesn't give you any sort of hint that would point you towards the solution. What you have to do in the room is put torches everywhere BUT the pillar, but again it gives no hint or other starting point to help you figure this out.

- The last one that stopped me cold was one of the sub-puzzles on level 4 where I left off. You stand on a pressure plate and this causes a teleporter to appear momentarily over a larger pit. I figured out that I should throw something into the teleporter. But when I tossed some torches in they just plonked to the ground and didn't do anything. In fact what you need to do is get a throwing weapon and "attack" with it through the teleporter, only then will it fly far enough to land on the pressure plate and let you continue. At least I was lucky enough to HAVE throwing weapons at that point. Can you imagine getting to that puzzle and not having a single missile because none of your characters use ranged weapons and you threw all of them away to save weight? I'm sure it happened to someone.

And that iron breastplate in the room with the torch... Is it actually possible to get in there or did the developers just put it there to troll people?

Tamren wrote:
Spoiler:

- The puzzle with the "column of light standing alone" stumped me completely. I figured it out enough that I knew the solution involved the column in the middle and the position of the torch. But the game expects you to make such a huge leap of logic here because you expect the puzzle to be immediately solvable IF you can figure out the solution. It isn't. Step 1 of the puzzle is NOT "move the torch to the right position to open this door". It's actually "go back to the previous level and bring back more torches!". How the hell was I supposed to figure that out?

Spoiler:

Well it relies a bit on having played the old Eye of The Beholder and Dungeon Master games where you would hoard torches.

Tamren wrote:
Spoiler:

- A bit later on with the iron door puzzle on the same level. It again presents you a column with a bunch of sconces for putting torches onto it. Only this time lighting up the pillar does nothing. What now? It doesn't give you any sort of hint that would point you towards the solution. What you have to do in the room is put torches everywhere BUT the pillar, but again it gives no hint or other starting point to help you figure this out.

Spoiler:

Isn't this one supposed to be unintuitive because it's one of the level secrets?

Tamren wrote:
Spoiler:

- The last one that stopped me cold was one of the sub-puzzles on level 4 where I left off. You stand on a pressure plate and this causes a teleporter to appear momentarily over a larger pit. I figured out that I should throw something into the teleporter. But when I tossed some torches in they just plonked to the ground and didn't do anything. In fact what you need to do is get a throwing weapon and "attack" with it through the teleporter, only then will it fly far enough to land on the pressure plate and let you continue. At least I was lucky enough to HAVE throwing weapons at that point. Can you imagine getting to that puzzle and not having a single missile because none of your characters use ranged weapons and you threw all of them away to save weight? I'm sure it happened to someone.

Spoiler:

Totally agree that puzzle was really unintuitive, I totally spent ages throwing weapons "manually" before working out you have to use a character

Tamren wrote:

And that iron breastplate in the room with the torch... Is it actually possible to get in there or did the developers just put it there to troll people?

You can always get to anything you can see as long as you can work out the puzzle or find the secret that lets you in.

Well I guess it just goes to show that people change. My younger gamer self would have happily sat in the room and brute-forced the answer by running through all possible permutations. But my older gamer self first stops to estimate the time it would take to do that and the answer literally gives him a headache. I knew what the answer WAS, I just didn't have the patience to find out which particular one would open the secret door that clearly must be on *this* wall.

I usually don't take spoilers lightly but when it's a choice between a quick fix and mounting frustration it's an easy decision to make. I play games to have fun after all. (And I never would have figured out the throwing puzzle in a million years! There is lateral thinking and then there is opaque game mechanics)

With the exception of some bits in level 9 I really didn't find any of the puzzles especially opaque. The puzzles and secrets throughout have a fairly similar internal logic (which they also share with Dungeon Master et al). That throwing puzzle thing is obviously nonsense but that strikes me as poor UI design than poor puzzle design, there's no good reason a manual throw and a ranged attack should have a different range, especially for things like rocks.

The only real gripe against the game I have is how you get new spells. Through skills I have unlocked all of the fire and spellcraft spells. But the only usable scroll I have found so far is for the basic fire spell. Will you eventually find scrolls for everything or are you supposed to guess a few? It has performed adequately so far so I never felt a pressing need to experiment.

I can see how picking another school of magic might have gotten awkward however. You find the basic fire spell very early on. But I think I was on level 3 before I found the first air spell. If you had decided on specializing for air magic what was the mage supposed to have done the entire time? Just sit in the back and hold a torch? That seems like it would have skewed the XP division as well.

Tamren wrote:

The only real gripe against the game I have is how you get new spells. Through skills I have unlocked all of the fire and spellcraft spells. But the only usable scroll I have found so far is for the basic fire spell. Will you eventually find scrolls for everything or are you supposed to guess a few? It has performed adequately so far so I never felt a pressing need to experiment.

I can see how picking another school of magic might have gotten awkward however. You find the basic fire spell very early on. But I think I was on level 3 before I found the first air spell. If you had decided on specializing for air magic what was the mage supposed to have done the entire time? Just sit in the back and hold a torch? That seems like it would have skewed the XP division as well.

You can just experiment with runes until you find some that work. You will automatically discover the spell if you find the rune combination and have the skill to cast it. You don't need the scroll to cast the spell. They are not all that complex, as they all work on only a couple runes.

imbiginjapan wrote:
Tamren wrote:

The only real gripe against the game I have is how you get new spells. Through skills I have unlocked all of the fire and spellcraft spells. But the only usable scroll I have found so far is for the basic fire spell. Will you eventually find scrolls for everything or are you supposed to guess a few? It has performed adequately so far so I never felt a pressing need to experiment.

I can see how picking another school of magic might have gotten awkward however. You find the basic fire spell very early on. But I think I was on level 3 before I found the first air spell. If you had decided on specializing for air magic what was the mage supposed to have done the entire time? Just sit in the back and hold a torch? That seems like it would have skewed the XP division as well.

You can just experiment with runes until you find some that work. You will automatically discover the spell if you find the rune combination and have the skill to cast it. You don't need the scroll to cast the spell. They are not all that complex, as they all work on only a couple runes.

Most of the basic spells can be directly deduced once you've seen a couple of them.

Personally I used the CRAP out of backstabbing to great effect.

The farther in the game you get, the better you need to be at being nimble with the movement keys.

Also, I'd vote to just give up on the thought of level 50 skills. Without much diversity, none of my character hit 50 in anything. I think my highs were in the 30's.

LilCodger wrote:

Personally I used the CRAP out of backstabbing to great effect.

The farther in the game you get, the better you need to be at being nimble with the movement keys.

Yes indeed. There is a significant dexterity aspect to this game that isn't immediately obvious from its presentation. I wouldn't call it twitch skills so much as precision skills.

imbiginjapan wrote:

You can just experiment with runes until you find some that work. You will automatically discover the spell if you find the rune combination and have the skill to cast it. You don't need the scroll to cast the spell. They are not all that complex, as they all work on only a couple runes.

Okay good, I was getting hung up on the scroll issue because it made it sound like the scroll is a prerequisite. I actually like little rune puzzles like this and there are not *that* many combinations on a 3x3 grid. What scrolls you do find are more of a suggestion in that "rotate this and you might cast something different".

LilCodger wrote:

Also, I'd vote to just give up on the thought of level 50 skills. Without much diversity, none of my character hit 50 in anything. I think my highs were in the 30's.

Yeah, I'm beginning to see that specialization is pretty crippling in this game. Most of the level 50 skills are obviously of great benefit like double sword attack speed and +100 health. Some of them not so much, 100 fire resist? Meh. Three point attack? Master Assassin? As cool as those things sound they could only be variations of "stab monsters in the face" given how limited the combat mechanics are. And if you get level 30 ish you already have 3 highly effective attack skills.

Better to branch out and get some relatively cheap side skills like armour proficiency.

I hit my first wall yesterday... It wasn't even really the game's fault really.

Spoiler:

I had just cleared the puzzle in level 4 and let out all of those lizard... things. I barely made it out because I wasn't aware that both sides of the room open and I got surrounded for a minute. I had just cleared the room and was about to rest up when the game froze. The last time I had saved was before the gates opened so now I have to kill all of those enemies again. I hesitate every time I go to play now. I may have to give it a couple days rest.

I'm playing on easy with the default party, because I wanted to experience the game, but I didn't want to bring back my PTSD from Bard's Tale. It's been very tricky so far. The twitch element is the toughest for me. The first room on level 4 I spent way, way too many times trying to get through.

I'm enjoying it, but man it's tough.

You're fortunate -- I didn't know there was an "Easy" difficulty, so I have to slog through it in Normal. People who play this on double-plus-hard-mode are just.. wow.

I do like the game, but it's frustrating that if you go toe-to-toe with any enemy, you're dead. You pretty much have to do the little hit-move-turn dance.

That's sort of a staple of the genre, that you have to outmaneuver your enemies, and that they should, ideally, never hit you at all. I think the basic idea is that if you take any damage, it was a mistake, and you win the fight if you don't make too many mistakes.

Archangel wrote:

People who play this on double-plus-hard-mode are just.. wow.

It wasn't that hard. If you complete it on normal the step-up to the hardest level isn't actually very large because you'll know where everything and every mob is located, having that information is a massive, massive advantage. The only bit that was really really hard was the Warrior's Challenge

Can someone come over and finish the pit puzzle on lvl 6 for me so I can get the frickin Sword of Nex and get out of this god forsaken pit room forever?

I'm actually really loving this game, but damn, it's hard at times. I've gone through the sequence to get the round key, and I've consulted a guide so I know *how* to do sequence to open the secret room, I just can't seem to get there quick enough and the damn Uggardians are a total PITA showing up every time I fail!! I spent forever clearing them out then running out to heal or recover a team member at the life crystal only to discover that the buggers respawn when you leave the area. (Sorry if that's a spoiler, but you are so much better off knowing this ahead of time.)

This isn't the first room I've banged my head against the wall trying to complete, and not the first time I've consulted a guide (helllo Ogre! Now that I know how to kill you and not take take damage, I'm going after your family). Ok, full disclosure, at this point I keep a guide open and refer to it often - only after having failed several attempts though. I admit I'm not very good at this stuff, so this is not at all a slam on the game. I'm having a lot of fun and plan on playing all the way through. Or maybe I hate myself just enough to keep going. Oh my, I just checked my time playing, I'm at 36 hours and only on lvl 6. Wow, I'm that bad!! I'm playing on normal and can't imagine a harder mode. I should have started with easy!

So yeah, one of you just come on over and do this puzzle for me. Pweeeeze?

Oh well, I'm going to go back in, wish me luck!!

That puzzle is a damn pain!

Send me your save file, I'll do it for ya.

I've got a save named "aaaarrrrrggghhhhh!!'

Had to take a break for critter feeding and outside time, so I've only just begun to focus my attempts. I think I've got a good plan for strafing - that's my problem I tend to look where I'm going. I'm thinking counting and strafing will get me there. Eventually!

*edit*
Woohoo - got the door open and managed an F5 jab!! Quicksave for the win! Of course then I was so freaked out I couldn't 4-square the bastard Uggardian and died. But now all I have to do is take him down and get my reward and then ... I think it only gets harder!

Q-Stone, I may need ya!

SillyRabbit wrote:

Q-Stone, I may need ya!

Probably the first time that has been said that wasn't followed by "...to take out the garbage."

On sale this weekend for 5 bucks. Worth it.

There’s Officially A Legend Of Grimrock Sequel On The Way

Petri Häkkinen, co-founder of Almost Human Games confirmed in a blog post earlier today, that Legend Of Grimrock, the dungeon crawler game that Mike Fahey loved so much is getting a sequel.

The project initially started as a DLC or an expansion for the first game, but with an engine update on the way they've decided to expand the content they were working with into what will apparently be a fully-fledged sequel.

Petri also hinted that they will update their blog much more often in the future, so those who loved Legend Of Grimrock should keep an eye out.

This rockets all the way to the top of my anticipated games list.

‘Legend of Grimrock’ on Linux

Legend of Grimrock – Master Quest is a full-length add-on to the original PC game Legend of Grimrock, in the spirit of the Master Quest versions of some Zelda games, where the entire game can be played again with new changes and challenges for a fresh updated experience.

The game is a complete re-working of the entire original PC game with tons of new puzzles, updated dungeon designs, unique story elements, and more. It has been referred to as “Grimrock on Steroids”.

‘Legend of Grimrock’ on Linux

Published on March 18, 2013, by RootGamer - Posted in Legend of Grimrock, News, Steam 0
featured_600_224_legend_of_grimrock

Legend of Grimrock – Master Quest is a full-length add-on to the original PC game Legend of Grimrock, in the spirit of the Master Quest versions of some Zelda games, where the entire game can be played again with new changes and challenges for a fresh updated experience.

The game is a complete re-working of the entire original PC game with tons of new puzzles, updated dungeon designs, unique story elements, and more. It has been referred to as “Grimrock on Steroids”.

Features

Scaling! Dungeon scales up in difficultly/reward for higher level imported parties, works well with parties starting up to level 25 or so! Import your favorite set of heroes from completing the original game and continue their adventure and advancement!
Loot! Every item now has a loot value, and you can earn “ranks” according to your treasure gathering prowess! Who will be the first to achieve the status of “Lords”?
Two new “boss” battles to experience! Are you up for the challenge?
Longer Ending – there is more to do after the original final boss fight!
Tons of new puzzles, story, dungeon layouts, etc. A whole new “refreshed” Grimrock experience, but still retains the heart and soul of the original game.

I really wish they would pursue an iPad version. They talked about a long time ago on their forums but I never say anything else about it.

edit: it was a stupid question answered by looking it up on steam

Sparhawk wrote:

master quest stuff

Slowly (really slowly) working my way through this - it's pretty flippin' good but if you thought the puzzles in vanilla Grimrock are tough, this thing will quite possibly be the end of you. There's a tone of stuff I've just had to shrug my shoulders at and just skip, hoping to remember to come back to it later. A lot more baddies than I remember too.

On level...9? I think? (blue dinosaurs) and at something like 40 out of 120+ secrets.

* * *

Oh, and....first Grimrock 2 screenshot...

IMAGE(http://www.grimrock.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/forest_1080p.jpg)

...i'll be in my bunk....

Holy sh*t that's sexy.

Oh man, that screenshot makes me think about Bard's Tale 2/3.