Legend Of Grimrock

Those are things my escapist mind wants to believe in! The idea of a party of four battle-tested, deadly adventurers leaping from tile to tile like the Pirates of Penzance, not so much.

It's a nod back to Dungeon Master, which worked exactly this way. It was one of the first really big games on "16-bit" computers. (On the Amiga/ST side, at least, they were 32-bit computers with 16-bit memory buses, but everyone called them 16-bit.) It's an outgrowth of the earlier Wizardry/Bard's Tale mechanic, where you took your party through a tiled dungeon in turn-based mode. Dungeon Master made it real-time, and gave you the ability to directly manipulate your environment with the mouse pointer. Immersion increase was incredible. I never had the patience and focus to finish that game, but I sure admired it.

As computers got faster, later games like Baldur's Gate went to isometric 3D in real time. But that's harder to program, tough for a small indie team to do.

Part of the problem here is that they're showing you fairly advanced tactics, taking adventage of the tiles, when you would never notice how strange they are if you came up with them yourself.

Distantsound wrote:

You can now pre-order the game at 20% off plus a goodie bag

- A beautifully crafted game manual
- Legend of Grimrock world map
- Custom made grid paper to print out for all your mapping needs
- Grimrock theme music
- Wallpapers
- Art sheets illustrating foul creatures of Mount Grimrock
- Team photo

Here's the link to the developer's store page. Buying directly from them gets you a Steam key, but there are links to the GOG site and Steam if you'd rather buy there.

Tossed in my preorder, this looks like way too much fun.

$11.99 to pre-order? That makes this an easy call.

Distantsound wrote:

You can now pre-order the game at 20% off plus a goodie bag

- Custom made grid paper to print out for all your mapping needs

SOLD.

What this makes clear to me is that Ultima Underworld is the next iOS/Steam revival I want to see.

You know you can buy UU1 & 2 as a package over at gog.com....they run just fine on Windows 7. Good times.

Preordered from GOG to support both that service and the Grimrock developers.

Duffman wrote:

You know you can buy UU1 & 2 as a package over at gog.com....they run just fine on Windows 7. Good times.

I did not know that! Are they ugly as hell?

Btw been loving the new avatar. I remember you showing that movie to a couple of us.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
Duffman wrote:

You know you can buy UU1 & 2 as a package over at gog.com....they run just fine on Windows 7. Good times.

I did not know that! Are they ugly as hell?

They don't look as bad as you might think they should. The controls are a little wonky, though; you turn way too fast. You get used to it after a bit though. It is still surprisingly playable, once you get passed the controls being too "hot".

D-Man777 wrote:
Distantsound wrote:

You can now pre-order the game at 20% off plus a goodie bag

- A beautifully crafted game manual
- Legend of Grimrock world map
- Custom made grid paper to print out for all your mapping needs
- Grimrock theme music
- Wallpapers
- Art sheets illustrating foul creatures of Mount Grimrock
- Team photo

Here's the link to the developer's store page. Buying directly from them gets you a Steam key, but there are links to the GOG site and Steam if you'd rather buy there.

Sold and sold. The grid paper is lolsome.

I went with the gog.com version and downloaded the instructions. For a game proclaiming itself to be oldschool the documentation is pretty short, a mere 18 pages. Sure, it gives all the info necessary to play the game, but where are the multi-page race descriptions, the dozen-plus-page introductory story, and appendices involving reams of charts & graphs for every possible class-race-skillset?

The manual is about a hundred pages light

They don't look as bad as you might think they should.

They look okay, but you don't really have mouselook, you have to hold a key or something. It's very, very awkward.

Running Man wrote:

I went with the gog.com version and downloaded the instructions. For a game proclaiming itself to be oldschool the documentation is pretty short, a mere 18 pages. Sure, it gives all the info necessary to play the game, but where are the multi-page race descriptions, the dozen-plus-page introductory story, and appendices involving reams of charts & graphs for every possible class-race-skillset?

The manual is about a hundred pages light ;)

I quite like the fact that the manual only covers the entry level monsters, it's a nice call back to the Dungeon Master manual.

Malor wrote:
They don't look as bad as you might think they should.

They look okay, but you don't really have mouselook, you have to hold a key or something. It's very, very awkward.

Meh. You get used to it.

Looking at the Ultima Underworld screenshots on GoG confirms that I was right to want the Enhanced Edition iOS treatment. Yikes! Although, I certainly remember being deeply immersed at the time.

I bought it. $12 is just too cheap to pass up even if I have to double dip when the put out an iPad version.

You really do get used to it, Fed. If it had mouselook, you'd be fine with it in 20 or 30 minutes, tops. But without default mouselook, it's just constantly painful, or at least it was for me.

I think I'll be happy with my pre-purchase.

A few reviews are in, all favorable so far. Here's Gamespy's take on it, and also RockPaperShotgun. I hope Grimrock takes off in a big way, it'd be nice to see a resurgence of oldschool rpg's.

Mostly going into this on blackout, not really by choice, there's just been so little written about it. I did read the RPS review though, and it seemed glowing, so I think I'll be happy with my purchase!

I'm tempted to check out Total Biscuit's WTF is...? but it's so rare I can go into a game knowing so little about it these days, it might be nice to try to minimise any further info gathering.

I am very excited for this; it can't release soon enough this week. I've been enjoying some of the goodies with my pre-order but for some reason staring at graph paper just doesn't do it for me by itself

IGN says 8.5, "great"

"Classic dungeon crawling gets a sexy facelift in this awesome old-school RPG"

IGN wrote:

Beyond the beautiful visual detail etched into each underground setting and the addictive pull of exploring and battling your way through uncharted territory, it's the little touches that really make Grimrock's dark world a special place for me. There's nothing quite like having to consume the flesh of fallen beasts to keep your party from starving or suddenly finding yourself poking around in pitch blackness because your last torch burnt out to drive home the feeling that you're trapped and alone in this godforsaken place. While seemingly insignificant at first, the many unique but minor details that increasingly stand out as you delve deeper add tremendous personality to this scrappy indie homage to classic dungeon crawlers.

It's a little annoying that I can't pre-download it via steam. It's already the 11th on this side of the pond and all!

DanB wrote:

It's a little annoying that I can't pre-download it via steam. It's already the 11th on this side of the pond and all!

I believe it's due to unlock on GOG at 5pm GMT, I assume Steam will probably be the same.

stevenmack wrote:
DanB wrote:

It's a little annoying that I can't pre-download it via steam. It's already the 11th on this side of the pond and all!

I believe it's due to unlock on GOG at 5pm GMT, I assume Steam will probably be the same.

Steam time is about 6pm

Dammit! I didn't know Grimrock was available on Steam !!! I pre-ordered it on GOG. Sigh.... oh well.

emyln wrote:

Dammit! I didn't know Grimrock was available on Steam !!! I pre-ordered it on GOG. Sigh.... oh well.

Don't fret. Now you have a DRM-free copy you can install anywhere. There's no mp, so no real loss imo. At worst, you miss out on some Steam Achievements (if it even has them).

D-Man777 wrote:
emyln wrote:

Dammit! I didn't know Grimrock was available on Steam !!! I pre-ordered it on GOG. Sigh.... oh well.

Don't fret. Now you have a DRM-free copy you can install anywhere. There's no mp, so no real loss imo. At worst, you miss out on some Steam Achievements (if it even has them).

You also paid $12 instead of $15. I have no regrets pre-ordering from GoG.

I paid $12 and ordered direct from the dev so there's no middle man. Obviously I'm a better human being.

[size=2]Oh and I got a Steam key.[/size]