Legend Of Grimrock

Man, the start of level 4 is just effing brutal. Not sure I'm going to be able to get past it.

It's pretty easy to kite in this game. With one school of magic pumped high enough, it's easy to kite pretty much any mob with 3 shots from your mages' most powerful spell.

Also, I'm playing on a 17" laptop @ 1920x1080 resolution. Game is great. Perfect on a laptop.

Malor wrote:

I'm actually getting tempted to fire up an ST emulator and go see if the old game is as good as I remember it.

You might simply want to check out one of the clones, like Return To Chaos. or one of the others you can find on dungeon-master.com.

I found RTC easier to run than an emulator and pretty stable but I couldn't get into the game without having fond memories of playing it back in the day.

If you're really into Dungeon Master you'll be pretty amazed that there is this kind of community around. AFAIK you can download new graphic sets for most of the clones to make the game look more up to date, too.

Is there a point to hold on to old equipment and such that you can't use? Can you do anything with it later (trade / sell at some point maybe)?

Omaha wrote:

Is there a point to hold on to old equipment and such that you can't use? Can you do anything with it later (trade / sell at some point maybe)?

There's no trading at all in the game, so most of it will just be eating up your weight limit. HOWEVER - there are instances where you might need an certain item to use for a puzzle, so if you drop anything I'd recommend doing so at a stairwell, that way it's easy to backtrack to collect if required.

Malor wrote:

Man, the start of level 4 is just effing brutal. Not sure I'm going to be able to get past it.

I just got past that a short bit ago, it was super nasty, and the key to it is to stick and move (move like a butterfly, sting like a bee!). Took me several painful tries even after I figured out what I needed to do before I could successfully execute the plan.

Oh, man.

Spoiler:

I just found my first ogre. He hits awful hard.

I freakin' love this game.

Ooh, ouch, stevenmack, maybe you should spoiler-tag that -- much, much more than I wanted to know.

I....er.....Hmm....

So...

....So I finally encountered the big boss of the dungeon....

Spoiler:

Credit where credit is due - It is absolutely NOT what I was expecting (and yet, 100% hilariously appropriate ).

Now I just need to find something I can kill it with.

SPIDERS! I've been impressed with the enemy design so far, and the arachnids are suitably creepy. Level three has definitely upped the ante on the puzzles; I wandered around for a while before the solution to a teleportation issue finally sprang to mind. This game seems like a real labor of love.

As a mild hint, make sure to REST every now and then. I hadn't rested much before level four, and resting can result in a few interesting things.

Do more-than-two--ingredient potion recipes exist? I've spent a fair bit of time randomly adding things to the mortar and pestle, but so far I've not found any combinations besides one thing + one empty flask. The fact that there's six empty slots makes me suspicious. If so, do we run across scrolls, or is it a matter of lots of time adding random things to the bowl?

There's one 2-item potion that I found a note for, and a scroll that possibly hints at a 3-item potion (I think) but that's all I've seen references to in game.

***

And finished. If anything the puzzles just get better and better the deeper you get. Some of the fights can get a little frustrating though.

Especially at the end...

Spoiler:

...Boss fight, in which I was saving the game every few successful hits because instant death was just one wrong move away and there are respawning critters that can easily block off your only route of escape.

Very much looking forward to seeing what comes out of mod support for this game once they finish putting their tools together.

Really? Didn't think there was anything spoilery there. Tagged anyway.

stevenmack wrote:

Especially at the end...

Spoiler:

...Boss fight, in which I was saving the game every few successful hits because instant death was just one wrong move away and there are respawning critters that can easily block off your only route of escape.

Spoiler:

Or throw yourself down the nearest pit and rest on level 13

DanB wrote:
stevenmack wrote:

Especially at the end...

Spoiler:

...Boss fight, in which I was saving the game every few successful hits because instant death was just one wrong move away and there are respawning critters that can easily block off your only route of escape.

Spoiler:

Or throw yourself down the nearest pit and rest on level 13

Yeah I had to do that a couple of times...

Spoiler:

mostly to resurrect some characters at the crystal. There's a couple of times where I got hemmed in without a handy nearby pit though, which was a pain - although the...method...of the insta-kill attack was always entertainingly funny in a monty python-esque fashion.

In the end I happened to get him stuck behind a row of three pits where it didn't know which way to go to reach me so it looped on the spot long enough for me to get a good few knocks in on it

It just dawned on me that I could use bags to expand the number of inventory slots...I have been tossing bags after emptying them out.

TrashiDawa wrote:

It just dawned on me that I could use bags to expand the number of inventory slots...I have been tossing bags after emptying them out.

Spoiler:

Boxes work too.

tboon wrote:
TrashiDawa wrote:

It just dawned on me that I could use bags to expand the number of inventory slots...I have been tossing bags after emptying them out.

Spoiler:

Boxes work too.

Bags are the better option I think, you get more than enough of them to cover inventory space and they only weigh 0.5lbs apiece. Boxes weigh 3.0lbs empty and that can cause problems later with encumberance (which can be a death sentence at the lower levels).

You know, normally I'm not one to really like an overabundance of puzzles in my monster-corridor-slaughtering games, but the puzzles in Grimrock are just so darn satisfying to play through and solve! I've been very impressed by the game so far, and finished off the night at the top of the stairwell heading down from the 4th floor to the 5th floor of the dungeon. I also finally realized that the real-time nature of the combat is meant to get you to take advantage of movement when you can so you can minimize how many attacks your party suffers from. Again, not the kind of thing I normally go for in my monster-corridor-slaughtering (turn-based whore that I am), but somehow this game is just so freaking fun in spite of the many things it does that I didn't want it to do.

Clearly, these developers know what they're doing, and I can't wait to see what else they have in store for me in this game! Here's to hoping it sells very successfully and leads to further work from these folks!

Farscry wrote:

You know, normally I'm not one to really like an overabundance of puzzles in my monster-corridor-slaughtering games, but the puzzles in Grimrock are just so darn satisfying to play through and solve! I've been very impressed by the game so far, and finished off the night at the top of the stairwell heading down from the 4th floor to the 5th floor of the dungeon. I also finally realized that the real-time nature of the combat is meant to get you to take advantage of movement when you can so you can minimize how many attacks your party suffers from. Again, not the kind of thing I normally go for in my monster-corridor-slaughtering (turn-based whore that I am), but somehow this game is just so freaking fun in spite of the many things it does that I didn't want it to do.

Clearly, these developers know what they're doing, and I can't wait to see what else they have in store for me in this game! Here's to hoping it sells very successfully and leads to further work from these folks!

Agreed. I moaned and groaned when I heard Grimrock was going to be real-time (I love turn-based combat, and generally detest ATB style wait-fests), but it's satisfying here and lends itself well to some interesting puzzles. We're just about in the same place; I'm still wandering around in the 4th floor, wondering what I've missed; I'm sure a few more rounds of the level will reveal a pit I didn't fall into or a pressure plate I failed to rock/de-rock.

Farscry wrote:

Clearly, these developers know what they're doing, and I can't wait to see what else they have in store for me in this game! Here's to hoping it sells very successfully and leads to further work from these folks!

They stated in their last blog update that they've already made back their development budget several times over, which is excellent news.

They are also hard at work on a map editor / modding tools at the moment as well.

LoG would probably make a pretty decent downloadable 360/PS3 game. You know what else would be great?

Might & Magic 10, an actual 6-person-party-3D-semi-turn-based-rpg.

- - - (I had a few dashes left over)

As I've gotten further with it, the sense that it's Dungeon Master Lite has faded. Some of the puzzles are actually fairly fiendish. And, man, you really don't want to stand toe to toe with much of anything in this game, good way to get your butt handed to you on a plate. With seasoning.

I'm down to level 7 now, and quite absorbed. The sense of immersion is excellent.

Warning: There's a spoiler image on joystiqs home page. I'm pretty furious. I would have had an exhilarating "oh crap" moment to discover that on my own. Sigh. Yet another gaming blog I can never visit again. I don't think there are any left now...

ibdoomed wrote:

Warning: There's a spoiler image on joystiqs home page. I'm pretty furious. I would have had an exhilarating "oh crap" moment to discover that on my own. Sigh. Yet another gaming blog I can never visit again. I don't think there are any left now...

That image is taken from the Grimrock trailer/publicity material that has been doing the rounds for some months now.

DanB wrote:
ibdoomed wrote:

Warning: There's a spoiler image on joystiqs home page. I'm pretty furious. I would have had an exhilarating "oh crap" moment to discover that on my own. Sigh. Yet another gaming blog I can never visit again. I don't think there are any left now...

That image is taken from the Grimrock trailer/publicity material that has been doing the rounds for some months now.

Don't worry, there's still a couple of 'oh crap' moments in there aside from that guy

DanB wrote:
ibdoomed wrote:

Warning: There's a spoiler image on joystiqs home page. I'm pretty furious. I would have had an exhilarating "oh crap" moment to discover that on my own. Sigh. Yet another gaming blog I can never visit again. I don't think there are any left now...

That image is taken from the Grimrock trailer/publicity material that has been doing the rounds for some months now.

I knew better than to watch that crap. I had not expected the need to be on 'internet blackout' until I finished the game. Just like I expect everyone in this forum to respect everyone else by using the spoiler tags and I've left other forums when people refused.

I am loving the game as well. The next thing I wish they would do is offer some more classes. Three just feels confining when I am used to having more choices. Not that you can't mold them a bit but I like having more choices and more races too with pros and cons for each. It gives it more replayability.

Bought it, love it so far (haven't spent much time yet) but MAN is it making my head hurt. I'm not sure what it is about the game but wow... headache city!

PAR

Malor wrote:
but it doesn't look laptop friendly,

I think this game would be just about ideal on a laptop. Can't see why you'd think otherwise.

System requirements.

When I say 'laptop friendly' I mean, '2 year old Intel integrated graphics friendly.'

When the modding/level editing tools come out I would love to see someone do a full recreation of this old gem:

IMAGE(http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ru_cover_sm.jpg)