Legend of Grimrock

[PetriH]

Well unless I missed it, there is no party leader (if you think about it, it is counter intuitive in DM where a person can have two filled hands and yet actives things from a third hand?) So throwing from the cursor has no reference of a strength.

Indeed. The concept of party leader is a pretty strange thing to have because it has so little gameplay relevance.

[r0ck]

About playtime: please note that the Time statistic in game only shows the actual playtime without retries and reloads. So if you for example die and reload a saved game the statistic will show the time that you had when the game was saved. You can see the total playtime in Steam which is usually a lot higher than the one in statistics.

OH, Yea! You are so correct. Statistics said 10 hours 1 minute to complete the game, but Steam, which is the real time spent, says 14 hours.

I got this question, how does things look with the editor? Will it be anything like "RTCEdit" for Dungeon Master? I posted a screen here so that you can check it out. And more importantly, is it ready for shipment soon?

[PetriH]

The level editor/modding is currently on hold because we're working on the patch.

[Gambit37]

The throwing velocity from the mouse is by design slower than ranged attacks so that the player wouldn't be able to spam ranged attacks with the mouse item. At 60 fps (DM run like 10 fps or less) you could achieve a pretty significant fire rate.

True, I understand why you limited it. It doesn't bother me in terms of the gameplay, as I'm not much of a thrower anyway, I prefer magic and melee -- I just thought it felt a bit weird that the most natural action (throwing in the viewport) behaved differently than the hand-throwing.

Gambit, about the tooltips. I've been testing this and we have talked here about various options and frankly none of the options that we could come up with sounds perfect.... But anyway, I have added a tooltip delay that can be enabled and tweaked from the config file. If better ideas come up we can consider changing this in a later patch.

Wow, that's awesome! Thank you! I really appreciate you spending time looking at this. You guys are so awesome responding to user requests; I think I'll have to buy another copy

Thanks for the offer but I don't think I have enough time or interest to make it commercial. Moreover I don't see it could be a commercial success being kinda old fashioned and all.

Heehee, that's funny! Do I have to eat my Flarefeather Hat now?

I found that hat It looks very pretty, but does it actually do anything useful? The + bonuses seemed very low if I remember correctly?

I think it's about time I got Codex up and running to capitalise on this new dungeon-crawler obsessed audience!

[sucinum]

So I am through! What a ride! I have almost everything complete, missing 3 secrets and 1 treasure, but I had saved before the end, so I can fix that. Steam says 17 hours playtime so far. Well, to be honest, I did look up a few things.
Will definitely start a new game, this time hard and solo (what an awesome mode!).

I had slight problems with some of the timed puzzles, especially one of the Iron Doors comes to my mind (level 7 afair) - this one even required to learn the pattern, because reflexes alone proved to be too slow. So I can somewhat relate to people complaining about that.
What I found somewhat odd about the non-existant group leader: basically you have one free and weightless item slot, this allows you to carry stuff like a full plate armor or tons of scrap metal around, each stuffed in a bag, without any weight problem.

Other small things you might want to fix/change (or not, nothing gamebreaking) about ranged combat:
When having double arrows and you shoot at a monster, killing it with the first arrow, the second arrow will fly on. This makes recollecting arrows harder.
When 2 party members use the same kind of ammo, one character auto-collects all of the ammo and the other doesn't get anything.
Enchanted ammo isn't auto-collected, since the enchantment is lost and so it's a different kind of ammo to the one the character has. Auto-collecting to the inventory would be awesome! Otoh, enchanted ammo is quite unspectacular and altogether not worth the hassle. You might want to introduce a chance of 33-50% of the enchantment to be lost instead of 100% as it is now.

[Gambit37]

What I found somewhat odd about the non-existant group leader: basically you have one free and weightless item slot, this allows you to carry stuff like a full plate armor or tons of scrap metal around, each stuffed in a bag, without any weight problem.

Ha ha ha, sneaky, I didn't think of that. Bit of a pain though, surely, keep picking it up, putting it down, etc?

[beowuuf]

Thanks for the offer but I don't think I have enough time or interest to make it commercial. Moreover I don't see it could be a commercial success being kinda old fashioned and all.

Heehee, that's funny! Do I have to eat my Flarefeather Hat now?

Lol, nah, you did hedge your bets and say never say never...it just took ten years for the stars to align!


The level 7 iron door - that's the three shooters, right? While it gets insane at the end, I really enjoyed it -0 I did find that Zen twitch reflexes worked....just stand at the very edge of the wall and use the keyboard to tap left and right. I stumbled in the middle a couple of times, but when I reached the very end I did it first try

[Gambit37]

I just can't do that level 7 iron door either. I also seem to have missed a few others so far.

I've just entered level 12, and I'm really freakin scared by what I've just seen, so I think I'm gonna run away now and hide in a corner blubbing into my blueberry pie...

[beowuuf]

O.O And I thoguht the cthulha mage priests were bad. Well, bad in terms of being the

Spoiler

actual scary figures fro mthe statues

. Luckily I turned the tables pretty quickly on them and trapped them. At least, the initial lot.

[sucinum]

What I found somewhat odd about the non-existant group leader: basically you have one free and weightless item slot, this allows you to carry stuff like a full plate armor or tons of scrap metal around, each stuffed in a bag, without any weight problem.

Ha ha ha, sneaky, I didn't think of that. Bit of a pain though, surely, keep picking it up, putting it down, etc?

Yes, that's nothing to do the whole dungeon - but doable for short ways if you have to transport something (or think you have to...) and in that case better than being slowed down. So not really an exploit.

Your strategy for level 12 isn't the worst, I did that for a large part there and finally it worked out somehow.

[èné]

finished - play time : 23.58 - real play time : er i'll keep it for myself

i'am dissapointed because i only found 60/71 secrets i expected more actually .. I enjoyed the game a lot but also glad to have finished it, can have some rest now , one thing i missed from dm are invisibles pits, fake walls, a switch once hit reveals another switch, that kind of stuff..

Overall, a great (and refreshing) experience, the idea itself to resurrect this type of game was almost genius, and the realization is very good too, you have successfully met the challenge i'd say (applause.. )

Looking forward to new dungeons.. please

[MitchB1990]

I've just started my first playthrough! I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[beowuuf]

Good luck!

[Gambit37]

O.O And I thoguht the cthulha mage priests were bad.

Your veneration at the horrific altar of Yog-Sothoth has severely warped your typing ability.

[Ameena]

Muahahaha, here is a quote from Ja'Ph', telling me about an encounter he had earlier this evening with some

Spoiler

spiders

on Level 3, which leapt out at him (his first time meeting them in the game) - "I was too scared to even shit myself."

[beowuuf]

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Sorry, that was meant to say 'yes, I think so'...

[raixel]

I think I know which bit you mean...is it

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at the "junction room" of

Spoiler

the four puzzles, with the scrolls on the floor

? I did that bit earlier - took me a few tries but I got it in the end .
As far as I can tell, all the timed puzzles involve access to secrets. At least, as far as I can remember there's never been a section where it's been required to complete a timed puzzle in order to continue. I think I have 24 secrets so far...but there's 71 in total so I've probably missed plenty...but on the other hand I'm only on Level 5 so there'll be plenty more to go .

Yep. That *exact* part. There was also one on Lev 5 I had to pass up in

Spoiler

the room in the "hall of pits" or something like that where you have to press a button to make a path across the pits, then turn and press another button for the secret while keeping up with the pits closing, then run over closing pits and get an item from the corner.

NOT cool. I *hate* timed puzzles. I never really had this prob in DM cuz overall the game ticks seem much slower. Some monsters are so blindingly fast (like the

Spoiler

crabs

), you cant just stand and fight and even the step-dance is hard. Ive developed a "stand on the other side of a gate, open it, hit monster, slam gate before monster attacks" routine down to a science. Yeah, I'm glad there hasnt been a required severe timed puzzle section yet. There were a few but they werent as severe as some of the secret timed puzzles. Unfortunately, I'm a completionist so if I see a secret and know what to do to get it, it drives me *nuts* if my own physical limitations keep me from getting it. One weirdness I noticed that if youre doing a timed pit puzzle, and the pit opens when you are halfway between it and solid ground (mid step), it will actually suck you back over the pit and drop you. Ive had it where graphically it looked like my chars were almost on solid ground, but suddenly the view snaps back to centered over the pit and down they go... Annoying.

You can also send your save to me if you want, I'm not sayign I'm brilliant at the timed puzzles, but I've beaten all the ones I've come across so far. Did you have any joy with the 4:3 screen size and arrow keys on screen for helping with puzzles?

Hey, thanks you guys. That means a lot to me, I want you to know. Unfortunately, the onscreen arrows appear to make you move slower than just using the keyboard, and theres still the issue of having to place the mouse cursor over a button, than quickly back to the arrows. Which is honestly about as slow as moving my hand from the mouse to the keyboard. So thanks for the hint, but its a no go . I really wish there was a key for "hit button onscreen". Like a use key. Only you'd have to press the button with the mouse once first, so you couldnt just go around pressing key constantly for secrets. Hey, I actually like that idea! That would stop the frustration where I quit playing for a couple days cuz I'm too irritated by not being able to do something i know how to do, just cuz of my stupid hand. *drops note in suggestion box*

BTW, Petri, you might want to make a note: I have managed to get the "experience amount appearing when attacking monsters in poison cloud" bug to happen a few more times. But not consistently. So far, I think it appears if a monster is killed in a poison cloud (not sure if you have to kill it or the cloud does) and another monster of the same type enters the cloud when the XP value is still onscreen. From that point forward, every time you hit it with a melee weapon, its XP value pops up as if you killed it. You dont actuall get the XP, so I think its just a graphical glitch. But I thought you might want to know that it wasnt just a 1 time anomoly. So far Ive had it happen with

Spoiler

the spiders in the spider chamber once

and

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the lizard creatures that are released at the end of level 4 on 3 different tries

[sucinum]

One little thing I found odd: When starting in solo mode, I still had a popup for the tutorial. That really shouldn't be required then any longer.

[PetriH]

BTW, Petri, you might want to make a note: I have managed to get the "experience amount appearing when attacking monsters in poison cloud" bug to happen a few more times.

Thanks for the bug report! Fixed in the next patch.

[PetriH]

O.O And I thoguht the cthulha mage priests were bad.

They're called Goromorgs

[Gambit37]

Wooo, I stayed up late last night and completed the game! Overall, very good and enjoyable, it definitely gave me the feeling of the old school dungeon crawls. I especially loved the presentation: the graphics are fantastic, the lighting is beautiful and it's just a gorgeous environment to roam about it. Seeing a torch sputtering away on a wall in the distance, casting it's warm glow all around, then being jumped on by a loathsome ravenous spider -- well, such contrasts show that Almost Human know that the success of this game comes from both its beauty and its terror.

I didn't really like the last two levels with the boss fight. It felt like a completely different game, sort of an after thought.

Spoiler

But maybe that's just because I don't like "mech" style in my medieval fantasy worlds.

The boss itself was a very clever idea, superbly executed and very well thought out to fit into tile-based gameplay, plus a real "WTF!?" moment . But I had no idea how to defeat it and had to look on the LoG forums for tips. I wrongly assumed

Spoiler

that it was simply invincible and couldn't be hurt through normal means

, so I didn't even bother

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with normal attacks

. I was looking for ways to use the dungeon against it,

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but kept dancing around for hours and getting boxed in by all the spawning mobs and then getting squished by the boss

. The game also started getting quite laggy at this point, making it hard to move around.

The ending sequence was nice but I think it really needs

Spoiler

some text or audio to offer full closure as there are a lot of questions unanswered. I think I may have missed some important explanatory scrolls in the game, so without a bit of exposition, the final screens don't really feel like the end of the story: with no explanation of your crimes, why you were imprisoned, and what happens to you next, it just didn't really have a satisfying ending.

But those minor gripes aside, I had a blast playing this and can't wait to build my own dungeons in the forthcoming editor.

[raixel]

I'm really wondering if the LoG editor will be the answer to the RTC upper-limit-been-done-to-death stagnation thats been happening around here as of late.

[Gambit37]

I'd certainly love to build dungeons for LoG. There's no need to worry about creating updated graphics for it, as it already looks fantastic. The reason I kept stalling on RTC projects was my desire to improve the graphics -- it simply takes too long to do all that when you have limited spare time.

[beowuuf]

Just finished LoG, didn't think I'd beat the end level, but luckily I found some tricks and it all worked out. Quite an adreniline pumping ride there!

Seems to be the perfect balance of retro and new in terms of design and sensibilities. I liked that a lack of food or 'stamina' was not punihsed severely, and that ressurection and regeneration was handled through the crystals. Not sure how I felt about potions being limited, though that is a D&D sensibility that DM subverted, so who can complain

Still fun to see some of the neat little touches - like a creature that reacts to your blows so their heads or appendages rock backwards. Very satisfying! Or ask Gambit said, the way the light sources gently light, or magic light and torchlight interact...

Also, some really nasty gotchas and some fun puzzles along the way. Many secrets and indeed a whole level unexplored, I may well come back to it another time with a fresh party (used the default) and try to find them all!


Also, the grimrock forums are really very busy! Managed to find the answers to the occasional question through them, though usually burieda page back so never replied to them. I wonder if I would have gotten some of the riddles, or realised I needed toperservere without them?

[Babe Bridou]

A question to Almost Human (or PetriH or whoever has an answer ): do you have plans to introduce "compatibility tiles" such as a DM-style door tile or an illusionary wall tile, so modders can eventually port their RTC/CSBWin creations to LoG?

Also, does time freeze between levels? I haven't really checked, it seems to me that at least the surrounding areas tick, does the whole dungeon tick at all time?

[Crash.]

If I understand correctly, there is one difference in tile design between DM and LoG, which is that in DM the doors/gates have their own tile, whereas in LoG it appears that doors are on the edges of tiles (hence I can't slam doors on the monsters). Hopefully there is not a limitation that prevents a door from being placed in the center of a tile so that "compatibility tiles" might be possible.

[Gambit37]

I'd say that's a massive difference and isn't something they are likely to change. It's a core part of the dungeon structure and engine, and also a design choice to stop the game from being too easy. Putting doors in the center of tiles might be possible with modding capability but I wouldn't bank on it ever being an option...

[beowuuf]

Having a floor tile with a door at one edge or the other doesn't break any puzzles, does it?

[Jan]

Having a floor tile with a door at one edge or the other doesn't break any puzzles, does it?

No but it doesn't break any monsters' heads either.

hence I can't slam doors on the monsters

Plus perhaps Crash had an idea of transfering whole (existing) DM-style dungeons to LoG?

[Gambit37]

@Beo: Nope, I don't think so. I think you could functionally build the DM dungeon in LoG (except for illusion walls). But you wouldn't be able to bash gates on mobs