Grimoire is finished. Available on Steam.

[Craig234]

Well, I'll never buy this game.

I saw a post from the dev that suggested he's some sort of right-wing wacko, attacking 'SJW's' in society and claiming they're all trying to destroy society and end the use of stoplights or something.

I made a thread and asked, is he a right-wing nut? The discussion was poor but some was useful as people tried to share what they know about the dev and there was some discussion about the topic of how you choose to spend your money.

Within minutes, for the first time ever on Steam, I was banned from the forum by the dev. All I need to know.

 

[Craig234]

Yikes, did a google and found it looks like he is a nut. This says he espouses things similar to 'the most extreme parts of the Birch Society':

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Vault-Co

 

[whm1974]

Yikes, did a google and found it looks like he is a nut. This says he espouses things similar to 'the most extreme parts of the Birch Society':

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Vault-Co

Another person who also read rationalwiki.org besides me. And yes the John Birch is full of nuts.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Terraria.

But I paid $.75 for Terraria and I've hit over 1,000 hours.

 

[clok1966]

I know i come off as defending the game, I am not, but I am wondering how anybody can judge a game without playing it, or worrying about somebody political stance (for the record the tiny bit i read of his ideas, he is a wack job). I do get not supporting him as you just cant stand his views.. Very admirable. Problem is 99% of people who are getting all butthurt on his views, never knew them till somebody said something in a forum when the game was released, and if you are looking for a reason to hate a game and and thats the best you can do, your not a gamer. Again, its fine if you hate it because of that and you feel paying him will harm some beliefs you have. I have watched the game (game alone, not forum threads on him) and it looked interesting. I backed on indigogo and have now got to play for about 4 hours. I like the game, have had no issues but I hear some are. I only (last 2 days) have seen any of the "he is a nutjob" stuff, and did read a couple of posts, and I agree, seems like a nutjob, but the game is still fun. The people against him have lots of stories, and his own posts confirm some, and I do not see anything he says as correct, but the game is still fun. If i thought he was financing some hate group or the like, i wouldn't give him any money, but i dont see that as the case ( and maybe Im wrong). I just see him as some crazy guy who used that crazy to make a interesting and fun OLD SCHOOL game, and along the awy made some websites that spout some really foolish stuff. Maybe somebody will chime in with more than "stories" and prove me wrong as i have not followed this for the last 15 years as some have.

also games with 600 hours, yes i get Terraria (good game), but there is really only 10-15 hours of "NEW" and then you expand, still gameplay i guess, but this game is introducing new areas, monsters, tactics for 600 hours, not showing you it all in 10-15 hours then generating more land in random formations to use the stuff you found in the first 15 hours on. Minecraft, ect.. all do this.. Heck i have over 1000 hour in Left for Dead 2, and you can see all of it in 5-6 hours (i like coop that punish idiots who dont play coop), may point was its got "new" content for 600 hours ( or says it does) not many games have that.

I really have no problem with people not liking it, but have a real reason, and yes, disliking the makers views is a perfectly fine reason, but jumping on the sheep train because somebody else said he was bad and making a judgement on that.. I read review about it being so 90's... thats like saying ice cream is cold, this game was advertised as OLD SCHOOL, and playing like OLD SCHOOL, there was a DEMO, there where youtube videos of game play. Complaining its like its description seems pretty lame, and most negative reviews are that or the BUGS ( bugs i get, hate all you want on that).

the bans on forums have been people listing stuff not related to the game and on politics and views of the author (which from my understanding of steam rules is normal if there is an active mod), at least the ones I have seen (maybe there are others, quite possible) again I agree, his idea are whack and some pretty stupid) and I have stated, no issue if you feel strong enough about it, don't pay him. But you may want to read up on almost any game made, there is some crackpot in the mix, don't buy them either! Just like this game , most will keep that crap out of game related forums, true or not.

me i'm judging it on how it plays, so far its been fun, but 4 hours is to short to know, but im about 4 hours of fun away from 90% of full priced games total playtime (8+ hours) so I think im doing ok. I may be back screaming it sucks if I hit some of the bugs other have. And I will admit a manual is a MUST and its still not here, I will join in with the rest and say for a complicated game like this its a MUST, and launching without it was a bad move.

right now i feel like I'm taking up a cause i don't care about.. the game is fun the dev has some odd ideas.. I game.. so i judge on that.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I don't like the guys politics, but I am not judging the game on that. I think it factors into his claim that the game will never have a discount, and I think he is going to get a harsh lesson in real life economics, but that is his choice. I think it might tell us something about his willingness to fix bugs in the game. The guy is an asshole, don't expect him to care about his customers when he has already gotten their money.

also games with 600 hours, yes i get Terraria (good game), but there is really only 10-15 hours of "NEW" and then you expand, still gameplay i guess, but this game is introducing new areas, monsters, tactics for 600 hours, not showing you it all in 10-15 hours then generating more land in random formations to use the stuff you found in the first 15 hours on. Minecraft, ect.. all do this.. Heck i have over 1000 hour in Left for Dead 2, and you can see all of it in 5-6 hours (i like coop that punish idiots who dont play coop), may point was its got "new" content for 600 hours ( or says it does) not many games have that.

I will reserve judgment on this until we get more information, but I will be amazed, astounded in fact, if this game manages to have anywhere even close to 100 hours of unique gameplay much less 600. My guess is that it has 10-20 hours of unique gameplay and then starts to reuse assets (go back to the same dungeon for the 10th time!), do randomized fetch quests (this time to find a the widget of awesome!), and long pointless walks across long distances just to eat up time (then return it to me on the other side of the world!).

 

[whm1974]

I'm thinking that a wackjob can sometimes come up with a great game or at least something different enough to be worth playing.

But yes, games should judged on their merits not the views of their author(s).

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I will reserve judgment on this until we get more information, but I will be amazed, astounded in fact, if this game manages to have anywhere even close to 100 hours of unique gameplay much less 600. My guess is that it has 10-20 hours of unique gameplay and then starts to reuse assets (go back to the same dungeon for the 10th time!), do randomized fetch quests (this time to find a the widget of awesome!), and long pointless walks across long distances just to eat up time (then return it to me on the other side of the world!).

This, not sure how many games I've played that genuinely had that much content, like true unique content (mods notwithstanding). Baldur's Gate 2 is probably up there, maybe Morrowind if you actually intend to see it all (some of that turns into reused assets though). Even Skyrim you can 100% in maybe 20 hours if you don't have difficulty mods on, and a LOT of that is re-used assets as well.

I'm guessing it'll go the direction of 'different colored NPCs imply different levels' route, and have a myriad of locations to explore that are pretty close to being the same, overall.

 

[Craig234]

Well let me address one thing - I do think it's good for people to think of their spending in terms of voting.

I've lost count of the number of things that are really horrible that are made worse by money from people who get that money from consumers who pay no attention to what the people they patronize do with it.

For example, take Sheldon Addleston. He's a billionaire from some corrupt China gambling ownership and Vegas, and he's an activist - pretty much every serious Republican candidate for president goes to visit him in Vegas and try to get him to fund them.

If you don't like his activism - pay attention and don't stay at his properties. That kind of thing.

So that's the background issue - caring how your money is used. Some people take the view of 'all I care about is whether I like the game' - so if the person you pay spends that money on ISIL or vacations for child sex, who cares, to use extreme examples.

Normally this doesn't come up with games. Normally the industry has so many people any one game has a lot of people behind it, and politics rarely come up. This was an exception since it's one person and it appears to be such an extremist it's of note.

Then his banning me made it worth making people aware more so they can decide whether to consider the issue.

I can't remember this coming up before out of thousands of games.

But seeing someone apparently very anti-semitic among other extremist issues who then behaved this way with the ban I think deserves some negative publicity. That's what free speech is for. I was considering his game until all this and think others should hear his behavior.

I'm thinking that a wackjob can sometimes come up with a great game or at least something different enough to be worth playing.

But yes, games should judged on their merits not the views of their author(s).

That's where we disagree. I think we should all consider the impact of our spending and spend accordingly. This rarely is a factor in buying games - but games aren't immune.

One more example - the Koch brothers are two of the wealthiest people in the world and use their money for activism as well - notably things like fighting for allowing more pollution by their industries, and cutting government healthcare for people among many other things.

And they get that money partly from consumers - the people they are trying to hurt in cases - buying their products, like 'Dixie cups'. I think it makes sense for people to consider not buying their products so their own money isn't then used to get rid of healthcare and other things.

Rather than saying 'all that matters is which cup you prefer, not the views of the seller'.

 

[whm1974]

That's where we disagree. I think we should all consider the impact of our spending and spend accordingly. This rarely is a factor in buying games - but games aren't immune.

One more example - the Koch brothers are two of the wealthiest people in the world and use their money for activism as well - notably things like fighting for allowing more pollution by their industries, and cutting government healthcare for people among many other things.

And they get that money partly from consumers - the people they are trying to hurt in cases - buying their products, like 'Dixie cups'. I think it makes sense for people to consider not buying their products so their own money isn't then used to get rid of healthcare and other things.

Rather than saying 'all that matters is which cup you prefer, not the views of the seller'.

While I don't completely disagree with you on this, and your money is yours to spend as you please, you do have to ask yourself - Are you boycotting someone because their activism is hurting you or are you boycotting them because you merely disagree with their viewpoints?

 

[Craig234]

While I don't completely disagree with you on this, and your money is yours to spend as you please, you do have to ask yourself - Are you boycotting someone because their activism is hurting you or are you boycotting them because you merely disagree with their viewpoints?

Fair question - and the answer is neither. It's not about 'hurting me' - it's about (likely) doing harm to others.

 

[SMOGZINN]

While I don't completely disagree with you on this, and your money is yours to spend as you please, you do have to ask yourself - Are you boycotting someone because their activism is hurting you or are you boycotting them because you merely disagree with their viewpoints?

Does it matter? Really, does it matter if it is because Craig feels that his actions are directly harming him, or just because he finds him morally repugnant, which can be seen as indirectly harming him?

 

[whm1974]

Does it matter? Really, does it matter if it is because Craig feels that his actions are directly harming him, or just because he finds him morally repugnant, which can be seen as indirectly harming him?

Boycotting a company due to harmful actions or finding them to be morally repugnant is fine, I have no problem with that.

 

[Craig234]

Anyone who would consider this game - I'd recomment Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2 as puzzle-oriented dungeon crawlers, Spiderweb Software games (Another near one-guy shop, Geneforge series, Avadon series, and others) for deep RPG old-style, and there are others.

 

[clok1966]

Anyone who would consider this game - I'd recomment Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2 as puzzle-oriented dungeon crawlers, Spiderweb Software games (Another near one-guy shop, Geneforge series, Avadon series, and others) for deep RPG old-style, and there are others.

All good, but keep in mind Grimrock is real time, not turn based (huge difference to us RPG addicts) but is an EXCELLENT game. And Geneforge (and devs other rpgs) are great too! but a top down style game. This game is very much an attempt to Outdo Wizardry 7 (dev has even said that) which is available on GOG for cheap and is (opinion) one if the best old school rpg's ever. While i have not played Grimoire more than about 10 hours now, i have yet to see a bug (but hold no hope of that lasting, i am sure I will hit one). Its a god copy, many say better ( at this point I wont , ite very good but ...,but time may change that). I have enjoyed it but do have some "WHY!?" things. I know its old school in all respects, but making me roll 3 times and then restart, why? anybody who wants a great roll is going to do this till they get it, why make us restart over, just more clicking. I get the gameplay part staying true to form.. but some of the setup could be easier. Noty a huge gripe.. and so far no manual, this game needs one badly. And i found out after a few hundred tries with the dice, the drow can not be NECRO's but it says they can.. lot of wasted time rolling for top numbers. I also think the find hidden (detect hidden i think) runs out way to fast.. but .. ehhh sleep is free.

I quite enjoy the game, but do understand not buying it if you don't like the dev.. I consider myself lucky as I have not read much, and wont.. I might just get to the point i dislike him enough I would stop too and so far the game has been good enough I would have hated to miss it.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

So I went ahead and bought in on Friday, and played a bit over the weekend. I'll definitely say that it scratches the right itches for old school gaming, as well as introducing a few to boot, so the 'feel' is there. There's a few complaints I'd posit, most notably that there's some things that are just rather shockingly broken, considering the development time and apparent focus the dev has had on this. For instance, I know that until a more recent patch it was exceptionally easy to skill-cheese a large part of the early game with chaining sleep from a bard (with starting equipment) and stealth. This was correct, but now as far as I can tell, neither music nor stealth increment at all, or at least I haven't gained a point in either since I started my characters.

Right now, vendors auto-restock anything stolen which is phenomenally easy to do, leading to an infinite supply of money at the beginning of the game. It's completely game-breaking and I've chosen not to cheese it but it cheapens the feel of the introduction a bit, knowing that I can just buy my way to overpowered characters.

Unfortunately, there is a strong draw to do that at the moment since it's also basically a roll of the dice (pun intended) as to whether my tank characters (saurian warrior, giant weaponsmith) get one-rounded, or even one-shot in combat. I'd say it's probably 60% chance on any given fight resulting in at least one reload before completing without losing a character. Maybe it's totally normal to lose characters, but since I don't know (yet) how to revive them, I can't afford to just throw away my tanks in the starting area/town. Which, by the way, why is the first town chock full of insects, bandits, and worms capable of eradicating a veritable mob of magic users, sword & board wielding, armor-clad deviants? Aren't there guards? How is this place not a ghost town? The mind boggles.

All in all, I give it a good 65% purely for the feels, and the anticipation for what's to come. Maybe most of what I've listed is a non-issue beyond the first couple levels (I just hit lvl 2 with most of my characters), and I'll be able to bump this score up. I'm definitely going to keep playing, though.

 

[clok1966]

exceptionally easy to skill-cheese a large part of the early game with chaining sleep from a bard (with starting equipment) and stealth.

Right now, vendors auto-restock anything stolen which is phenomenally easy to do, leading to an infinite supply of money at the beginning of the game. It's completely game-breaking and I've chosen not to cheese it but it cheapens the feel of the introduction a bit, knowing that I can just buy my way to overpowered characters.

Unfortunately, there is a strong draw to do that at the moment since it's also basically a roll of the dice (pun intended) as to whether my tank characters (saurian warrior, giant weaponsmith) get one-rounded, or even one-shot in combat. I'd say it's probably 60% chance on any given fight resulting in at least one reload before completing without losing a character. Maybe it's totally normal to lose characters, but since I don't know (yet) how to revive them, I can't afford to just throw away my tanks in the starting area/town. Which, by the way, why is the first town chock full of insects, bandits, and worms capable of eradicating a veritable mob of magic users, sword & board wielding, armor-clad deviants? Aren't there guards? How is this place not a ghost town? The mind boggles.

All in all, I give it a good 65% purely for the feels, and the anticipation for what's to come. Maybe most of what I've listed is a non-issue beyond the first couple levels (I just hit lvl 2 with most of my characters), and I'll be able to bump this score up. I'm definitely going to keep playing, though.

I cut a tiny bit out of the qoute. I'm not sure why everybody says bard is so OP, most casters can have SLEEP level 1 so in effect a bard is just a super limited caster, he can just do that one thing, Bard plays sleep or caster casts sleep (but caster could heal, dps maybe, bard cant (unless he gets extra turn and throws his wiffle ball which hits about %5 of the time)) And as you say later game I would be more then glad not to have him.. I think all these post of OP are just to get people to put them in party and hate him later.

Stealing from vendors early game. All I can say are you save scumming, stealing till it works? there are not enough points early game to make thieves good at lockpicking and theft, and while you could go all thief, my guess is most would be building a lockpick one. hell early game i cant even get locks half the time (i don't save scum) as its purely a guess game till you get point in later (5-6 levels). I see people save, open, or save fail and then try again in youtube videos.. not really playing the game (opinion) but i guess.I think i have got maybe 4 of the 7 or 10 chest i have came across. Of course play how you want, I'm just not reloading on fails on lockpicking , drinking, touching, etc..

ONE SHOT! i will rally with you on this! total Bullshit.. i am currently saved in a safe spot but to proceed i need to beat a group.. I dont save scum but in the case i have been reloading after this battle as its a first for me, but have fought this battle 16 times, each time with my back row caster (who i actually did put some more points in HP as i leveled sa they had a massivly low HP pool) getting one shotted each of the 16 battles. I find it odd all 16 times the mob has never attacked a different character, always the lowest hp one (which is fine, i would too) but I miss, i fizzle, i don't penetrate.. yet the game 16 one shots, never a miss/fizzle or the like... Frustration of a kind has set in. Maybe we are supposed to die and its part of the game. But i doubt it.

Rez, you should have got a winged staff (heck i think i have found 2) early in the game that rez people who died.. but its minus 10 con (basically lose 2 levels of points as you need to put them back if you care)

I have been defending the game pretty hard (game wise only) and am still happy, but my views are going from super positive to lesser as i play.

 

[SharpHawk]

So how would you guys rate this game in terms of "artificial difficulty"?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I cut a tiny bit out of the qoute. I'm not sure why everybody says bard is so OP, most casters can have SLEEP level 1 so in effect a bard is just a super limited caster, he can just do that one thing, Bard plays sleep or caster casts sleep (but caster could heal, dps maybe, bard cant (unless he gets extra turn and throws his wiffle ball which hits about %5 of the time)) And as you say later game I would be more then glad not to have him.. I think all these post of OP are just to get people to put them in party and hate him later.

Stealing from vendors early game. All I can say are you save scumming, stealing till it works? there are not enough points early game to make thieves good at lockpicking and theft, and while you could go all thief, my guess is most would be building a lockpick one. hell early game i cant even get locks half the time (i don't save scum) as its purely a guess game till you get point in later (5-6 levels). I see people save, open, or save fail and then try again in youtube videos.. not really playing the game (opinion) but i guess.I think i have got maybe 4 of the 7 or 10 chest i have came across. Of course play how you want, I'm just not reloading on fails on lockpicking , drinking, touching, etc..

ONE SHOT! i will rally with you on this! total Bullshit.. i am currently saved in a safe spot but to proceed i need to beat a group.. I dont save scum but in the case i have been reloading after this battle as its a first for me, but have fought this battle 16 times, each time with my back row caster (who i actually did put some more points in HP as i leveled sa they had a massivly low HP pool) getting one shotted each of the 16 battles. I find it odd all 16 times the mob has never attacked a different character, always the lowest hp one (which is fine, i would too) but I miss, i fizzle, i don't penetrate.. yet the game 16 one shots, never a miss/fizzle or the like... Frustration of a kind has set in. Maybe we are supposed to die and its part of the game. But i doubt it.

Rez, you should have got a winged staff (heck i think i have found 2) early in the game that rez people who died.. but its minus 10 con (basically lose 2 levels of points as you need to put them back if you care)

I have been defending the game pretty hard (game wise only) and am still happy, but my views are going from super positive to lesser as i play.

I've played a bit more, found some res staffs, but given the penalty for using them I'm hesitant... I'd rather just reload and try again with a different tactic.

I read about people 'save scumming'. In my universe, the phrase save scumming comes from games which have save-on-exit/permadeath, where you have to actually extract a save game from a directory/force a crash on the program to prevent a 'bad run' from being saved. Saving/reloading is just a part of gaming, especially older games, where your hand isn't held and you can be wiped out in a round, as such I don't consider saving/reloading in this game to be 'save scumming', just 'save/reloading'. In that aspect, yes, I saved/reloaded to not end up with either a vendor hating me, and/or get all the items from a vendor before their inventory resets.. That last one was only needed for the smith, in the starting town. I could have easily however just stolen the entire inventory from one of the .. clerics? Libarians? Whatever they are, that sell like 2k gold books and just sold them back, then meandered over to the smith and bought whatever I needed (primarily armor). It's completely cheeseball to have the first vendors you run into able to be completely hijacked by a level 1 thief, and give you infinite money. They should either have a higher threshold for theft, know that those goods were stolen from in-town, or at minimum not regenerate their inventory after being robbed. Simply put, all but one of the vendors (the smith) has such a low bar for theft that you have like a 50% chance to rob the entire inventory without so much as a batted eyelash from the vendor, that's borked.

Bard is OP because he can consistently lock down (at least in the exceptionally early game) relatively rough NPCs (worms and bugs notwithstanding), and depending on the speed layout between the bard and the enemy, can actually perma-lock an enemy boss. The general lack of resists, and lack of mana usage for that class makes it very OP *very early on*. I'm still in the early game so I'm imagining that could change in the near future unless I get some new weapons for him (found a cool silence weapon), but for now he's pretty useful, more than a handful of casters that could cast sleep instead of some kind of nuke. This might just be magnified early game, where an unlucky roll can mean you lose a tank or two in a given round, but it has really felt OP.

I will say the balance has gotten a smidge more streamlined since i got some actual weapons/gear and levels, but yeah if I fight something that actually casts a spell (looking at you, flaming bugs in the first town) it's almost guaranteed that I'll be reloading since inevitably that spell will hit one of my back-row casters and one shot him. My front-line fighters and even second level bard/rogue are a little tougher against the garbage I'm fighting, but any of my back four still fold like superman on laundry day if anything is able to hit them. I hope i don't run into many archers in this game.

So how would you guys rate this game in terms of "artificial difficulty"?

Depends on what you mean by artificial. The dev clearly wants the starting area/town to let you know 'you're going to die/load a lot', but you get in the groove quickly if you've ever played an RPG prior to like, 2005. I'd rank it a bit more difficult than Might and Magic 7, but with more interesting mechanics, specifically spell/skill mechanics. Oh and no tutorial, at all. It's like 100% guesswork and wikis and 'let's see what this does'. Rolls have seem fair though except in instances where there's some kind of wonky balance issues, like aforementioned stealing from vendors, and a few fun hidden mechanics like 'tired characters don't hit as often or for as much', etc.

I'm still thoroughly enjoying it, drug me away from slime rancher and rise of the tomb raider.

 

[Achilles97]

Thank you for the discussion. I was unaware of this game until now. It seems very interesting and something that I can get into casually at my own pace and will hopefully be a refreshing change of pace. Plus, I don't have a gaming PC right now but this should easily run on my laptop.

It seems like the game is only available on Steam and I read that it will supposedly always be $39. Does anyone have any tips on a better price?

Thanks!

 

[SMOGZINN]

It seems like the game is only available on Steam and I read that it will supposedly always be $39. Does anyone have any tips on a better price?

Yes, buy Wizardry 7 instead. It is the gold standard of these sorts of games and you can get a combo pack of Wizardy 6 +7 (six is pretty good too!) for about $6 on GOG or $5 on Steam.

 

[Craig234]

How about Wizardry 10?

 

[Worthington]

If only there was such a thing. My fav RPG series by far

 

[GagHalfrunt]

How about Wizardry 10?

Wiz 8 was so bad that I would never have gone back for Wiz 9 or 10 if they got made. 6 and 7 were brilliant though, worth replaying now even if you made it through them way back when.

 

[Craig234]

Whoops I was thinking of Might and Magic 10. Might and Magic 6 forward are nice.