Grimoire Thread

[Zorba the Hutt]

In the comments section for the latest Steam update Cleve says the real number is over 2200.

Yep, probably a while until Steamspy is accurate anyway

 

[NotAGolfer]

Pretty knowledgeable stream:



He has a Wizaradry 4 playthrough on his channel...

Nice, an LP that's not embarrassing to watch.

I'm pretty sure some of these ambient sound effects and enemy noises (like the ones for ?squirrels?) are ripped from Robinson's Requiem btw.
And I definitely heard that victorious battle music before, can pinpoint where though...

Game seems a bit on the easy side though. Not exactly thrilling to watch. Maybe just good party composition?

 

[Rick]

As I understand it, you can't target specific enemies. Very annoying indeed, and it's incredibly frustrating when your poison spell hits the SAME already-poisoned enemy instead of the other, non-poisoned one.

But, during one fight, my mages, when Thrusting, actually got a little popup and could choose between the two hummingbirds. Never happened again.

Has this been brought up before?

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Another quality review:

A relic of a bygone era, this game plays like a Ford Edsel. The interface is bad, even by 90s standards. It is difficult to read, and uses a font that reminds me of comic sans. It even lacks icons that properly indicate their' function, such as the options menu being represented by two dice.

The music is repetitive and lacks inspiration, a trait that is emphasized by the constant loop it plays in. While on the topic of sound, the enemies you encounter will, nine times out of ten, blast you with a barrage of identical low quality sound effects, if there are multiple enemies on the screen then all of these sounds are played at the same time, resulting in a highly deformed mess of screeching, clacking, and sometimes mumbled gibberish. To complement the auditory overload, many assets in this "game" appear to still be using placeholder names, leaving you both deaf and confused. A few cases in point: The "?WORMS?" sound like machine guns, the "?RUDE CHAPS?" scream unintelligibly, and always in tandem with their fellow brethren, and the "?UGLY DOG?" is very clearly a rat.

Before we cover the this games' balance - there is none - lets take a look at the story.

The storyline that is presented on the menu screen is overly vague, and fails to properly describe the events leading you up to your "adventure". What is presented is disjointed, and makes very little sense with all of the antiquated jargons used to try and spice up what would otherwise be a typical, if not boring storyline that MAY have been acceptable in 1997, but utterly disappoints by today's standards. When you actually jump in and play the game, the information provided to you is usually either irrelevant, or just drawn out, such as the fairy you encounter at the start of a puke green forest level. The game treats you like a child in this regard, despite there being virtually no explanation as to how anything else works. It can't trust you NOT to see a heap of bones and take them as a source of ambiance - it can't afford for you to bypass the glory of a fairy that advertises museums of magic. It essentially slams you on the head with a plank, nearly demanding that you appreciate the "lore" that you can speciously call thorough.

Now for game balance. There is literally no balance that I can discern from my time playing this 20 year conundrum. I start a party, and 5 movements in a pack of giant bats appear and slaughter 5 of my 8 party members. When I retreated, which killed another one of my characters, I heard a soundclip of Monty Python and the Holy Grail blast "RUN AWAY!" into my headphones. So much for ambiance.

Preventing new players from even getting a feel for a games controls before they are killed is perhaps the most bizarre design choice that a developer could ever choose, and Grimoire has perfected this to an art form. It ruins any hope of enjoying this nonsensical storyline racked with deformed and illogical sound effects and placeholder titles.

Grimoire took 20 years to release, and needs another 20 for it to be considered marginally enjoyable, even by 90s standards. Instead of shelling near 40 dollars for a Wizardry clone, created by a disgruntled former employee of the now closed Sir-Tech software company, buy Wizardry 7, the game the developer has spent so much time trying to plagiarize.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Pretty knowledgeable stream:



He has a Wizaradry 4 playthrough on his channel...

Nice, an LP that's not embarrassing to watch.

I'm pretty sure some of these ambient sound effects and enemy noises (like the ones for ?squirrels?) are ripped from Robinson's Requiem btw.
And I'm sure I heard that after victorious battle music before...

Game seems a bit on the easy side though. Not exactly thrilling to watch. Maybe just good party composition?

He made good rolls and spend bonus points on hp, so instead of 4 hp his casters have 20-30 hp. He also seems to use spells effectively.

 

[bataille]

As I understand it, you can't target specific enemies. Very annoying indeed, and it's incredibly frustrating when your poison spell hits the SAME already-poisoned enemy instead of the other, non-poisoned one.

But, during one fight, my mages, when Thrusting, actually got a little popup and could choose between the two hummingbirds. Never happened again.

Has this been brought up before?

You can target rows but not singular enemies in them.

 

[Roguey]

Can this really be Coop?

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198076875045/posthistory/

RE4 is probably my favourite game of all time, but I still have a copy that works perfectly fine on my Wii, so I abstained from buying the HD Edition or pre-order Edition. I am however, extremely interested in the soundtrack and would gladly put down five bucks instantly to get my hands on that by itself. Any word if it will become avaliable? RE4 has fantastic ambient music.

I'm not speaking from personal experience or anything (my parents aren't divorced, heh) but did anyone kind of feel like they were choosing between parents?

Updated cooper.txt

 

[groke]

Shining in the Darkness does not have this turning problem.

The trick is an optical illusion: you have to draw the player's eye to the right reference point as the turn is happening. You always have those reference points in Shining in the Darkness.

Shining in the Darkness's transitions certainly look amazing, but they look fully-animated to me (apologies for the youtube capture);

To drive the point home, here's one wall-section's four transition frames in isolation:

This just isn't something that can be achieved without either a prohibitive amount of 2D assets or practically zero variety in dungeon graphics (at least for a one-man 20-year development cycle).

 

[Rick]

As I understand it, you can't target specific enemies. Very annoying indeed, and it's incredibly frustrating when your poison spell hits the SAME already-poisoned enemy instead of the other, non-poisoned one.

But, during one fight, my mages, when Thrusting, actually got a little popup and could choose between the two hummingbirds. Never happened again.

Has this been brought up before?

You can target rows but not singular enemies in them.

Well, there were only two hummingbirds when my mages got the target choice popup so they were in different rows? Also, none of my other characters got the popup.

I'm kicking myself for not taking a screenshot, but I will next time.

 

[biggestboss]

From what I've gathered, you are unable to actually start combat unless all commands assigned are valid. So if there are multiple rows of enemies, a row has to be selected for every attack/spell/etc. If you don't get the choice and there are multiple enemies on the screen, then they are on the same row.

Also, just beat Hobknob. Another enemy that just gets put to sleep by a harp and murdered.

 

[Namutree]

Made a new party and they're doing a lot better than my first one. Just talked to the Fairy and have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the conversation system.

I asked her about the Golden Baby, the news, and other stuff and she responded to nearly all of it. Good job, Cleve.

 

[biggestboss]

Has anyone found a Cursed Item that doesn't just kill you immediately on rest?

 

[Rick]

From what I've gathered, you are unable to actually start combat unless all commands assigned are valid. So if there are multiple rows of enemies, a row has to be selected for every attack/spell/etc. If you don't get the choice and there are multiple enemies on the screen, then they are on the same row.

Which makes sense, except my two mages were the only ones who got the target choice popup. If you're suggesting all the other attacking characters in my party already had a row selected, I don't know how that could have happened without my input.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Shining in the Darkness does not have this turning problem.

The trick is an optical illusion: you have to draw the player's eye to the right reference point as the turn is happening. You always have those reference points in Shining in the Darkness.

Shining in the Darkness's transitions certainly look amazing, but they look fully-animated to me (apologies for the youtube capture);

Spoiler

To drive the point home, here's one wall-section's four transition frames in isolation:

This just isn't something that can be achieved without either a prohibitive amount of 2D assets or practically zero variety in dungeon graphics (at least for a one-man 20-year development cycle).

Looks weird af, since the floor tiles aren't moving at all.

 

[Nerevar]

Probably never? I dunno, it's a buggy, messy shit made by clinically insane dude. Why would anyone want to play that? It's ok to waste 5 mins or so on the drama and lulz (though these do get old fast - I can't imagine how this is going on for 20 years), but that's pretty much that.

But you at least did a review for ME:A and that was made by a team of mentally ill people, I'll understand completely if you don't want to review it though.

If you did a review like the one you did for ME:A that'd super funny. But maybe wait until after the manual comes out so you can do commentary on game mechanics also.

 

[biggestboss]

When combat starts, if your regular physical attackers are already set to attacking, I think it defaults them automatically to attack the front most row of enemies.

 

[Bladderfish]

Fuck me, Cleve, where are the backer keys? I'm having to play Sakura Dungeon to fill in the empty space. My right hand is starting to go numb. Save me, ffs!

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Fuck me, Cleve, where are the backer keys? I'm having to play Sakura Dungeon to fill in the empty space. My right hand is starting to go numb. Save me, ffs!

I'm playing Katawa Shoujo at the moment, it's a surprisingly good game. The waifus are gorgeous and the story ain't too low brow either. Give it a go, it's completely free anyway.

 

[mercyRPG]

Right, resurrection only works on the fairly close to mammal humans for up to 7 days after they have been killed. Raise dead works on all the different races indefinitely. Raise dead can also be used on bones in inventory to raise a new NPC from the dead to join the party.

Nice bits and pieces and TXT or HLP manual - as is - could not be attached to the game from the beginning. Resurrection for example sounds much more powerful in plain English than mere Raise Dead. It should be the other way around, former for bone dust, latter for corpses.

 

[Nerevar]

I'm playing Katawa Shoujo at the moment, it's a surprisingly good game. The waifus are gorgeous and the story ain't too low brow either. Give it a go, it's completely free anyway.

I don't understand this joke. You're not seriously playing Crapwata Shitjo are you?

 

[mercyRPG]

InGlorious State of HotKeys:

• TAB key should open AUTOMAP or M: there appears to be no way to get to screens via hotkeys directly??? Massive incline??? 20 years of development?? More like incompetent programmer.
• PageUp + PageDown selects previous / next character on inventory screen
• Why is there a useless scrolling through function TAB / SHIFT TAB ?? Like in MS Word or Excel??
• ENTER acts like LMB currently. Puts the item back or takes it. Useless.
• P should be pick lock or configurable..
• RUN ALL FROM BATTLE hotkey missing
• CAST SPELL HOTKEY MISSING: it should take us to the spells screen

Automap. F3, better still, try F1

:D Oops.. The one key I completely forgot to press. :D Thank You!

 

[DashiDMV]

Good morning codex. First 2 people to add goldenbabygiveaways as a friend and type "monocle" in chat get to see inside Cleve's wonderful madness.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I don't understand this joke. You're not seriously playing Crapwata Shitjo are you?

Why not? It's a critically acclaimed visual novel. A p nice story fag game. I went in without reading any spoilers and the prologue seemed really cool. Does it get cringey later on?

 

[Snorkack]

Okay, I gotta stop playing now. This game in its current state is broken beyond redemption

Made a new party is doing a lot better than my first one. Just talked to the Fairy and have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the conversation system.
I asked her about the Golden Baby, the news, and other stuff and she responded to nearly all of it. Good job, Cleve.

Glad to hear he's put a lot of effort into the dialogue system. Too bad no one has touched the input handling subsystems since the days PS/2 connectors were still en vogue. My game just glitched out briefly during a key press, then I started spinning around in place for half a minute until a random encounter stopped me, then it took another 10 seconds waiting until my mouse cursor stopped spazzing out. Since I had just fled the previous battle, I now had the choice to fight and do approx. 20 different mouse clicks until the first round of battle starts - or to just flee again since the petty combat rewards mean nothing anymore since I sold two of those keys you find everywhere. Well, I fled, made one single turn, another random encounter. Quit. This ain't a game for me.
Reading through this thread it seems like you can't make two steps in this game without stumbling across another utterly broken feature. Don't use bards, don't use instruments, don't sell keys, don't pick levelup spells twice, don't write spell books, don't recruit people...
This game obviously lacked proper playtesting. It reminds me of Blade Of Destiny HD, which eventually turned out to be a decent game, too. But I wouldn't touch Grimoire again for the next year or so, hoping the beta testers can help solving those numerous issues.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Ever since the early alphas, I never liked the way that every square inch of the ground was festooned with colorful flowers in the opening area. I was, like, WTF? What hippie-homo bullshit is this? Did that chickenhawk Max Phipps turn Cleve into a raging flower child/fancyboy when he had to tiptoe through all the sex toys, fucking machines with the special analator attachments, and teenage male runaways in Max's apartment? But I'll take y'alls word for it that it's good.