Okay, I've spent about 11 hours on the game so far. For people who want to know how it is like...
First of all, it is incredibly archaic. Every bad interface design decision from the 1990's era of dungeon crawlers has been left intact, as well as many bad gameplay design decisions (Rolling for stats, encouraging savescumming). Expect lots of pointless clicking to do whatever you want to do, one of the most painful inventory management systems I've ever seen, and nothing within the interface actually meant to save you any time or effort. Item stats are as minimalistic and uninformative as possible, and it is very vague as to what a lot of the statistics of your characters actually do. Expect lots of diving into the forums and guides to figure things out.
Some of the bad gameplay design decisions are from before even the 90's, like massively impairing strength stats for women in character generation while just giving them a small bonus to fellowship (Which doesn't seem to do much of anything, but the bonus you get to it is much less than what they lose in strength, which affects a ton of things like damage, armor penetration, how much gear they can wear, ect). Don't mention that particular problem on his forums though unless you want a flame war and ban though
! Luckily, that's about the extent that his political ideology seems to have affected the gameplay from what I can tell so far (Though there is plenty of garden variety insanity in it, but that can be charming or even amusing).
There are a lot of really weird balancing decisions, and most of these seem to be intentional. You get to choose out of a lot of different starting locations, but most will be very unfun unless you've spent the requisite 4 hours rerolling the stats of your initial party and making sure they are the correct class and race balance. Even after you've done this, it is they will still be somewhat unfun, but at least you'll get an item that will maybe open up something way later down the road for you. There is one option where you can get a bunch of experience and an overpowered item, but although that is the "correct" option for the early game, who knows what the items the other starts will do late game.
The graphics are what they are. I find them charming as well, though they are repetitive and inconsistent. Enemies will often use the same sprite, sometimes even within the same dungeon, without even a color swap! The music and sound effects is what it is too. I'd suggest listening to something else, unless you want to be driven as insane as the dev.
There were bugs in the beginning. Lots of bugs. Save-killing bugs (The best kind of bug for a supposedly 600 hour game
). Now there are mostly strange balance decisions left, as well as a few placeholder features (There is a FOOD bar that doesn't do anything and is apparently going to be replaced with sanity. The metallurgy skill isn't complete. I'm sure there are other things too).
We've been told there is a manual coming soon (Which is definitely necessary to know what the heck you are doing in this game), but the dev thinks some people are pirating his game so he is prioritizing DRM for now it looks like. Any kind of strange decision like that is echo'd back to him as being correct by his bizarre and abrasive fanbase, who can troll with impunity on his boards while anyone challenging them or trolling back gets a ban. If you go there for help, make sure to grovel a little and maybe your question will get answered. But some questions will get you trolled no matter what, like if you ask about what a certain stat does (The answer is usually that no one knows. Some on the board don't think even the dev knows what he coded over this 20 years and he is waiting for the community to figure it out so he can put it in his manual).
And yet... The game is oddly compelling. I can completely understand why no one normal would want to give the dev $40. He is the worst kind of crank, whether he is some bizarre paleoconservative -alt right hybrid or just Alex Jones levels of insane. Certainly the interface doesn't feel worth the trouble most of the time, and the game's story isn't going to win any awards. But there is some very old-school styled dungeon crawl exploration fun to be found here. And there is a lot of design depth in the core gameplay.
Would I recommend the game? Hell no. But at least on Bay 12 Game Forums, there are probably people who would get a lot of fun out of it. And a little interaction with the Grimoire community and dev might make a lot of people here very thankful for what they have in Dwarf Fortress' devs and community.
Author
Topic: GRIMOIRE: The best RPG of 1996 is now on IndieGogo. Do your duty! Try the demo! (Read 18658 times)