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Grimoire Thread

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$10 sale price and V2 on black Friday! The big Steam sale even starts up tomorrow! :happytrollboy:
 

Lady_Error

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Ah, the missed deadlines - everything is well in the Grimoire thread again.
love.png
 

Rpguy

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Pathfinder: Wrath

GOLDEN ERA GAMES [developer] 12 minutes ago
It's almost ready. Bogged down in testing. Just when I think that's enough, I discover there is an unintended side effect of something else I did. Then I realize there's another feature that now needs to be balanced because of modifications to that unintended side effect. Seriously. I have lost whole weeks of work on stuff like this I did not foresee. As an example, after discovering the Purify Air spell did not work correctly I spent at least 5 days in a row testing it and all spells it affects in isolation and in tandem to make sure it was working right this time. I never even factored any of this into the new release, I did not foresee all these side effects. Right now I am wrapping up the Rhattu Casino and getting all the mini-games tested and with nice graphics.
 

Rpguy

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Pathfinder: Wrath
IT CANNOT BE GREAT WITHOUT MINIGAMES
21 November - GOLDEN ERA GAMES
For 25 years I have simply wanted to add some minigames to Grimoire when higher priority items were finally completed. I solved this problem to release V1 by cutting out the Rhattu Casino altogether, saving me all the work I would need to do to stock it with minigames. I figured I would do that at a later date and so I have. Nobody would ever miss it if they never knew it was supposed to be in there until I did finish it off.

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I know it is ridiculous and largely non-essential for any game but the truth is that Might&Magic and Bard's Tale and many of the other great classic blobbers had minigames thrown into them. I always felt that in order for any RPG to be considered for inclusion into the ranks of the classics, you had to have some minigames in there somewhere.

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The minigames are done now. They are short, fun, zero learning curve and add a bit of color to the Rhattu's underground gambling casino where text might have sufficed but would not have been as much fun. The casino and it's inhabitants figure into the general plot with the two Paragons that have been restored to the storyline in place of just the one that was there before. Khan Raji now explains that one of the Paragons was hidden in the Grand Refuge of the Ancients - but the other one was pawned to the Rhattu mob when the Imperial Palace became desperate for money. We have to investigate to determine what the mob wants in return for giving the Paragon back to the Palace. This entails exploration of the now expanded regions like the Titan Mines and the Fissure.

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Rpguy

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Pathfinder: Wrath

GOLDEN ERA GAMES
[developer] 6 hours ago
Millennials have frequently written me on Steam and challenged me "Tell me why I would want to buy your game. Pitch it to me." I have banned them on the spot, hopefully never to speak to them ever again. Your parents may have told you that you are a special, one-of-a-kind snowflake and put all kinds of gold star stickers on your forehead. The truth is, your parents lied. You are not special. You are part of a featureless and undistinguished raucous army of vulgar reprobates. Grimoire is a holy city and you have been shut off in the outer darkness, gnashing your teeth and beating your grimy fists against a golden door that will never open to you. We are inside having fun of a sort that God in his wisdom has decreed you will never understand. You can do whatever you want out there, but you will never come in. This message will be the main theme of the marketing campaign for Grimoire V2.
 

2house2fly

Magister
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Apr 10, 2013
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With my disaste for "story hooks" and the idea of entertainment as a commercial product, I can't help but respect that post
 

Dorateen

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Aug 30, 2012
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Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
Found this review posted on some TechRaptor website from November 24.

https://techraptor.net/content/grimoire-coverage-club-inner-grognard

It's actually not a bad write-up. Here's the money shot, which I can agree with:

In a lot of ways, Grimoire is the perfect game for the ‘grognard’ crowd, the old soldiers of roleplaying games. You know the type, the tabletop players who prefer to map out their worlds on graph paper and calculate THAC0. The people who claim that role-playing games achieved perfection in the 1980s. Tabletop gaming has always been counter-culture. For some, the ‘purest’ form of it is the only way to play; the ‘streamlined’ versions of their favorite game worlds are not ‘true’ tabletop gaming.
 

Rpguy

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Steam:

GOLDEN ERA GAMES [developer] 2 hours ago
Testing ... testing ... testing ... okay, looks perfect, need to get it ready to release ... wait a second, that animation is a bit off center ... okay repack it ... testing ... testing ... okay, that's it, looks done ... that font is wrong color, need to reduce spacing between lines .... testing ... testing ... almost ready ... testing ... testing ... wait, forgot to see if that spell produces different effect against elemental using new functions ... testing ...

GOLDEN ERA GAMES [developer] 2 hours ago
If I didn't finally draw the line and just release it, I would still be working on it. Same with V2 (soon) because in the course of doing anything, you always discover it could be better.

Now that I found a vastly superior way to gauge a bezier curve of probability with integer math from casting spell skill to actual spell effects in the spell script by adding simply two more script functions, I want to go back and re-edit all 236 spells in the game. Instead I just did the big exploitable spells and they now run far better for V2. I am going to release it shortly as-is just like before, with that option perhaps in future to re-edit all spells with the two new script commands I added.

The problem with everything is that in the course of fixing it, you will invariably discover a way to make it even better. I may continue updating Grimoire over next couple months even after V2 before it moves to other distribution channels - so that the original pledgers in the IndieGoGo campaign will get the most perfect version when I print off the hardback manual and CD-ROM.

Steam:
I realize that different people have different capabilities, but come on, 20 years for a game that looks like this?

GOLDEN ERA GAMES [developer] 2 hours ago
Can't wait to see that. Only 24 hours for another Wizardry 7 clone with up to 600 hours of playtime and even larger than Crusaders of the Dark Savant! I am going to camp in front of Steam to be first in line when they open in the morning!

When I won the All-Army Ironman, some of my fellow soldiers when I got back to barracks were telling me they would have run that year themselves and probably beat me, they just would have had to cut back on the cigarettes and done some jogging. At one point I ran two 4:50 miles back to back in the Ironman.
 

Lady_Error

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New areas, new inventory screen, mini-games, new art (in-game and three new title screens), new functionality (alchemy, shrines, the sanity bar or whatever it is called) - and manual.
 

Rpguy

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Pathfinder: Wrath
New areas, new inventory screen, mini-games, new art (in-game and three new title screens), new functionality (alchemy, shrines, the sanity bar or whatever it is called) - and manual.

The sanity bar is already working in V1. Also V2 will have some additional balance of spells / classes, Also tablet chasing.

Here are some old quotes from Cleve to sum up what new things you can expect in V2:

It is scattered all through the old content and now portals to new regions appear in familiar places. Many forges, shrines, hearths and alchemy labs are now found in existing locations to permit players to upgrade their gear many different ways. Metalsmiths can forge weapons, armor and helmets to improve their qualities. At hearths, thieves and rangers can sharpen blades and the edges of weapons to make them better at penetrating armor and doing extra damage or apply poison to them to give them an effect when they penetrate. At shrines, clerics and templars can bless and enchant weapons so they can hit magical creatures and do extra damage against infernal and evil beings. The hearths also support recovering from spirit loss and the shrines can be rested at to heal up from disease and cursed conditions. Just in my playtesting I have discovered the entire game has been elevated considerably even above the current levels of incline to a whole new altitude because of these mechanics. I am just about done making Grimoire the game I envisioned originally and creating a worthy peer to Wizardry 7.

with V2, the loose ends of the game at some points will be closed and you will discover the things I cut out to make the launch - the Rhattu Casino and several new dungeons with unusual features. Working on these now. Since this version will have the full integration of the inventory workshop with the classes and crafting skills, it will be pretty feature complete.

New areas, new plotlines, new minigames, brand new inventory management system integrated with workshops in the environment for various classes. It's a whole new game, seriously. The incline is coming.

When the game was released, many of the special classes were still kind of rough when it came to the item workshop and general specialization. Wait until you see the changes I have introduced, it's almost a new game altogether!

Some party members can sharpen and forge weapons and armor, but will excel best if they find a forge to work at.

Some party members can make poisons for blades, mix and combine potions, herbs and reagents, but if they find and light a hearth to work at, they will find far better success in this regard.

Some party members can bless weapons and give them an enchanted aura to make them hit magical creatures, but they will have best success if they find a shrine to do this at.

The specialty classes have acquired a lot more usefulness on top of their existing functionality, which really adds to the fun and the feeling you get that you are running a "party" like in traditional D&D.

I had to think about this quite a bit after the release to get it right, it was not obvious until I tried some experimentation and decided it was a much better play mechanic than what was there.

I have almost used up all the available slots for dungeon features so one of the biggest problems has been squeezing out a new slot to stick the forge and thaumaturgy workshop benches into. These are now scattered around in the game and when you find one it will be automatically marked on the map for you.

I have had to do a lot of testing for tablet hunting. Lots of debugging, logging and doublechecking to make sure the tablets can be stolen and transferred to the White Owl eventually, found by other tablet hunters, map navigation by NPCs based on their skills and missions, etc.

As soon as this is solid (this week) will issue a new update with lots of big bugs fixed and fantastic new enhancements. (Resurrected party members now recover their constitution points when they sleep) Will still be prior to manual release.

This includes the fixes for scaling of the screen and different resolutions selectable in configuration.

New Regions :

Tattletale Circus !
Ratfink Hideaway !
Tomb of Doom !
Theosophy Lodge !
Farulosonoth Fissure !
Titan Mines !
Titan Underground Lake !
Mount Periwinkle !
Periwinkle Village !
Mass Gainers Spa !
Cataclysm !
Endworld Cabin
Periwinkle Blacksmith
Periwinkle Kitchen
Periwinkle Hostel
Periwinkle Chapel
Periwinkle Library
Swamp Shack
Accursed Church
Evil Undercroft

a very rare item called the "Patron Argent." This was in the original design document in 1992 but last year with pressure from all sides to get the game out, I slashed it out (with other features now present in V2) and it was sorely missed. It provided a simple way to level up players at shrines without having the required experience points, paying instead in gold to increase your players current level

I did quite a bit of work on the turns to make them a little more intelligent after doing buffer compares of views and found a way to make them a lot smoother than they were. They now more closely resemble the "swivels" in LANDS OF LORE except ours are a little more even. I had to get rid of the configuration for steps in turns in order to assure this happens at the right speed with the right perspective.

Version Two of Grimoire is really looking SPECTACULAR! The new regions are awesome and all integrated into the existing story! Working together with the new crafting system you have added dimensions to game play mechanics that did not even exist in the first version.

Inventory workshop needs a little more tweaking, one thing I was working on today was highlighting all possible merge candidates for an item when you click on the "MERGE" button to show you what you might be able to successfully merge given the current party member's vocation and skill levels.

Extensive trials of poisoned items tested in combat, forged items, sharpened blades and enchanted weapons. All of them degrade with use in combat until they wear off. The enchanted weapons lose their aura if you kill a monster with them. All of these play mechanics have been balanced in order to make the crafts useful but not exploits.

The minigames are done now. They are short, fun, zero learning curve and add a bit of color to the Rhattu's underground gambling casino where text might have sufficed but would not have been as much fun.
 
Last edited:

Lady_Error

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I did quite a bit of work on the turns to make them a little more intelligent after doing buffer compares of views and found a way to make them a lot smoother than they were. They now more closely resemble the "swivels" in LANDS OF LORE except ours are a little more even. I had to get rid of the configuration for steps in turns in order to assure this happens at the right speed with the right perspective.

Even though I played with smooth-scrolling switched off, finally removing that graphical glitch when turning is a big incline in my book.
 

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