Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest - turn-based isometric RPG from Grimrock devs

[Abu Antar]

How was the soundtracks of their previous games?

 

[Darth Roxor]

i wanted to write 'brb writing positive review' however

third mission is an escort mission

needless to say, it fucking sucks

and on top of that, a secondary objective with a big reward is bugged

tl;dr of mishun - guide retardo npc out of the combat zone while you're chased by two stronk basilisks

secondary objective - 'kill one basilisk'

i tried that mishun twice, "killing one basilisk" twice, and it didn't trigger either time

wanna bet you are supposed to kill a SPECIFIC ONE of the two for this to trigger?

 

[OldNorseSaga]

wait, are you beta player or what?

 

[Shadenuat]

just say what is this game reminds you of and is it fun or not

 

[Darth Roxor]

just say what is this game reminds you of and is it fun or not

after four 'missions' i am unable to answer either question

but it's got lots of annoying shit, that i can say with confidence for the moment

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Petri]

Darth Roxor: Relax, the bug in the pre-release version is fixed in the release version + lots of other tweaks.

 

[biggestboss]

after four 'missions' i am unable to answer either question

but it's got lots of annoying shit, that i can say with confidence for the moment

More info please, this game interests me greatly but I would love to hear anything from hands on experience - positive or negative.

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Darth Roxor]

More info please.

Keep in mind that this is only four fights in (though they tend to be pretty long, especially if you try to achieve all side objectives), so this is still extremely early impressions, but tl;dr I have a hard time actually calling it an rpg, because it's more like a puzzle game disguised as turn-based tactics. You know the drill - fixed damage for everything, abilities that can be used only X time a fight, no to hit rolls, etc. And then the mishuns themselves have "involved objectives" (tm) such as "light 3 beacons around the map on fire", "escort dumb npc to the edge of the map", "smack 3 stationary cysts of eevil".

What bothers me greatly though is the insane overuse of what I'd call "soft timers" (reminder again: extremely early impressions, but it's happened in all the missions so far so). Because when you go with terrible design (i.e. full determinism) it requires you to adopt bandaids to compensate and have the whole thing not fall apart and really turn into a puzzle game. So the fights employ:

- Big Countdowns of Doom (TM): At the beginning you are notified that in X turns BAD THINGS will happen. But you are in the dark as to what these BAD THINGS will be - one time it was a sudden deep strike of daemonz, another it was freezing vynter that made all my dudes lose 1 hp/turn.
- Monsters teleporting in from out of nowhere. At fixed turns "teleport markers" will appear in fixed places in a level, signifying that munsters will spawn there next turn. What annoys me about this is that everything is completely out of the blue. You don't know when the munsters are gonna spawn, you don't know what munsters are gonna spawn, and you don't know where the munsters are gonna spawn. It's just seemingly random dudes deep striking in random places at random intervals. You could at least add some sort of visual cues to the maps to give you any idea about all that shit without telling it outright - even doing as little as having them spawn at paths or caves or graves or whatever the hell would help, but they just teleport into the middle of nowhere.
- Munsters that spawn out of nowhere but this time with no telegraphing whatsoever.

For example that "light 3 bacons" map had all of the above - first you get the freezing vynter counter of doom. Then teleport markers start appearing. And some 2 turns before the mysterious counter expires, suddenly a big mob of skellingtons appears across the map led by a stronk dark knight.

Also that escort mission was total ass and I hope it was the only one to be had in this game.

There are also various other weirdo things, like chests with one-time boosts available only for a particular map - but the boosts inside are random. Or the fact that killed monsters can drop powerups like +1 hp or action refresh, which feels almost arcadey.



One thing that is a godsend though is the convenient 'undo move' button. If you missclick a guy's movement or put him someplace that turns out not to have the right line of sight for your abilities, undo move will put you back in your original place, no strings attached. It might be the only element so far that I can praise with full confidence :/

 

[PrettyDeadman]

More info please.

Keep in mind that this is only four fights in (though they tend to be pretty long, especially if you try to achieve all side objectives), so this is still extremely early impressions, but tl;dr I have a hard time actually calling it an rpg, because it's more like a puzzle game disguised as turn-based tactics. You know the drill - fixed damage for everything, abilities that can be used only X time a fight, no to hit rolls, etc. And then the mishuns themselves have "involved objectives" (tm) such as "light 3 beacons around the map on fire", "escort dumb npc to the edge of the map", "smack 3 stationary cysts of eevil".

What bothers me greatly though is the insane overuse of what I'd call "soft timers" (reminder again: extremely early impressions, but it's happened in all the missions so far so). Because when you go with terrible design (i.e. full determinism) it requires you to adopt bandaids to compensate and have the whole thing not fall apart and really turn into a puzzle game. So the fights employ:

- Big Countdowns of Doom (TM): At the beginning you are notified that in X turns BAD THINGS will happen. But you are in the dark as to what these BAD THINGS will be - one time it was a sudden deep strike of daemonz, another it was freezing vynter that made all my dudes lose 1 hp/turn.
- Monsters teleporting in from out of nowhere. At fixed turns "teleport markers" will appear in fixed places in a level, signifying that munsters will spawn there next turn. What annoys me about this is that everything is completely out of the blue. You don't know when the munsters are gonna spawn, you don't know what munsters are gonna spawn, and you don't know where the munsters are gonna spawn. It's just seemingly random dudes deep striking in random places at random intervals. You could at least add some sort of visual cues to the maps to give you any idea about all that shit without telling it outright - even doing as little as having them spawn at paths or caves or graves or whatever the hell would help, but they just teleport into the middle of nowhere.
- Munsters that spawn out of nowhere but this time with no telegraphing whatsoever.

For example that "light 3 bacons" map had all of the above - first you get the freezing vynter counter of doom. Then teleport markers start appearing. And some 2 turns before the mysterious counter expires, suddenly a big mob of skellingtons appears across the map led by a stronk dark knight.

Also that escort mission was total ass and I hope it was the only one to be had in this game.

There are also various other weirdo things, like chests with one-time boosts available only for a particular map - but the boosts inside are random. Or the fact that killed monsters can drop powerups like +1 hp or action refresh, which feels almost arcadey.



One thing that is a godsend though is the convenient 'undo move' button. If you missclick a guy's movement or put him someplace that turns out not to have the right line of sight for your abilities, undo move will put you back in your original place, no strings attached. It might be the only element so far that I can praise with full confidence :/

Sounds terrible.

 

[Quantomas]

More info please.

Keep in mind that this is only four fights in (though they tend to be pretty long, especially if you try to achieve all side objectives), so this is still extremely early impressions, but tl;dr I have a hard time actually calling it an rpg, because it's more like a puzzle game disguised as turn-based tactics. You know the drill - fixed damage for everything, abilities that can be used only X time a fight, no to hit rolls, etc. And then the mishuns themselves have "involved objectives" (tm) such as "light 3 beacons around the map on fire", "escort dumb npc to the edge of the map", "smack 3 stationary cysts of eevil".

What bothers me greatly though is the insane overuse of what I'd call "soft timers" (reminder again: extremely early impressions, but it's happened in all the missions so far so). Because when you go with terrible design (i.e. full determinism) it requires you to adopt bandaids to compensate and have the whole thing not fall apart and really turn into a puzzle game. So the fights employ:

- Big Countdowns of Doom (TM): At the beginning you are notified that in X turns BAD THINGS will happen. But you are in the dark as to what these BAD THINGS will be - one time it was a sudden deep strike of daemonz, another it was freezing vynter that made all my dudes lose 1 hp/turn.
- Monsters teleporting in from out of nowhere. At fixed turns "teleport markers" will appear in fixed places in a level, signifying that munsters will spawn there next turn. What annoys me about this is that everything is completely out of the blue. You don't know when the munsters are gonna spawn, you don't know what munsters are gonna spawn, and you don't know where the munsters are gonna spawn. It's just seemingly random dudes deep striking in random places at random intervals. You could at least add some sort of visual cues to the maps to give you any idea about all that shit without telling it outright - even doing as little as having them spawn at paths or caves or graves or whatever the hell would help, but they just teleport into the middle of nowhere.
- Munsters that spawn out of nowhere but this time with no telegraphing whatsoever.

For example that "light 3 bacons" map had all of the above - first you get the freezing vynter counter of doom. Then teleport markers start appearing. And some 2 turns before the mysterious counter expires, suddenly a big mob of skellingtons appears across the map led by a stronk dark knight.

Also that escort mission was total ass and I hope it was the only one to be had in this game.

There are also various other weirdo things, like chests with one-time boosts available only for a particular map - but the boosts inside are random. Or the fact that killed monsters can drop powerups like +1 hp or action refresh, which feels almost arcadey.



One thing that is a godsend though is the convenient 'undo move' button. If you missclick a guy's movement or put him someplace that turns out not to have the right line of sight for your abilities, undo move will put you back in your original place, no strings attached. It might be the only element so far that I can praise with full confidence :/

It's insane to plonk down a turn-based AI in half a year if you haven't done it before. What you describe are typical issues with the balance being completely off and gameplay elements being added to compensate for it. Every time I have seen a dev trying this it ended badly. So sad.

And I can't remember any good escort mission. Who can?

 

[Infinitron]

Darth Roxor: Relax, the bug in the pre-release version is fixed in the release version + lots of other tweaks.

Hi Petri.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-legend-...ck-with-a-new-tabletop-inspired-tactical-rpg/

The Legend of Grimrock devs are back with Druidstone, a new tabletop-inspired tactical RPG
Druidstone: The Secret of Menhir Forest is out on May 15, and we talked to its creators about moving on from Grimrock.

I was surrounded on all sides. I'd managed to rescue the prisoner, but now we had to fight our way back out of the dungeon. Reinforcements poured in from the south, so I sent my beleaguered party north. When we made it to a room with pressure plates and fireball-spewing statues, more reinforcements spawned at the entrance and quickly closed in.

What followed was a harrowing, tense turn, as I carefully positioned my warden for a whirlwind strike, blasted out a fireball with my acolyte, and tried to figure out what I could do with a useless unarmed prisoner. That’s when I remembered the pressure plates, and smiled as I noticed the bad guys were standing pretty close to those statues. He may have been unarmed, but his legs were working just fine.

That wasn't the first dungeon escapade I just barely scraped through in Druidstone: The Secret of Menhir Forest, a new tactical RPG from the creators of Legend of Grimrock. Druidstone is out on May 15, and though it's not a first-person, grid-based dungeon crawler, it shares much of the DNA that made the Grimrock games so good. The lush fantasy art style, stirring orchestral soundtrack, and carefully balanced level design all survived the transition to a strategic top-down RPG.

The Legend of Druidstone
For Druidstone to be born, The Legend of Gimrock had to die. Or at least be shelved for the time being.

"Grimrock 1 and 2 took over four years to make, and we poured our hearts and souls into those games," says Juho Salila, art director for Druidstone and the Grimrock series. "It would be a massive task to make Grimrock 3 and improve the game as Grimrock 2 improved Grimrock 1. We needed a break from that world." The team at Almost Human began to break up, with many developers moving on to other projects.

"At some point Petri [Häkkinen, designer and programmer on Druidstone and the Grimrock series] and I started talking about prototyping games just for fun," says Salila. "After doing several prototypes it got more serious and we started a new company [Ctrl Alt Ninja] to make Druidstone. We didn’t feel the pressure of doing another Grimrock game with the new company."

The Grimrock games sold well enough to help fund the development of Druidstone. As with Grimrock the developers avoided Early Access, and crowdfunding remains difficult in Finland. "We were also not that keen on the overhead caused by the crowdfunding process," says Salila. "We want to make games, not post t-shirts and stickers all over the world."

During Druidstone’s early stages the gameplay evolved substantially. The biggest change: Every level was once procedurally generated. "We really wanted to make the game work with procedurally generated levels," says Häkkinen."I guess we fell into the old ‘Hey, let’s make a level generator and we don’t need to do any level design’ trap. But it didn’t mesh with the compact game design. At one point we made a single level in a few hours and it was more fun than any of the generated levels."

"It’s a lot harder to make the levels look good if everything is randomly generated," says Salila. "We also found that we could actually make more variation in gameplay tactics if the levels were hand-made."

Clever level design helped make the Grimrock series so memorable, with deviously hidden traps and head-scratching puzzles. While Druidstone lacks dungeon crawling exploration, many of Grimrock’s classic dungeon elements, such as levers revealing hidden rooms, pressure plates activating traps, and surprise enemies spawning in at the worst moments, are included in abundance. "We wanted to make the dungeon levels look and feel like Grimrock—that’s how we like our dungeons," says Häkkinen.

Although the art style is similar, Druidstone takes place in a different fantasy universe than Grimrock, including a different tone. The writing in the Grimrock games was mostly limited to scribbled notes, but Druidstone features numerous cutscenes between my small party of heroes, the druids we work for, and the red priests we fight against.

Dialogue is quick, snappy, and delightfully funny, particularly from the motor-mouthed pint-sized mage, Oiko. "Whereas Gimrock is dark and gloomy, Druidstone is more light-hearted, with some really fantastic creatures like the Shido," says Häkkinen. "I like to think that both worlds are connected in an overarching meta-universe. Both games have themes of other worlds and links between them."

Tabletop Roots
While Grimrock was clearly inspired by classic grid-based dungeon crawlers, Druidstone owes much of its tactical gameplay to tabletop RPGs and board games, such as Dungeons & Dragons and HeroQuest. "We are avid board game players and Druidstone is certainly inspired by many of them," says Häkkinen. "We really like the compactness of board games, the small numbers, and the emergent complexity that arises from the seemingly simple rules."

As a big fan of Gloomhaven, a popular tactical RPG board game, I was delighted to see some major similarities in Druidstone. Each of my three party members have basic attacks and special abilities and spells they can perform a limited number of times each battle, not unlike the per-rest abilities in D&D or loss cards in Gloomhaven. The warden’s whirlwind strike hits all adjacent enemies, but figuring out when to expel its only use is often an agonizing decision.

"I heard about Gloomhaven only a few months ago and immediately knew I had to get it," says Häkkinen. "It’s interesting to see how completely separate design processes have ended up with a result that in some ways resemble each other very much. I was reading [Gloomhaven designer] Isaac Childres’ blog the other day and he mentioned Grimrock as one of his inspirations. Now the circle is complete!"

As my Druidstone party levels up they gain new abilities, and I can use gems earned from completing objectives to enhance those abilities. Gems can boost damage, add status effects, or increase the number of uses per battle. This intuitive and swappable upgrade system works similarly to Into the Breach, which is exactly by design.

"Into the Breach is a true masterpiece, and one of the more recent games I’ve enjoyed," says Häkkinen. "The undo last move feature in Druidstone is directly inspired by Into the Breach." Furthermore the scout hero Aava has the ability to rewind time, letting me fix some of my poorer decisions—let's call them experiments. It's a welcoming feature in a game that doesn’t allow you to save scum your way through a fight.

While I’m a little disappointed that I’m not playing The Legend of Grimrock 3, I’m satisfied that the minds behind one of my favorite indie series are good at more than just first-person dungeon crawling. Druidstone is a triumph of great game design, pulling in the best elements of many tactical board and video games, along with the developers’ signature levels of art, writing, and polish, and a post-launch level editor should help extend its life even further. Says Häkkinen: "We hope people enjoy Druidstone and we can keep doing what we love."

 

[Darth Roxor]

And I can't remember any good escort mission. Who can?

I think escort missions can be at least fine if you're given full control of the escortee.

But here, the escortee is an uncontrollable NPC who refuses to move on his own. The only way of having him haul his stupid ass forward is to make one of your characters waste his action for the turn and "whistle" at him to make him move 3 squares towards the whistling character. It's really bad.

 

[vortex]

The best way to deal with escortee missions is to make escortee part of NPC rooster and then turn in the quest when the time comes. Player can choose whether escortee NPC stays or leaves the party.

Darth Roxor did you learn about the secret of Menhir Forest ? (If this doesn't break your NDA)

 

[Darth Roxor]

@Darth Roxor did you learn about the secret of Menhir Forest ? (If this doesn't break your NDA)

it is the mystery

Spoiler

of the druids

 

[vortex]

 

[sebas]

I think escort missions can be at least fine if you're given full control of the escortee.

Yeah, nuXCOM missions were OK because you could totally control the helpless NPC. Battle Bros missions are also OK because you don't care what happens to the NPCs, only your bros.

 

[biggestboss]

Hmm, the determinism of the mechanics reminds me greatly of that Mario vs. Rabbids XCOM game on the Switch. That game is a guilty pleasure of mine so I think I'll still pick this up, although I will admit that at least that game was marketed to its proper audience: 12 year olds.

 

[Infinitron]

Released:


https://af.gog.com/game/druidstone_the_secret_of_the_menhir_forest?as=1649904300

Official gameplay video:

 

[cvv]

Goitta say, from the video vortex posted the game looks much better than Rox' early impreshuns. Ok, I will pick it up altho jumping in this childish visuals and writing after just completing an epic 200 hours Witcher 3 run gonna feel like a hit in the nuts.

 

[toro]

i wanted to write 'brb writing positive review' however

third mission is an escort mission

needless to say, it fucking sucks

and on top of that, a secondary objective with a big reward is bugged

tl;dr of mishun - guide retardo npc out of the combat zone while you're chased by two stronk basilisks

secondary objective - 'kill one basilisk'

i tried that mishun twice, "killing one basilisk" twice, and it didn't trigger either time

wanna bet you are supposed to kill a SPECIFIC ONE of the two for this to trigger?

thanks

i will pass this one

 

[Infinitron]

This is the only review I can find right now: https://www.indiegamewebsite.com/2019/05/15/druidstone-the-secret-of-the-menhir-forest-review/

Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest Review
From a grim rock to a druid’s stone.

Following 2014’s Legend of Grimrock 2, Almost Human disbanded and reformed as Ctrl Alt Ninja. The talent behind the fantastic dungeon-crawler RPG series returns with a challenging tactical RPG in the vein of Divinity: Original Sin. Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest marks a significant departure for the team, whilst also remaining somewhat familiar. The essential fantasy setting is here, but the experience is a much more combat-focused affair.

The setup is pretty straightforward: the Warden – a supposed protector of the forest – hatches from a cocoon. Unsure of his identity and surroundings, he must work together with his newfound companions to slay an evil sorceress and stop a maniacal cult called the Red Priests. It’s a pretty standard fantasy affair, but the breezy tone helps keep things interesting. The writing is brief but sharp, making it all the more disappointing that it isn’t voiced.

Druidstone’s turn-based combat is challenging and rewarding. It’s grid-based, granting you control of three very different characters. You progress through the story by tackling missions from a world map. These stages are brief and tight, each providing a unique challenge. Most are combat-oriented, but a handful of puzzle-focused scenarios are present to offer a nice change of pace.

Operating on a dual Action Point (AP) system – with one pool for one movement and another for action – the combat lets you be fairly mobile. You can attack and move freely within a turn, allowing for more versatile approaches. It creates opportunities to play dangerously, presenting exciting situations like moving to a compromising position, attacking a foe, and then diving to cover. Every counter is tense and dynamic and it’s often hard to predict where a fight will end up.

Druidstone is a hugely demanding game. It’s tough, unforgiving, and demands a lot of focus. The odds are nearly always stacked against you. You’re constantly outnumbered and many stages will continue to send enemies your way if you take too long. Most of the time, it’s pretty unfair. You’ll have to stay on your toes to survive.

Druidstone is about efficiency. It’s about pulling off the cleanest and most carefully planned turn. Fights won’t last long if you rush in head-first. The bonus objectives found in each mission only further emphasize this fact. These optional quests offer enticing rewards for accomplishing tricky feats, like acquiring every chest in the level or suffering no casualties. Chasing these challenges and discovering the optimal way through a mission is immensely satisfying. It turns the flow of combat into a deeply engrossing and complex game of chess, where one wrong move could mean the end.

Some bonus objectives unlock new items in the shop accessible between missions, whilst others provide money or gems – essentially, skill points. They’re fun to go after and serve to highlight Druidstone’s tight level design. The added replayability of nailing every bonus objective can make Druidstone quite a lengthy experience.

Attaining 100% in a mission requires near flawless execution. There’s a tense avalanche effect that comes with screwing up. One mistake can have disastrous consequences. Mastering a mission can take many attempts, and you’ll know the level inside-out by the time you nail it. It’s very rewarding to finally conquer a challenge that’s been giving you a hard time.

The combat flows at a snappy pace, thanks to the hastened speed of animations. Heroes and enemies zip around the battlefield at a frankly ridiculous speed. It means you’ll never be sat around for five minutes watching a group of enemies slowly take their turns. Throwing out commands is also quick and easy, allowing you to race through the nitty gritty and focus on the bigger picture of your combat strategy.

Characters each have their own progression of levels, gear, and abilities. Equipment and abilities can be customized and upgraded in-between missions. Gold buys you shiny new gear, whilst abilities are acquired as you level up. Upgrades may feel minor at first, but they make a big difference. There’s a satisfying power curve throughout the story, making you genuinely feel stronger and more capable the more you play.

Gems are the most important part of your customization, however. Gems earned during missions allow you to enhance abilities and equipment. They’re a finite resource, and each one is a valuable prize, so where you choose to slot them is critical. They’re also shared across your party, so you’ll want to be sure to spread them out evenly.

Gems aren’t consumed when slotted. They can be mixed and matched and moved about however you like. The more potent upgrades require multiple gems, whilst others increase in potency or quantity depending on how many gems are slotted into it. It’s a neat system that creates a lot of depth and versatility.

Aesthetically, Druidstone is quaint. Pretty speech bubbles appear before and after battles, providing context and establishing a light-hearted tone. The art is colorful and vibrant, with varied environments and high-quality monster designs. Meanwhile, a fun and jaunty soundtrack accompanies the action, evoking plenty of fantastical vibes and occasionally dipping into Final Fantasy territory with wild boss music. It all comes together to form a charming and endearing package.

Ultimately, Druidstone is a challenging and rewarding tactical-RPG with plenty of charm to keep it engaging in-between brutally tough encounters. It can border on unfair at times, but the steady stream of progression and versatile combat ensures it remains satisfying. Ctrl Alt Ninja clearly demonstrates their development expertise with this finely tuned and tightly crafted adventure that’ll have you brainstorming turns for hours.

[Reviewed on PC]



8/10

 

[Quantomas]

From the official gameplay video of that escort mission and what Darth Roxor said, I reckon it's not tactical in the sense of you know-what-you-do but rather trial and error and do your best to improvise. Can be fun and maybe they get away with mismarketing it because people will talk about the game. How it is received may depend on the initial batch of Steam user reviews. I like it. It's an adventure that throws things at you.

 

[Darth Roxor]

played a bit more having kooled off from escort mission fureh, and well

i think it's growing on me - calling it a glorified puzzle game was perhaps too harsh because all in all the maps are big enough to allow for multiple ways to accomplish things, and the way you upgrade the abilities of your dudes or what new ones you pick at level up can have a fairly big influence on your approach, and ultimately this can end up being *shudder* fun

in that intervioo above they say it's supposed to feel like a board game, and i guess that's the closest approximation indeed - the mechanics are dead simple but mixing and matching the small things and then using them effectively is what counts

the "gotcha!" moments are still bullshit annoying though, and i think each time they happened so far, they forced me to restart the level, because munsters would pop up right in the middle of my squishy dudes and fuck me completely - and while you should be expecting to restart things when playing on hard, this is still bullshit, because it doesn't feel like it's your fault that made you screw up and restart