Game News Grimoire delayed. For one final time?

[Zarniwoop]

July, 2004: Already maligned as vapourware (before Duke Nukem Forever was even conceived), now defunct RPG site RPG Dot has a preview of Grimoire stating the game (which began development "a few years" after 1991) "is nearly finished" after "many stops, starts and re-starts".
​

Not true at all. DNF was announced in 1997.

And is that really Cleve? That just looks like a Sapien.

 

[ColCol]

I don't think it will see release, rpgs are not Cleve's strength. He should just go back building apocalypse shit and writing hate speech.

 

[evdk]

 

[Jaesun]

What? It did not come out today?

I am in complete shock that such a thing could happen.....

Guess I'll have to blow that money I saved up for this on male strippers and booze...

 

[Mortmal]

In june we will have divinity original sin release, no more time for grimoire , sorry...As for the physical rewards thats one more step to cross for cleve , he never said who would sell the digital version, steam ? gog ? you'll never have any awnser about it . I dont see him making contact with the real world and get something produced . Physical rewards shipped a little while afterwards may means a few more years if ever.

We should stop giving advertisement to him, support the good guys like styg and charles instead .

 

[you know what time it is]

 

[getter77]

I also echo the sentiment of Grimoire versus Ultimate Newcomer GOLD---I think Newcomer still has the crown in general barring any even deeper buried projects out there.

I also find myself wondering how things might've played out in an alternate universe where Cleve ended up exiling himself in Japan instead, and perhaps could've been a second coming of Henk Rogers of a sort that jumpstarted the lot of things with The Black Onyx. Cleve could've been that guy, a source for Post-Wizardry V design sensibilities carrying forward instead of V pretty well somehow being the only focal point that keeps getting built around instead of used to reach yet higher. Instead....there's the present situation.

 

[commie]

I'm glad I spent a dollar on RPG maker. I'm going to convert Grimoire to it and release it before Cleve.

 

[shiteatingnippledick]

But when it's Vault Dweller or Brian Fargo who does it, who made games that don't even have one twenieth of Grimoire's sheer size and complexity, it's you go my good man! Please please please take more time to make sure it is polished!

It makes me sick, just admit that you want to use Cleve as a whipping boy because he's a black sheep.

I think people just want to play the goddamn game before their death.

Yes it has been that long.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah that's the thing about this. This is EXACTLY the kind of game I love to play. I love turn based blobbers. It's like Cleve is the Soup Nazi.

WOULD YOU LIKE A BIG FUCKING BOWL OF DELICIOUS HOT SOUP?

Spoiler

NOT THIS YEAR! NO SOUP FOR YOU!

 

[DarKPenguiN]

Tags: Cleveland Mark Blakemore; Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar

Grimoire has been delayed... again. Some call him a charlatan, others criticise him for being a long-running fraud (at least one person we know called him a Nazi this one time), while true-believers refer to him as a messiah - struggling bravely to complete the greatest RPG ever known.

Cleveland Mark Blakemore, Developer of Grimoire​

Whatever your take on Cleveland Mark Blakemore is, there's no denying that Grimoire must be the longest in-development RPG in the entire history of the RPG industry. Started in around 1995, Grimoire was Cleve's personal take on the Wizardy series (a series which like many RPG series before it and since, kind of went to shit. You can read the full history of the series' developers, Sir-Tech - Cleve himself provides some input).

The game's system requirements reflect the by-gone era of the project's start date:

386SX Motherboard or better (Pentium 90 or better recommended)
DOS / Win 95 / NT / OS-2 / Macintosh PowerPC, 8 megs minimum, 16 megs recommended
VESA Compatible Video Card
Sound Card
Microsoft Mouse (A mouse? I think I've got one of those.)
30 megs Hard Drive Space

"Some computers may require Sci-Tech's Disk Doctor or the UniVBE drivers to assure VESA compatibility. A chipset specific mode will be available but it may not run on all cards out there. The default is VESA support, but the user will be able to configure it to run on direct video calls to the video card BIOS if his chipset is supported. This can result in speed and performance similar to Direct X or X-mode. Grimoire in chipset specific mode can attain frame rates of 24 fps on a 486. Pretty good for a pixel perfect SVGA game."​

Grimoire has been in development for so long, it's game-play style not only went out of fashion, it's gone full circle and become retro. All the while apparently being "almost near completion", as Cleve was "just working on the last 1%".

Grimoire's development history is older than the Codex itself (we were only founded in 2002). But here's a brief glimpse into its history from our own archives:

July, 2004: Already maligned as vapourware (before Duke Nukem Forever was even conceived), now defunct RPG site RPG Dot has a preview of Grimoire stating the game (which began development "a few years" after 1991) "is nearly finished" after "many stops, starts and re-starts".

September, 2004: Just a few months later, "With a few more months of scheduled testing and balancing before its release, the final product should please (and silence) all of those who said the game would never be released".

June, 2005: "world wide release of the game scheduled for October of THIS YEAR!!"

August, 2009: After years of silence, the game's website is updated from "Coming July 2009" to "Coming Fall 2009".

March, 2010: And then it was 31st March.

July, 2010: And then Fall again...

May, 2011: "I can actually finish this monster before this year is over."

October, 2012: Cleve finally realises that he should be asking for money. Despite raising $10k USD of its IndieGoGo campaigns entirely unrealistic $250,000 USD goal, we still fail to see the release of a complete game despite the campaign having, in capital letters:

COMPLETION NOT SUBJECT TO FUNDING!! THIS GAME WILL SHIP IN MAY 2013 WITH OR WITHOUT ENHANCEMENT!! A PLEDGE HERE WILL BE FULFILLED. THIS CAMPAIGN IS NOT A FUNDING FOR COMPLETION, IT IS A FUNDING FOR ENHANCEMENT!!! COMPLETION IS GUARANTEED HERE! SEE VIDEO FOR DETAILS.​

October, 2012: "scheduled for released in May 2013".

February, 2013: We make another IndieGoGo campaign, raising another $6,000 (why stop when you're on to a winning formula).

April, 2013: "Remember at the stroke of midnight, May 31st 2013 if I do not have the pledges in transit I must commit hari-kiri in the most painful and disturbing public fashion".

January, 2014: "There will be a third campaign on Indiegogo", "The NEW DATE FOR RELEASE IS MAY 31st, 2014. Sorry we missed the first one but it was because we had to add extra special helpings of incline, win and excellence to make it worth the wait."​

It's no surprise then, to learn that the game has been delayed yet again. This time, Cleve posts:

Going to release the enhanced and properly debugged super demo shortly which reflects the completed state of the game and run an IndieGoGo campaign for 30 days while testing and implementing any remaining pledges. This is in response to popular demand by at least a hundred people complaining the campaign ended before they had a chance to pledge.

Mean what I say about this third campaign. You will always be able to buy the game digital download but the manual, hint book and map will only go to pledges. Forever. Once that door shuts at the end of the third campaign those materials will become mythical artifacts like Faberge Eggs and Holy Relics of the Cross. They will never be available anywhere else.

After the third campaign ends … the game will be released, first for download by all pledges on some provider and thereafter by anyone. The manual, hint guide, map and CD ROMs will ship a little while afterwards.​

After 19 years, will this really be the third and final IndieGoGo Campaign for Grimoire? Have we truly reached the last 30 days before the game's full release is upon us?

Hah! Yeah right.

Hahahahahahaha- Holy Fuck, this is great.

I think RPG Codex should make a Kickstart campaign for a leather bound book with this entire story and reprinted forum posts and a cloth map to Australia.

I would totally donate to that shit.

Call it "The Quest for the holy Grimwah"...

 

[Turjan]

We can always count on DU to bring us the freshest non-news!

By this time, it's about Australia's honour!

 

[Gragt]

Cleve is not just a Neanderthal, he is a true prince of Nigeria.

 

[Severian Silk]

Yeah that's the thing about this. This is EXACTLY the kind of game I love to play. I love turn based blobbers. It's like Cleve is the Soup Nazi.

WOULD YOU LIKE A BIG FUCKING BOWL OF DELICIOUS HOT SOUP?

Spoiler

NOT THIS YEAR! NO SOUP FOR YOU!

No, he's just the regular type of Nazi.

 

[CyberWhale]

Saps

What is a Thal?
A miserable little pile of unkept promises.
But enough talk...
Have at you!

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Age of Decadence has been in development for ten years by multiple persons for the most part and yet you never see people following VD from thread to thread asking him WHERE IS OUR GAME??? like a bunch of deranged psychos, even though he took pre-order money for longer than Clive.

You guys are just a bunch of entitled bullies.

 

[Zarniwoop]

10 years < 19 years

 

[Severian Silk]

Age of Decadence has been in development for ten years by multiple persons for the most part and yet you never see people following VD from thread to thread asking him WHERE IS OUR GAME??? like a bunch of deranged psychos, even though he took pre-order money for longer than Clive.

You guys are just a bunch of entitled bullies.

AoD's quest teleport ruined any interest I have in the game. I have trouble finding the energy to complain.

 

[Pantalones]

Age of Decadence has been in development for ten years by multiple persons for the most part and yet you never see people following VD from thread to thread asking him WHERE IS OUR GAME??? like a bunch of deranged psychos, even though he took pre-order money for longer than Clive.

You guys are just a bunch of entitled bullies.

Cleve failed to enlist a melonhead PR agent like VD.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Age of Decadence has been in development for ten years by multiple persons for the most part and yet you never see people following VD from thread to thread asking him WHERE IS OUR GAME??? like a bunch of deranged psychos, even though he took pre-order money for longer than Clive.

You guys are just a bunch of entitled bullies.

You can't seriously compare a game that's being regularly updated on Steam Early Access and is now about 60-70% complete there with Grimoire, which only has one "superdemo" 5% or so of the full game size - about the same size this demo was back in 1997. You should improve your troll-fu, HHR-kun.

 

[Infinitron]

Vault Dweller gets people hounding him from thread to thread screaming that his game sucks.

I wish this one had survived longer: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...al-designers-vs-programmers-cage-match.85395/

 

[Pantalones]

Age of Decadence has been in development for ten years by multiple persons for the most part and yet you never see people following VD from thread to thread asking him WHERE IS OUR GAME??? like a bunch of deranged psychos, even though he took pre-order money for longer than Clive.

You guys are just a bunch of entitled bullies.

You can't seriously compare a game that's being regularly updated on Steam Early Access and is now about 60-70% complete there with Grimoire, which only has one "superdemo" 5% or so of the full game size - about the same size this demo was back in 1997. You should improve your troll-fu, HHR-kun.

You honestly think AoD is more complete? Now who needs a dose of reality?

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'm always mildly surprised that people still follow Grimoire or pay attention to the "deadlines" given. I think the game's release would be a harbinger of the end of days at this point.

 

[Night Goat]

I can't believe anyone thought it would be released today. Hey, idiots: you've been had!

If he ever actually released the game, Cleve would probably lose money - all the printing, packaging and shipping isn't free, and everyone who's going to buy the game has already done so. And why kill the goose that lays golden eggs? He can just keep panhandling on Indiegogo, and the fanboys will keep throwing money at him. After all, manboon is not a learning animal.

 

[GlutenBurger]

If he only released it digitally, only a few people will be ripped off and he wouldn't lose money. The Indiegogo campaigns are peanuts compared to the trickle of income that would be provided over time by a completed Grimoire that achieves cult status. It could easily be the type of thing people would buy on Steam with nothing more than the intention of maybe playing it one day perhaps if they got around to it if they had time, just because they think having it on their list of acquisitions makes them look hardcore.