Grimoire was my drug of choice for three months. I don't even drink coffee.
There are so many incredible memories associated with it, like Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, which I used to listen to while playing. Then there's my specific way of identifying with the party members and they many ways I made Galen persevere, and they way I used to try and sit to make the hours of gameplay bearable in the morning. It was my first blobber, and I haven't really played many video games. Grimoire is the only video game I have put 100+ hours into. I put 50 hours into N++, and that's because it was really addictive. The next three would be Bastion, Transistor and Audiosurf, around 20 hours each. Haven't really played any other video games.
I am scared of playing this video game. V3 is enticing me. I remember when 2019 started, I thought I might try out grimoire now that the blog is rip for a while. I started at the end of January and I have no idea where the next three months went. I am still reluctant to listening to the Brandenburg Concertos, because they remind me of the game. I think I put one of the concertos (the fourth, I think) on by accident back in mid-August. Suddenly my head was flooded with visions of the turn mechanism, eerie sensations that brought me closer to return, the faces of my party members and the way they walked on insane terrain and the lack of any guarantees, whether in a castle, being asked to rescue a princess, or walking in very pretty forests, or fighting aliens. I remembered the Owl and the Baby, the Kroondegraaf machine and the way I put the wind-up owl on the nest. All of this, and more, flashed at once and haunted my dreams for the next three days, even as I ate coffee out of desperation and my life started resembling something out of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" but with an amazing game made by a genial guy instead of a murderer with scissors for hands.
I was a filthy cheater, I admit it. I saved a map of Grimoire I found and consulted it for directions, and used to highlight every area that I completed using GIMP. I still have that .xcf on my desktop. I don't really have anything else on my desktop.
I remember Cleve's warning in the video, and I am sad to tell you, it came true. People started asking about me during those three months, and more than a few were genuinely surprised at me having the gall to call them friends after my cold shoulder. To be honest, I remember nothing except grimoire from those three months. As to whether that story was a warning or something in jest or just entertainment, I don't know. There's more to Cleve than meets the eye and I'll be the first to say that anyone who says he really "gets" Cleve has like a couple of shelves left to read for context.
Would I do this all over? Would I spend my time playing this video game, effectively erase three months from my life and then come whine about it on the codex where people are going to call me a r*tard just for writing this? Maybe they'll even question me thinking about the game, thinking I'm probably an insane idiot who somehow got a phone in his hands and managed to vomit gibberish. Grimoire does not haunt me anymore, but I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't take me for a five-minute (minimum!) spin in my own head whenever I am (un?)fortunate enough to think about it.
Yes, yes I would.
