I've never played past the demo. Now that I got may last "big game" out of the way (I usually have some big open world game or RPG going alongside a shorter action or strat game), I plan to rectify this. But that's not the point. The point is: even from the demo, I can say that Grimoire puts to shame what passes for dungeon crawling in 99% of games made today. It proves that most of these niggas making RPGs have never played one session of one tabletop game, or a single one of the CRPG classics. If they had, maybe, if they had a bit of a craftman's pride or the capacity to feel shame, they would not try to fob off the utterly lazy, simplistic, insulting wank on us that they do.
It's all in here. Mystery, atmosphere, foreboding, danger, surprise, riddle, puzzlement, risk, reward. The text alone provides more atmosphere, immersion, and evocation of ancient adventure than any of these phonies, these wannabe film directors and their expensive engines can muster on their best day.
I don't think I even fully explored or solved all the mysteries of the dungeon in the demo. I don't recall. But I do remember that even if I had, there was a nagging sensation that there was more, some secret passage not discovered or doorway that I walked by and either failed to notice or forgot about. That I only did enough to progress down the critical path, but ultimately the dungeon "beat" me. Comparing Grimoire to most of the rest of the field is like comparing Morrowind to the rest of Elder Scrolls. With Morrowind, after dozens of hours spread across repeated playthroughs across several years, it still feels like, even if not so, I could stumble upon something new, whether a unique weapon, a new kind of dungeon, creature, NPC, faction, spell, environment etc. In every Elder Scrolls subsequent, the sinking feeling that I had seen everything there was to see in the first 10 hours, to be repeated for all remaining hours. No more surprises or the hope of something new, something more. Of course, Morrowind isn't endlessly vast. There is a set number of types for each object, location, and sentient being. The point is it feels like there is always something more to see. I don't precisely know what makes the difference, but maybe it has something to do with the creators behind one type of game talking about desire for detailed simulation, deep systems, pen and paper games and CRPG greats like Wizardy 7, while on the other side they talk about... Call of Duty...and Jackass...
Yeah. Anyway, welcome back to proper dungeon design.
