Legend of Grimrock 2

[Vic]

I also re-installed this recently (Grimrock 2, never played the first one so far), and it's still a stupidly fun game. What shocked me though was that the download was but like 700mb, with the install in total taking but 2gigs. Sure, it's an indie game. But even a lot of indies take like 5-10 gigs these days. And Grimrock's textures don't look THAT low-res.

Never tried any custom campaigns though. It would have been great had they shipped the game with an editor to easier allow for custom tilesets. Every time I look at a community campaign, I think: I've been there before. Will give it a shot though. Apparently, there have been a few modifications since, such as this winter tileset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK258c6Bs2c

I noticed that it's games with full voice acting that usually have super high space requirements.

 

[mastroego]

I also re-installed this recently (Grimrock 2, never played the first one so far), and it's still a stupidly fun game. What shocked me though was that the download was but like 700mb, with the install in total taking but 2gigs. Sure, it's an indie game. But even a lot of indies take like 5-10 gigs these days. And Grimrock's textures don't look THAT low-res.

Never tried any custom campaigns though. It would have been great had they shipped the game with an editor to easier allow for custom tilesets. Every time I look at a community campaign, I think: I've been there before. Will give it a shot though. Apparently, there have been a few modifications since, such as this winter tileset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK258c6Bs2c

There's a mod for Grimrock 1 which is basically "Grimrock 1 Improved". That one's good. I needed to find some spoilers for it though.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Out of sheer curiosity for how autistic this "Last Adventure"-mod could go, I gave it a try.

Didn't take me long to find the answer.

"Lost City" turned Grimrock into a survival horror game with a finite amount of food and a finite economy, and therefore refocusing the the game into a race against the clock towards an eventual 'heat death'-moment where there is no more food and no more resources to acquire food. "Guardians" escalated this by adding food-crafting recipes and a deeper economy, which only kicks the can down the road. Now "Last Adventure" is here with minor improvements, and one colossal anchor to kill off this game philosophy entirely.

The minor improvements is that now the food crafting station is a portable item... but the recipes are walled off between skill tiers. No gaming the system here by saving up the low-tier food items to cook the high-tier ones! But the 'anchor' is what seals the deal, making this line of mods one of the highest-functioning autism efforts ever made.

He's added a fatigue system.

Wait/walk around for too long, and your party gets Tired, which reduces energy regeneration and cooldowns by 25%. Persist in this state long enough and you get Exhausted, which ups the penalties to 50%. Resting is the only way to get rid of these states, and you need to rest for a duration of time equivalent to how long you've been exerting yourself. If you're a good boy and rest all the way up you get the 'Well Rested'-buff which adds +25% to your energy regeneration and cooldowns... for about three minutes, at most.

This both slows the basic gameplay of the game down to a crawl and accelerates food consumption, thereby hastening the journey to the 'eat death'-moment.

This guy makes some of the most amazing Grimrock-maps I've ever seen, they're a joy to explore and play through. Why must they be contaminated with autism of this kind?!?

 

[Jasede]

Well, I haven't played them (or even finished Grimrock 2) but I imagine he loves the series and played them over and over and the more he played the better he got and now he can only feel anything if progress requires meticulous effort and planning.

 

[Whisper]

Out of sheer curiosity for how autistic this "Last Adventure"-mod could go, I gave it a try.

Didn't take me long to find the answer.

"Lost City" turned Grimrock into a survival horror game with a finite amount of food and a finite economy, and therefore refocusing the the game into a race against the clock towards an eventual 'heat death'-moment where there is no more food and no more resources to acquire food. "Guardians" escalated this by adding food-crafting recipes and a deeper economy, which only kicks the can down the road. Now "Last Adventure" is here with minor improvements, and one colossal anchor to kill off this game philosophy entirely.

The minor improvements is that now the food crafting station is a portable item... but the recipes are walled off between skill tiers. No gaming the system here by saving up the low-tier food items to cook the high-tier ones! But the 'anchor' is what seals the deal, making this line of mods one of the highest-functioning autism efforts ever made.

He's added a fatigue system.

Wait/walk around for too long, and your party gets Tired, which reduces energy regeneration and cooldowns by 25%. Persist in this state long enough and you get Exhausted, which ups the penalties to 50%. Resting is the only way to get rid of these states, and you need to rest for a duration of time equivalent to how long you've been exerting yourself. If you're a good boy and rest all the way up you get the 'Well Rested'-buff which adds +25% to your energy regeneration and cooldowns... for about three minutes, at most.

This both slows down the basic gameplay of the game down to a crawl and accelerates food consumption, thereby hastening the journey to the 'eat death'-moment.

This guy makes some of the most amazing Grimrock-maps I've ever seen, they're a joy to explore and play through. Why must they be contaminated with autism of this kind?!?

You forgot to add than currency is added (banknotes) that are more than enough to buy food in ratling town.

Oh wait, you did not play more than 3 hours needed usually to get there.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I also re-installed this recently (Grimrock 2, never played the first one so far), and it's still a stupidly fun game. What shocked me though was that the download was but like 700mb, with the install in total taking but 2gigs. Sure, it's an indie game. But even a lot of indies take like 5-10 gigs these days. And Grimrock's textures don't look THAT low-res.

It also runs extremely well on a wide range of hardware and looks great especially for a 2014 Indie title. They really did an outstanding job on the technical side and I really liked their design. Too bad that they never did a third one but it's understandable that they wanted to do something different.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You forgot to add than currency is added (banknotes) that are more than enough to buy food in ratling town.

Oh wait, you did not play more than 3 hours needed usually to get there.

Of course not, my autism has limits, unlike that of the author.

And again, unless something new has been added the banknotes only kick the can further down the road - the 'eat death'-scenario is still there.

 

[adddeed]

I also re-installed this recently (Grimrock 2, never played the first one so far), and it's still a stupidly fun game. What shocked me though was that the download was but like 700mb, with the install in total taking but 2gigs. Sure, it's an indie game. But even a lot of indies take like 5-10 gigs these days. And Grimrock's textures don't look THAT low-res.

Never tried any custom campaigns though. It would have been great had they shipped the game with an editor to easier allow for custom tilesets. Every time I look at a community campaign, I think: I've been there before. Will give it a shot though. Apparently, there have been a few modifications since, such as this winter tileset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK258c6Bs2c

First one is probably on sale for peanuts now. Highly recommended. Its way more focused and tight than Grimrock 2, and is great fun.

 

[Whisper]

You forgot to add than currency is added (banknotes) that are more than enough to buy food in ratling town.

Oh wait, you did not play more than 3 hours needed usually to get there.

Of course not, my autism has limits, unlike that of the author.

And again, unless something new has been added the banknotes only kick the can further down the road - the 'eat death'-scenario is still there.

There is base buidling aspect, that allows to build farm, fishing pool and forest groove with respawning food (fish, meat, eggs, herbs etc.) but you need invest like 4-5 hours to get there.

 

[Piotrovitz]

...

First one is probably on sale for peanuts now. Highly recommended. Its way more focused and tight than Grimrock 2, and is great fun.

Yeah, true that it's tighter, but the very limited party customization and poor itemization makes it worse than sequel.

To anyone who has some love for LoGs, I highly recommend both Vaporums - same gameplay, but in steampunk setting. Though you play with single char, there's nice variety of builds that makes things interesting. Plus the combat is harder - in LoGs you can square dance through almost everything, while in Vap fights are more hectic (limited space, multiple mobs with AoE attacks, etc)

 

[adddeed]

I bought Vaporum on the last sale looks great hopefully as good as Grimrock.
As for Grimrock 1, i didnt notice optimization or customization issues, but im not a hardcore player. Game has great atmosphere though as its all set in one dungeon as opposed to the open world of the sequel.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Both Vaporums are okay games, but worse than both LoG’s. Still recommend them for DM fans.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

"Lost City" turned Grimrock into a survival horror game with a finite amount of food and a finite economy, and therefore refocusing the the game into a race against the clock towards an eventual 'heat death'-moment where there is no more food and no more resources to acquire food.

At least the mod is pretty upfront about this; I finished it with a shit load of stored food and gems so could have easily played for a lot longer. If you don't needlessly fuck about and waste time and resources, you should be more than fine. The well designed maps and puzzles far outweighed the negative of the time limit.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Doesn't change the main gripe I have with these mods: A fundamental change was made to the base gameplay to turn the game into something it was not designed for.

Grimrock specifically allowed for fucking about and wasting time and resources, these mods do not.

Is that a detriment? Obviously yes, as many aspects of Grimrock's gameplay is based around the concept of Trial and Error, which is time-consuming. (Pointing to the save-feature as a means to circumvent this is NOT an acceptable line of reasoning for this, that's not why it's there.)

How much of a detriment is it? It just so happens that I'm replaying "Lost City" right now, so I'm about to find out.

 

[Glop_dweller]

http://www.grimrock.net/2014/04/16/a-tale-of-automaps-skill-systems-and-miscellania/

That’s it for now from us but if you’re hungry for some more Grimrock right now, you should try out One Room Round Robin 2 mod. It’s a massive mod built in collaboration by 22 master modders and they’ve really pushed the Grimrock 1 engine to its limits! Check it out!

Being one of the —core— developers for this mod, and having spent a year making it, I do heartily recommend it.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

1. Doesn't change the main gripe I have with these mods: A fundamental change was made to the base gameplay to turn the game into something it was not designed for.
2. It just so happens that I'm replaying "Lost City" right now, so I'm about to find out.

1. Eh, that's half of what modding is about. Otherwise, its just "more of the same" and there are more than enough options for that.
2. A piece of advice, in case you didn't know already. Make sure you mark every gold key you collect on your map! It's practically impossible to work out which ones you missed later without doing this, given there are a lot of them. I probably only picked up about two-thirds of the keys without getting help from a FAQ. Some of them I was able to figure out once I knew where they were (again, relies heavily on mapping the keys you have collected), others I might never have.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And I've given up on "Lost City".

The reason I decided to replay it was to answer a nagging question: Can it be completed without ever entering Livingrock, the hub-like building at the start of the mod?

My conclusion is "probably, but there's no point". What it boils down to is saving the Gear Key at the start and using it to open the portal at the top of the tower instead of going through whatever obstacles the mod placed the other Gear Key behind. But to get into the tower you need the Skull Key, and despite my best efforts I couldn't find it in this playthrough.

Because as I played more and more of "Lost City", I began to remember more and more of it from two years ago. I even dug up my old post about it and gave it a read. (Based on my recent experiences, I have updated that post with more info.) I gave up at the point when I realized that I only had Annoying Boss Fights left - and the Pyramid. IIRC the Skull Key is in the Pyramid.

But I learned a few things which puts the mod into a different light.

# On Normal-difficulty there is plenty of food, as the fights don't go on as long. Replaying the mod also cuts down on wasted time.

# Skipping on Livingrock seems to be a waste of time. Very little (if any) of the mod can be circumvented that way, and the services offered (especially the XP!) in the hub are just too useful. Finally, I spawned in a Skull Key and ran up to the top, unlocked the portal and... didn't get a special ending like I'd expected. So much for that.

# "Lost City" when compared to "Guardians" and "Final Adventure" is surprisingly little modded or altered. There are a couple of new spells, a few monsters imported from LoG1, and then the services provided in Livingrock. Otherwise it's pretty much vanilla LoG2.

# A huge oversight on my half: The author of these mods has a fourth Grimrock-mod under his belt: "Forbidden Halls" for LoG1 - one of my all-time favorite mods from that game. Terms and locations from there re-appear in his newer mods.

Will I play "Guardians" again? I don't think so. I'm gonna hold off on "Final Adventure" until the final version is released, at least.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I do have one bit of good news: There's a neat mod out there which upscales the UI to match modern-day resolutions. Now the inventory window takes up half the screen as it should, allowing people to see it properly.

The downside? It seems you can only use it on the Steam-version of Grimrock 2, as it requires a 'secret' beta-mode of the game only available there.

Get it here from NexusMods. Full installation instructions are provided.

 

[luj1]

Master Quest is the best mod for either game

Master Quest > Grimrock 1 > Grimrock 2

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Leaving my original post unaltered, because - turns I was wrong. Someone pointed out to me where the Skull Key was, and with that revelation I can say that there IS a fifth way to beat the "Lost City"-mod.

The Skull Key, needed to access the tower, is found on the ground floor of the tower - which is accessed from the Mausoleum below. It's the stairs up in the room with the Fire Guardian.

Once upstairs, unlock the chest there (a lock pick is in the Fire Guardian's room) and you can now enter the tower proper. Once there it's just a matter of solving the puzzles as you ascend, and then you can unlock the portal and end the game.

This fifth ending allows you to skip going after the Essences, which means a few annoying boss battles can be avoided. More importantly though, the Pyramid can be skipped in its entirety. Sure, this is a cheap way to beat the mod... but it's a valid one.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

I assume you still need all the gold keys for this? If so, the sheer amount of extra walking around involved would put me off doing this except as an immediate second playthrough (which I was in no way interested in).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Uhh, no. You don't need a single Gold Key in fact, and you only need a handful of gems to progress/unlock secrets.

Because despite everything you still get the "You escaped with a lot of loot, but no elixir"-message by doing this, which is the 'worst' possible ending.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Oh right, there are multiple endings... Duh.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

With renewed interest I made my way through the "Lost City"-mod to the end, with the Elixir in hand. I've updated my old "Lost City"-review post with updated info.

To date, this mod is the best one I can recommend for Grimrock 2, because of how little it strays from vanilla gameplay, at least compared to the later mods in the series. "Guardians" strays too far into new territories, but is still highly enjoyable. No comment yet on "Final Adventure".

 

[Covenant]

I don't tend to dip into mods very much, but this thread made Lost City and Guardians sound pretty appealing (and LoG 2 was one of the best games I've played in the past few years) so I decided to try out Lost City and I've just beaten it. I was hugely impressed with the quality. There were plenty of puzzles that would have been standouts among the base game, let alone for a mod, and the level and encounter design was top notch, bar some issues that cropped up in the lategame with bosses and pseudo-bosses.

I can see where issues with resource scarcity could crop up if you're playing on hard, but it worked out quite well on normal. Luckily you get quite a huge bump of resources on the last couple of maps, because I used a ridiculous amount of potions and about six healing crystal shards fighting the last boss. The biggest problem I had was that I'd frequently get injuries, even when barely damaged, so it burned up a lot of healing potions. The injury system was something I never really liked in the original game; I want to use a healing potion because I'm in a fight where I'm scared I might die, not just because I unavoidably had to walk off medium drop and two of my guys wounded their feet.

If you're going to play it, I'd suggest keeping a brief note of how many secrets you've currently found on each map. I also wouldn't recommend using the 'only save once per save crystal' option if you're going to take a crack at it; the original campaign is well-balanced for it, but there's only 6 or so save crystals in the mod so it doesn't really work out. Plus as has been previously mentioned, there are a lot of traps with no warning given, so it doesn't work great with ironman, though it is doable.

Going to try Guardians next, but in terms of party composition, should I just ditch light weapons entirely? In both LoG 2 and Lost City my light weapons guys have trailed behind my heavy weapons user, and it feels like all the best weapons in the game are heavy weapons.