Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar

[Morkar Left]

And by the way guys, the way you react to Felipepe’s review is an indictment of why the genre is dying. You think that players have to figure it our all the mechanics by themselves without any input from the developers, and then expect that new players would be interested in these games. You need to teach a new generation to appreciate these games. If you keep insisting on this delusional attitude that basic things such as manual and good UI are handholding, the genre will die with you. You keep patching yourselves in the back and telling how hardcore you all are, while everyone else ignore your existence. It's your fucking fault.

The retro blobber genre was never meant to be accessible. And no one expects new players to be interested in these games.

Yeah, that's why Legends of Grimrock sold poorly... New people would be interested if developers wouldn't just copy the old formulars of 30 year old game concepts but instead start to improve on them (and not just providing better gfx at most).

 

[Excidium II]

Can somebody explain their definition of balance in the context of this thread. Because having easy and hard encounters in the same area is not a balance problem. A balance problem is something like a class being completely outclassed by another in the same role that isn't harder to qualify to.

 

[Andhaira]

Infinitron Any idea of sales figures for Grimoire at this point in time?

Owners: 4,384 ± 1,870

So Cleveland Mark Blakemore made nearly $200k thus far? Great work Cleve, you weren't too far off your predictions when you made your first Indiegogo pitch after all.

 

[V_K]

Funny how felipepepe's experience with Grimoire mirrors crpgaddict's experience with Fate: Gates of Dawn - down to the reccomendation to only play the first act.

 

[felipepepe]

But did you use the spells and prebuffs? Those tactics are there to give you a chance to win those fights without cheesing and from your screens you rarely used those or specifically used the diplomacy option to get though those areas

In most cases the only pre-buff that makes any difference is Amorplate to buff armor, so that insta-kill attacks are harder to hit & penetrate. And honestly, I'm not really sure the spell actually WORKS - the numbers on character's equipment screen don't change when you cast it. There's also Magic Screen when dealing with those fucking fairies, but that's basically it.

Also, what diplomacy options? lol

But here, I made a cool little video to prove just what a thinking man's game Grimoire truly is. This is me kinda-soloing the game's supposedly most difficult optional boss - the final beast on its own "Hall of Gorrors" - on SuperHero difficulty. With no buffs. At Lv 9.



I say "kinda-soloing" because this wonderful hardcore masterpiece of the olden days apparently doesn't support soloing. Going into battle with just one character led to a Game Over screen - BEFORE THE COMBAT EVEN BEGAN!

 

[luj1]

In this type of game (retro blobber) balance and accessibility are non-issues. That's why 60% of this review is pointless.

 

[Mynon]

Funny how felipepepe's experience with Grimoire mirrors crpgaddict's experience with Fate: Gates of Dawn - down to the reccomendation to only play the first act.

Great minds think alike.

 

[Nyast]

And by the way guys, the way you react to Felipepe’s review is an indictment of why the genre is dying. You think that players have to figure it our all the mechanics by themselves without any input from the developers, and then expect that new players would be interested in these games. You need to teach a new generation to appreciate these games. If you keep insisting on this delusional attitude that basic things such as manual and good UI are handholding, the genre will die with you. You keep patching yourselves in the back and telling how hardcore you all are, while everyone else ignore your existence. It's your fucking fault.

The retro blobber genre was never meant to be accessible. And no one expects new players to be interested in these games.

Yeah, that's why Legends of Grimrock sold poorly... New people would be interested if developers wouldn't just copy the old formulars of 30 year old game concepts but instead start to improve on them (and not just providing better gfx at most).

LoG sold poorly ? Really ? Were you expecting GTA V numbers ? For an indy, non-AAA game it actually did surprisingly well. And recouped its development costs by an order of magnitude, which is all that matters for a few people company anyways.

Besides lots of new people were brought by LoG, that had never played a grid based blobber before.

 

[Mynon]

LoG sold well enough on account of novelty. Sequel sold poorly tho.

 

[Lurker King]

Can somebody explain their definition of balance in the context of this thread. Because having easy and hard encounters in the same area is not a balance problem. A balance problem is something like a class being completely outclassed by another in the same role that isn't harder to qualify to.

Another example is the lack of coherence in distribution of xps. This is not lack of balance, but bad design.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

At least after reading this I know where felipepe's biggest anal pain comes from. He can't live with the injustice that Cleve charges 40 bucks for his game while his precious weaboo crap is being sold for the same price as a six-pack of toilet paper.

Try the superdemo, it's free ! herp derp

Elminage Gothic is not a weaboo game thought. I'd appreciate it if people would stop calling in that. It has no weeb-appeal, sold 9k copies, and got mixed ratings and Stema. Proper weeb games always loved by players and sell much more than that. You might just as well call Grimoire a AAA+ title.

It's a simplistic snorefest with animu graphics, what do you want me to call it if not weaboo crap ?

INB4 an Administrator posts another picture of a boring maze like map and tells me that the game is super complex.

It's as much as a weeb game as Fallout 3 is a proper Fallout game. Sure it has whole two things associated with the genre (powered armour and "war never changes" in case of Fallout 3, and can fool somehow who had never played weeb/Fallout game before, but it's not enough.
For a game to be a proper weeb game it has to (amongst other things):
-take place in high school or failing that feature mostly teenage cast (no, being technically able to make a custom party consisting just of teenagers doesn't count)
-have cutesy animu graphics - cutesy is crucial, again Elminage Gothic "sortof looking like something that might've been in some anime" doesn't count
-pander to weebs
-use at least 10+ tropes exclusively associated with anime/manga/LN/VN/whatever
-have at least one "waifu" character
If anything Elminage is a reverse-weeb game. A bunch of Japanese people trying to make the most western game they possibly can. Also, weebs simply aren't interested in it.The only place I've seen people talking about it is RPG Codex.

 

[Dorateen]

The next time you bitch that we don’t have nice things anymore

We do have nice things.

We have Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar.

 

[Tigranes]

Frankly I don't understand why CC in RPGs needs to be binary - either it works completely or it is resisted completely.

Why to not have partial successes? Strong enemies could simply shrug the effect off in 1-5 turns, giving the party some time to recover. Sleep once, boss wakes up, boss is immune to further sleep.

If you applied this approach to Grimoire, a lot of the fights would be easier to balance.

Did you just describe Pillars of Eternity

 

[Morkar Left]

LoG sold poorly ? Really ? Were you expecting GTA V numbers ? For an indy, non-AAA game it actually did surprisingly well. And recouped its development costs by an order of magnitude, which is all that matters for a few people company anyways.
Besides lots of new people were brought by LoG, that had never played a grid based blobber before.

That was ironic... LoG proves my point that new gamers are interested in oldschool games if presented nicely. The second game flopped because they didn't step out of the Dungeon Master basic design school and ultimately delivered nothing new to the genre (e.g. npcs. dialog system, open world etc.)

 

[Haba]

Did you just describe Pillars of Eternity

I don't think I used the words "boring" and "shit" anywhere, now did I?

 

[Nyast]

LoG sold well enough on account of novelty. Sequel sold poorly tho.

Again, how do you define "poorly" ? When you sell 400K copies, at an average price of $15 ( more at release, less in time in sales/bundles ), then deduct steam's fee, then deduct income taxes, you still have like $3M in profits. For a ~4-men company ( http://www.grimrock.net/2011/07/14/the-almost-human-team/ ) you've already got a decade of funding at more than a competitive industry salary. My point is that how well or poorly a game sells depends on how expensive it was to develop and how big of a company it needs to support. It'd do poorly if 30 people worked on the game for 2 years, but for just a bunch of few people it's still more than profitable.

But yeah, if you look at absolute numbers, it didn't sell millions. If you just judge it based on absolute numbers, I guess I agree it sold poorly.

 

[V_K]

The second game flopped because they didn't step out of the Dungeon Master basic design school and ultimately delivered nothing new to the genre (e.g. npcs. dialog system, open world etc.)

Only a) it didn't flop, it sold about half the number of copies of the first one, while having almost double the price tag, and b) it did have an open world.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

LoG sold poorly ? Really ? Were you expecting GTA V numbers ? For an indy, non-AAA game it actually did surprisingly well. And recouped its development costs by an order of magnitude, which is all that matters for a few people company anyways.
Besides lots of new people were brought by LoG, that had never played a grid based blobber before.

That was ironic... LoG proves my point that new gamers are interested in oldschool games if presented nicely. The second game flopped because they didn't step out of the Dungeon Master basic design school and ultimately delivered nothing new to the genre (e.g. npcs. dialog system, open world etc.)

I wouldn't say that the second one flopped. It sold almost 400k copies on Stem alone. Yeah, the first one has almost 1mil, but it had been through multiple bundles and was featured in more Steam sales.

 

[Lady_Error]

The lack of self-awareness is astounding, Infinitron:

Not just disagreeing with him, not arguing respectfully or even disrespectfully, but outright discounting his words?

vs.

All in service of a whackjob like Cleve?

The difference is that this "whackjob" actually created a great game and has been polishing it with a couple dozen updates since release. While you are just being petty with your change of the Grimoire thread title. Are you telling us that because Felipe was banned, the game is suddenly not Massive Incline anymore?

 

[V_K]

I would guess, the "uninclining" had more to do with the issues listed in the review and Cleve's reaction to criticism.

 

[Infinitron]

The thread title was changed because all that ALL CAPS was an eyesore. Jaesun gets too excited about things. I would have renamed it regardless.

 

[Morkar Left]

The second game flopped because they didn't step out of the Dungeon Master basic design school and ultimately delivered nothing new to the genre (e.g. npcs. dialog system, open world etc.)

Only a) it didn't flop, it sold about half the number of copies of the first one, while having almost double the price tag, and b) it did have an open world.

Almost nobody bought it at release and got only bought with discounts. If otherwise there would be part 3 in the making. And with open world I mean world, not area.

 

[V_K]

Almost nobody bought it at release and got only bought with discounts. If otherwise there would be part 3 in the making.

Quoting from the Grimrock forums:

So far the success of Grimrock has allowed us to prototype on new game ideas (hell, we made 7 game prototypes before settling on Druidstone!) and keep the families fed while we set up this project.

That was posted in April 2017. LoG1 sales peaked in 2014, around the same time LoG2 was released. Floppity flop, yeah.

And with open world I mean world, not area.

Last time I checked Gothic 1&2 were considered open-world games, and LoG2 "area" has about the same landmass.

 

[Morkar Left]

They are talking about Grimrock 1 and landsize is not the same as world...

 

[Severian Silk]

There is also the Cleve's defensive force to do that. It's better to just say that despise those flaws, the game is still amazing.

As an apparently official member of Cleve's defensive force, let me say that I completely agree with you. I think the only thing we disagree on is whether the game should have been Early Access or not.

What good is Early Access if there is only one good designer but inept programmer? The game has been mostly "designed" for decades already, but is full of bugs. It's better if the game is fully released and other people do a lot of the work (such as documentation/wiki/sniffing out bugs) for him for free than him paying people to do it or doing it himself.