The Legend of Grimrock: 2.5D dungeon-crawling game

[Yakoob]

How about Trine? Or Super Meat Boy? Or VVVVVV? Or Bionic Commando Rearmed? Or H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H

Oh you mean indie productions I already addressed like a page back?

Because you're blinded by your trollovision:

Not really; this "rebirth in sidescrollers" (as if they ever died) is not caused by nostalgia or fantastic gameplay (seriously, 90% of them play exactly the same), but simply the fact anything more complex is out of the reach for an indie team / garage programmer these days. And platforms like Steam and XNA made indie development far more possible than it used to be, hence why such a sudden influx of copypasta platformers and puzzle games.

And if you are referring to non-indies, then Super New Mario Bros, Megaman and Bionic Commando are about the only ones I can think of that come from the "big boys..." among their constant rehashes of old platformers. Either way, I don't see any resurgence; just same flux as always, with the exception of indie scene outline above.

[Malf]

Soooooo, ignoring all the fluff and stuff about 2D platformers and whether they ever went away or not, I am personally incredibly hyped about this, but then Dungeon Master is quite possibly my favourite game ever. I loved it so much, I even completed it with 1 party member. I'm sure this will be nowhere near as hard as DM (seriously, I went back to it recently thanks to the magic of http://dmweb.free.fr/ and some of the puzzles are mind warpers that today's audience would balk at. YOU NEEDED GRAPH PAPER TO SOLVE THEM!), but it doesn't stop me looking forward to it.

I just hope the experience system works the same, where you get experience from doing stuff.

My all-stars Dungeon Master team, that I still remember to this day?
Hissssa & Halk up front bashing the shit out of things with Wuuf and Tiggy in the back line, blasting the buggery out of things with Mon Ful Ir

[dexterward]

This is very encouraging, if not for hopeful resurgence of classic graph-based dungeon crawling, then also because it`s not (well, hopefully) yet-another-post-ironic-indie-RPG. With Zombies or Cthulhu in it, or taking a piss out of jRpgs while at the same time copying them extensively.

Also, for non believers, the hint`s in the genre`s name. It`s not about superintelligently amusing plots, greatly developed characters or just plain old tits. Nah, tough-as-nails dungeon crawling more like.

Along Age Of Decadence new Great wRpg Hope.

[Pyrian]

Didn't the image of a six person party crammed into two metres squared, unable to move, amuse you endlessly as you shuffled them around like some college prank or bucks night outcome?

It amused me more when your six person party in a two meter square encountered four groups of 99 skeletons packed into the same two meter square. This resulted in "The Skeleton Closet" showing up in one of my friend's D&D games: a 10x10 closet packed to the brim with animated bones too cramped to actually move much.

[dethtoll]

lol "trollovision"

disagreeing with you isn't trolling

christ, even sneaksie isn't this much of an oversensitive ninny

grow up

and the point is, you're wrong about Nintendo and you're clearly just getting your opinions off /v/ or something, so why don't you try and educate yourself for once instead of spouting out ignorant bullshit then getting offended when someone calls you out on it

[Yakoob]

Saying, I am wrong isn't trolling. Saying I am wrong to every of my posts without providing any rationale is. Especially since I did provide rationale on my side; I gave you a list of countless Nintendo rehashes and you are still arguing Nintendo doesn't rehash it's old titles. And you are calling me ignorant?

And I did ask about the non-indie and non-rehashed platformers out there because I genuinely can't think of too many besides the three already mentioned here. But instead of answering my question you call me ignorant. Umm, ok.

[dethtoll]

Except EVERYTHING YOU ARE SAYING IS WRONG. More than that, you tend to completely ignore my arguments and claim I'm not backing my shit up.

That "list" you gave me? Most of those aren't rehashes, they're ports. Do you understand this concept? At all? Nintendo's constantly bringing their old games to new systems to keep the money going. It's not the same thing as a rehash. Ocarina of Time is a rehash of Link to the Past (and better, too.) Ocarina of Time 3D isn't a rehash of Ocarina of Time, it's a port with some updated graphics. Hell, OoT and Majora's Mask are on the fucking Wii's Virtual Console, right alongside Zelda 1, 2 and LttP.

But if you want to call them rehashes, well who's going to stop you? Some people take being wrong very seriously.

[Stitch]

Oh it's actually a new game? My bad, I didn't notice under the veil of everything looking the same. Still, I'd hardly call that a resurgence in side-scrollers exactly because there is a constant stream of old rehashes. Megaman 9 is about the only other "new" notable example I can think of; what else is there?

Well, the other few that I'd say refute your argument are OH MY GOD WHO FUCKING CARES

My point is sometimes when tech moves on from a certain style of game, years later people might find that they might miss a certain something that the subsequent "improvements" lost. I brought up the example of sidescrollers because for awhile in the late 90's/early 2000's it seemed new A-list entries were rare and in the last five years or so I've seen and purchased a few. THAT'S IT. I was not trying to sign into law a recognition that sidescrollers evaporated like a pile of pogs and have now suddenly returned as a dominant gaming genre that will prove the unifying catalyst for peace on the Gaza Strip.

Bottom line: The Legend of Grimrock is going to rock my shit

[dexterward]

Goddamn hair is already split to a subatomic level. Few more posts and y`all might find the Higgs Boson.

Initiating 2.5D purge:

[Stitch]

motherfukkin BLOODWYCH

[Matthew]

Screw all you 'four dudes in one square' squares, Hired Guns 4 life yo

[Yakoob]

Blah when I said rehashes I did mean ports, semantics. This argument is stupid and is derailing the thread, so lets drop it.

MOAR DRAGUNZ!!!

[dethtoll]

Semantics means nothing when you're describing two wildly different things.

But yes, this argument is fucking stupid.

[Papy]

A better analogy would be like saying we should stop playing boardgames, because computers can do all kinds of crazy stuff like games with thousands of little soldiers being rendered in realtime 3D graphics and stuff. Boardgames are just pewter bullshit.

No, it's another wrong analogy. First, from a pure visual aspect, boardgames have a much, much better "screen resolution" than monitors. Not being able to clearly see all the terrain with all the pieces at the same time, meaning having to constantly scroll to see the whole game, is no fun.

Second, playing with physical things is fun. Also, the weight and space taken by physical items give an additional feedback about the situation compared to just a number on a screen. It helps the player "feel" the game instead of just crunching numbers.

Third, and the most important, human interaction is a lot better when you can view the game and your opponents at the same time. If you all play side by side while everyone's looking at a TV, a lot of the interaction is lost. It's even worse if you everyone has a monitor in front of them, effectively hiding them. (oh, and playing on the Internet is like masturbating while having phone sex. It's better than nothing, but it's really not my first choice.)

Boardgames do offer things that computer games have difficulties to offer. So the question is : what a (real-time) game with 90 degrees turns and square movement can offer that a game with free 3D view and movements can't?

[Thirith]

So the question is : what a (real-time) game with 90 degrees turns and square movement can offer that a game with free 3D view and movements can't?

It's got a certain elegant simplicity. Complex isn't always better, realistic isn't always better. There's an enjoyment that comes from exploring rectangular mazes that you can - and have to - map on paper yourself. A lot of that enjoyment may be nostalgic in nature, but that doesn't mean it isn't valid.

[Eldron]

And why does boardgames still often limit movement to grids or tiles or even one-dimensional movement when its fully possible to make them all free-positional.

[dexterward]

It's got a certain elegant simplicity

Word.
It also ties to turn-based systems - there`s kind of precision and control you`ll never be able to execute in real time. Which is why for me GoldBox combat will always be superior to that "pause" malarkey from Baldur`s Gate.

All this does not stop me from appreciating the greatness of FO3, Risen, Arx and others of course...

[Pemptus]

Come on guys, this "discussion" is getting silly.

2D platformers have also been made because of technical limitations. Are they irrelevant now that we have full 3D?

So the question is : what a (real-time) game with 90 degrees turns and square movement can offer that a game with free 3D view and movements can't?

A different style and way of playing.

It's all been said before anyway.

[Papy]

It's got a certain elegant simplicity. Complex isn't always better, realistic isn't always better.

I agree that complex and realistic are not always better. I think video games have a tendency to use complexity to hide a lack of depth and to use realistic and cluttered graphics to hide a lack of things to do. But a game is about learning (in a broad sense) and when there is nothing new to learn, the game becomes boring. Simplicity in a video game becomes elegance only if there is depth behind it.

After watching the gameplay demo, my impression was that it's the same as Dungeon Master, only with better graphics. Well... Been there, done that. I don't think I have anything new to learn with that kind of gameplay and better graphics won't be enough to hold my interest.

There's an enjoyment that comes from exploring rectangular mazes that you can - and have to - map on paper yourself.

Again, I agree. Having to use a pen and a piece of paper is to me a way to make the video game kind of pop out of the computer and make it more tangible. But the problem is that what is fun at first can quickly becomes really tedious. Having to draw a 32x32 grid may be fun, having to another of those 32x32 grid after having already drawn 15 is just repetitive work.

A lot of that enjoyment may be nostalgic in nature, but that doesn't mean it isn't valid.

It is valid, but nostalgia fades away real fast. I bought Dungeon Master 2 in big part because of nostalgia. My thought was, it was fun then, it should be fun now. But the fact is although it was fun at first, after an hour or so it became boring.

To me, if the goal is to make a two hours game to relive a childhood memory, then that's great idea. If their goal is to make a game for people who never played a 3d RPG before (basically for people who think video games are those things they play on Facebook), then again that's a great idea. After all, an adult who is learning how to read will start with a child book, not with War and Peace. But if the goal is to make a new Dungeon Master, thinking it was good then so it should be good now, it's just a bad idea.

And why does boardgames still often limit movement to grids or tiles or even one-dimensional movement when its fully possible to make them all free-positional.

Because when you spend most of your time manipulating a ruler and arguing over half a centimeter, the game becomes tedious. Are you saying that 3d is so complex that it makes the game tedious?

Ok. I admit that sometimes it is. My mother played a few 2d puzzle games on her computer so I tried to make her play Portal. She couldn't. It was the first time she saw a 3d game and she just couldn't understand it. After 15 minutes, she was still unable to move the mouse and press a key to advance at the same time. It made the game tedious and she gave up. But personally, I'm not my mother and I have no difficulties with "mouselook".

2D platformers have also been made because of technical limitations. Are they irrelevant now that we have full 3D?

The problem with (real) 3d platformers is that my monitor is still 2d. Because of that, evaluating distance is difficult. 3d offers better possibilities when it comes to paths and finding solutions, but it loses the precision of 2d, which is a big loss. In a way, 2d and 3d are not about the same kind of gameplay.

In the case of free movement compared to grid based movement, the only thing lost, as far as I can see, is simplicity. To me, Ultima Underworld made Dungeon Master irrelevant (ok not exactly because there was no party management in UU, but I'm only talking about graphiscs). To use an analogy, did Albert Camus made Disney's book for children irrelevant? I guess not because there are still books for children on the market, but he did made Disney's book for children irrelevant to me.

[Sulphur]

Okay, whomever brought up the side-scroller analogy, that's a poor argument.

Platformers/side-scrollers were borne out of technical restrictions, yeah. But they weren't trying to emulate first person movement. These, on the other hand, were reaching for the whole first person pie, and not quite getting it. A better analogy is Doom and System Shock without mouselook. They were fun regardless, but would've played so much better with it. Only oldschool 'purists' would play FPSes with just the keyboard today.

This isn't to shit on anyone's opinion. I still play SS today, after all. But if someone were to go and make an SS 1 1/2 tomorrow, with new tech but sans mouse look or the other accoutrements/refinements the genre has since gained, I'd turn my nose up at it too. It's just a matter of opinion, my opinion being that your opinion is a touch weird, you freaks. :P

[Brethren]

Release date set - April 11th. You can preorder now directly from them or GoG and the $14.99 price goes down to $11.99. This definitely looks like some old school fun.

[EvaUnit02]

Considering that pre-ordering Grimrock direct from the developer gets you a DRM free copy, a Steam key and all of the GOG extras... the GOG deal sucks hard by comparison.

http://www.grimrock.net/buy/

In this case, fuck GOG.

[dethtoll]

I'm not sure I'd put it in such terms, but yes just going with gog.com does seem to be the lesser deal.

I'm actually interested. Probably shouldn't spend the $12 but I wanna give it a go.

[Thirith]

I was holding out for a demo (I wasn't a big fan of Dungeon Master back in the day, but some lo-fi, old-school CRPGing might be fun nevertheless), but at that price I might just get it, not least to support the devs. I definitely think that the diversification of game development and publishing - indie, small devs, the big fish - is one of the most positive developments of the last few years.

[EvaUnit02]

There's also the diversification within the indie game space. From genuinely awesome stuff like Dungeons of Dredmor, to non-game bullshit like Trauma and finally to hipster trash like VVVVVV and Braid.

The indie bundles are hit and miss, for every awesome game like Aquaria you get a fucking World of Goo or Braid.

Good god, doesn't Jonathan Blow have another game out this year? Yay, RPS is going to be spammed with links to pseudo-intellectual blog posts for a while come release of his latest excrement.