Face it, a game is no fun if there are no short routes you can eventually discover to do pretty much whatever you want to do in it. Even with more balance added, there is still a need for some backdoors so that players can tackle bigger challenges with wiser resource management. There must be spam and it must be salty or the game will feel stifling eventually!
One of the biggest lacks in Grimoire has been the economy. Most players who know anything about merchants quickly discover they can make extraordinary amounts of gold just selling redundant/extraneous treasure. This is why experienced players refrain from killing NPCs, amongst other reasons. You need shopkeepers who can buy your goods to remain alive.
Believe it or not, there was an original plan to manage these sums by providing useful ways to spend grand displays of wealth ... based on a very rare item called the "Patron Argent." This was in the original design document in 1992 but last year with pressure from all sides to get the game out, I slashed it out (with other features now present in V2) and it was sorely missed. It provided a simple way to level up players at shrines without having the required experience points, paying instead in gold to increase your players current level! You may wonder what the unicorn was doing in the Grimoire logo onscreen - that is the Patron Argent item, which was never placed in the game when V1 came out!
It now works at all the new shrines in the game. You present the "Patron Argent" and are offered a one-time chance at that shrine to kick your party members up to the new level by parting with cash. Through strategic use of shrines you can reach much higher levels for characters without grinding the experience points.
V2 + Manual is coming very soon, with these and many other new features implemented that practically make it a whole different game. I was glad to finally finish Grimoire the way I envisioned it, with the design document serving as my checklist for all the play mechanics I wanted to be present.
THE NERFENING
I never dreamed after I released Grimoire that the biggest outcry would be that the game got too easy with the exploits. I left the exploits in so players could discover them and that way nobody could say the game was too hard once you knew what they were.
Somehow, MUH BALINSE became a thing. Woe onto those who ask for MUH BALINSE and receive it, for they shall weep tears of snowflake angst when it arrives!
The biggest spell exploits like Deep Freeze have been nerfed down to much more modest levels. The Bards have had their skills trimmed to where they are formidable but not decisive. This has made the game much more difficult. Monsters think harder about targeting when they are directing their attacks and they save better against the attacks by the party in all forms.
The game has gotten harder and fairer across the board, with spells like TIMESTOP reduced to brief advantages that fade quickly.
I plan to release V2 within a week but it is likely that work on V3 will begin thereafter and there will still be tweaking going on before the end of the year. A game this complex requires colossal cycles of testing and adjustment that I was not able to complete before getting it out last year, despite several successive Q&As with thousands of players on the beta version.
It is only recently within the last two years I got automated testing and test harnesses for Grimoire. If I had to do a similar game again from scratch, this time the unit testing framework would be one of the first things I'd get running. The fine tuning of the game is very difficult compared to most software because a single percentage point can tip the logarithmic curves of the way combat works and responds to the player. I was reading the original history of Wizardry once about the extensive test frameworks created by Woodhead and Greenberg - and it is obvious how brilliant they were to foresee what kind of testing was needed for quality assurance in a game like this. I had been working on Grimoire for five years before it became apparent that I had badly neglected this aspect when starting work on the game. Coming from my background mostly writing arcade games for the Commodore 64 this was something I had not been properly exposed to. Trying to play catch-up now but these things are much easier to design at the outset than at the end.
All New Cutscenes, New Regions Almost Completed
WISHLIST COUNT as of 30/10/2018 : 36,992
The original design document written in 1994 had several different cutscenes listed as part of the Grand Refuge of the Ancients in the game. These were supposed to be strange mystical visions you had in the scrying mirrors scattered throughout the Grand Refuge in addition to the encounter with Ganesh, the guardian of the Paragon Minor. As yet another deadline for release loomed, I could not source the artwork for the nine visions so I ended up vastly reducing the scope of this area and cut out the visions entirely. I did this in many other places where my plans had eventually outstripped my budget for artwork and supporting media.
They are now present in V2 and very relevant to the spirit of these maps. Kind of changes the entire experience when this level is explored and restores the place to it's intended original purpose of providing the player a spiritual triptych as they make their way through it.
V2 Due Next Two Weeks, Turns Display Even Better!
I did quite a bit of work on the turns to make them a little more intelligent after doing buffer compares of views and found a way to make them a lot smoother than they were. They now more closely resemble the "swivels" in LANDS OF LORE except ours are a little more even. I had to get rid of the configuration for steps in turns in order to assure this happens at the right speed with the right perspective.
Version Two of Grimoire is really looking SPECTACULAR! The new regions are awesome and all integrated into the existing story! Working together with the new crafting system you have added dimensions to game play mechanics that did not even exist in the first version.
Inventory workshop needs a little more tweaking, one thing I was working on today was highlighting all possible merge candidates for an item when you click on the "MERGE" button to show you what you might be able to successfully merge given the current party member's vocation and skill levels.
Extensive trials of poisoned items tested in combat, forged items, sharpened blades and enchanted weapons. All of them degrade with use in combat until they wear off. The enchanted weapons lose their aura if you kill a monster with them. All of these play mechanics have been balanced in order to make the crafts useful but not exploits.
The wishlist had now climbed to a level that I am pretty confident will justify a $9.95 price discount when V2 comes out. After that the game will likely run a regular price of $19.95 including when it goes to GOG. If you purchase on Steam and Grimoire releases on GOG, you can be assured that your purchase on Steam will be transferred to allow you access on GOG as well - and you will have gotten it at half the price on GOG.
WISHLIST DRIVE FOR V2 GRIMOIRE SALE PRICE!!
WISHLIST COUNT as of 25/08/2018 : 36,743
The second release of Grimoire at the one year anniversary of the game's release is progressing well! Brand new inventory workshop (see and sort all items, now apply all special crafts for classes) is done and extremely helpful during gameplay, almost changes the whole experience! In addition to new regions, new NPCs, new story lines, new enhancements to gameplay and two new title screens!
Many players have complained about the high initial price of Grimoire compared to other roleplaying games on Steam. We are considering a major price discount at the release of V2 and you can help decide what it will be!
Before we release V2, we will set the sale price according to the wishlist volume on Steam according to the figures below!
Permanent & Sale price reductions at launch of V2 :
(Spoiler below)
10K Wishlist = $29.95, Sale Price $24.95
25K Wishlist = $24.95, Sale Price $19.95
50K Wishlist = $19.95, Sale Price $9.95
100K Wishlist = $9.95, Permanent & Sale Price
If you want to lower the price permanently on the Steam store both for V2 and any future updates, you can help by getting your friends to wishlist the game and encouraging other Steam users to wishlist it. This is a chance to make the game affordable permanently for diehard fans of turn-based old skool roleplaying games!
Keep watching this page for further updates on our progress on V2, it is going to be even more awesome than the first release of Grimoire - if that can be imagined !!!
UPDATE 14/09/2018 New Content Finalized
New content to complete the story of Hyperborea and finish Grimoire as described in original design document written in 1994!
New Regions :
Tattletale Circus !
Ratfink Hideaway !
Tomb of Doom !
Theosophy Lodge !
Farulosonoth Fissure !
Titan Mines !
Titan Underground Lake !
Mount Periwinkle !
Periwinkle Village !
Mass Gainers Spa !
Cataclysm !
UPDATE 21/09/2018 Patronage Works In V2!
Players noticed that the "Patron" tag for vocations was purely ornamental in the first version of Grimoire. It was another feature that was in the original design document but did not make it into the first release because of time constraints. The purpose of the "Patron" tag hinged on shrines, which did not yet exist when the game was released. Once added to support the new functionality of Inventory Workshop, they can also fulfill their original purpose to provide a unique way of leveling-up for certain vocations. When you find the shrine that is appropriate to a profession (they are scattered throughout the game) you have a one-time only opportunity to pay in gold at that shrine to advance a level! This should probably be saved for very high level characters so they can gain yet another level without grinding the experience points but simply BUYING a level increase!
UPDATE 30/09/2018
More areas added to bring total closer to original 224 envisioned.
Screenshot of the "house" portal added to main page.
The last two are part of a Lovecraftian mini-adventure quest that is purely optional. The Accursed Church can only be accessed at night with a password given out as an Easter Egg for completion of another new quest in the game.
Grimoire 1.2.0.80-R Update
This update features the "Spirit" bar (SPI) mechanics now working!
When you encounter a particularly evil or horrifying creature, each party member has to Save VS that monster's appearance with their DEVOTION attribute, which is really their courage in the presence of malevolence.
If they successfully save at the start of the encounter and their SPIRIT bar is kept at maximum, they will not have to save during combat against that creature again.
If they do not save they will begin to accumulate the FEAR condition and have to save each round once again for that monster. Their SPIRIT bar will continue dropping and their FEAR will increase, possibly incapacitating them.
There are several ways that a character's spirit can be restored. One of the most likely ways is to sleep in an identified "Haven" cell (marked as a red flag in the map when pressing the Haven button). The character can also have "Bless" or "Cerebral Shield" or "Miracle" spell cast on them during combat.
It is likely that this mechanic will undergo some adjustments by the time V2 is released but the underlying principles will remain unchanged. Some monsters may have their evil quotient adjusted in response to feedback.
Otherwise, once the SPIRIT bar has dropped, until it is restored the party member grows more fearful in the presence of evil monsters in every combat afterwards until their SPIRIT bar is restored to full.
Addendum : Each time you encounter an evil monster, you are a little less likely to be terrified of them. Each has a threshold after a certain number of encounters after which they will no longer trigger terror in party members.
Grimoire 1.2.0.78-R Update
Another small update to address a few critical issues before V2 + Manual come out. This is only to fix issues reported after previous release.
* Sound and music volume controls can be adjusted to turn either or both off
* Experience points drastically reduced to permit easier advancement after level 9
* Monster identification becomes easier the more times you successfully kill any of that monster type
* Tablet robbers got slightly better at solving puzzles to reach tablets
* Gauntlets and gloves have data edited to permit them to work correctly during combat as primary two-handed weapons (intended to be used alone)
* Total AC sums now appear correctly when negative or in excess of 120.
* Vending tokens can be stacked to +126 in machines.
Hopefully this will be a small update that fixes a lot of particularly annoying problems reported by players.
Grimoire 1.2.0.76-R Update
This update is the LAST update before Grimoire V2 comes out with the manual! This update specifically targets the problem with full screen on 4K monitors and several other devices. There is a provision in the configuration menu now to test a very wide variety of auto-detected compatible resolutions for full screen mode with centering, scaling and window boxing as an option for all resolutions on your monitor that fall somewhere between the native resolution and 2x scaling.
The DEFAULT is now full screen and your existing config file will be overwritten! You can go into configuration and change to windowed mode if you'd prefer as was the default in previous versions. You still have to reboot the application to see screen resolution changes.
There are numerous fixes for various issues in this update and some of them are substantial improvements to playability.
ESCAPE key exits NPC dialogue text input now which is convenient for exiting without typing "BYE" or "QUIT" etc.
There is a new encryption scheme on the resource file which will break existing resource hackers but if you are a low test beta cuck using a savegame editor you should still find that works unmodified. The savegame files have not been encrypted because it might break compatibility with very early versions.
The new splash screen for the main menu was disabled although a config option for it is present. The new splash screen will be present in the coming V2 and then this option will work to switch between classic original splash screen (the one now) and the new "Grimoire" tome menu screen.
The option to activate TABLET ROBBERS is working but this is still being fine tuned and may exhibit some irregularities. No matter what happens, you can still get the tablets from The White Owl later in the game no matter who steals them away initially! It is likely additional information will be added to some of the spells to tell you who has what tablets and where they are going in the game. Some of this code was commented out for years and has only recently been commented back in. With more debugging and testing there may be multiple targets for sequestration of tablets robbed from caches, there is existing data now in the editor for the map that is not used to implement this very feature. For example, a Rhattu stealing a tablet and hiding it in Nerukruel Pyramid instead of it being collected by the White Owl eventually. All this is being implemented in V2 without disturbing existing savegames.
Constitution lost through resurrection is now regained to the race base at character creation every time the party sleeps. Just thought this is something that should not be a permanent penalty when a character is resurrected.
* Some players reported being unable to detect or set the default resolution of 1024x768x16 so a slightly altered version was updated to simply use whatever the current resolution is at bootup for the full-screen default. This means Grimoire will use whatever is present, assuming some sort of computer display device is hooked up. If you are viewing Grimoire on a VT102 ASCII terminal you are going to get an error.
Grimoire 1.2.0.30-R Update
This is another small maintenance release prior to completion of the manual. After this release it is likely more dramatic changes will occur in subsequent versions. This update permits the player to adjust mouse speed from inside of configuration to help accommodate different monitor resolutions and DPIs in newer technology.
The scaling bug still appears on some machines but I was able to get rid of it on two different machines here and I am planning to eliminate it completely very soon so Grimoire can be stretched to fit any screen, including the colossal 4K screens that did not even exist when I began work on the game.
There are also new lock riddles for doors and some improvements to fountains.
The major NPC upgrade is coming soon that restores the wandering and seeking behaviors including robbing tablet caches that the player is also seeking.
Grimoire 1.2.0.29-R Update
Decided that some of the fixes and enhancements applied today should go up immediately. In particular, there is now help support in the character review screen for attributes the same way the skills are supported. Click on any attribute in the character screen to see the abbreviated description of what role it has in game mechanics. This should help until the manual is finished.
Also in this update is a really useful enhancement to containers, with improved cues on screen including a current count of items in a container and the max number of items permitted for that container at the bottom of each item graphic in the inventory bar.
I fixed some problems with Djinn wishes that could have messed up game logic. It is unlikely they did so but better to tighten up the code to make that impossible. Also worked on the NPC AI for basic tablet seeking. The NPC logic will be turned on again in the next update.
