Dungeon Crawler Mis-genre-ing

Like all things I seem to really enjoy, Dungeon Crawling is one of those niche genres that doesn't have wide appeal but does have an insanely dedicated following of fans.  I'm almost certain that in the past on this blog I've gushed, at length, about how much I love this style of game but for this post I'm here to complain about something that really chaps my ass which is the misgenre-ing (if that's even a word) of games in this genre.

A dungeon crawler is typically an offshoot of the RPG genre that revolves around an individual or group of people navigating a big maze, solving puzzles, killing monsters and surviving with what little resources they have all usually in first person.  Famous titles in this genre include Dungeon Master (Pictured above), Shin Megami Tensei, Legend of Grimrock, Etrian Odyssey and many more.  The real interesting part about this genre is that a large number of titles will require or ask the player if they want to draw their own maps.  Back in the day if you wanted to effectively navigate these dungeons you'd have to break out some square paper and get drawing.  More modern titles have an automap but, for example, Grimrock will ask the player if they would like to turn the map off or Etrian Odyssey actively forces you to draw your own map on the bottom screen of the DS.

You know what isn't a dungeon crawler though? Diablo, Zelda, any of those roguelikes on Steam.  Diablo is the one that comes up most of all whenever I go looking for dungeon crawl recommendations.  I don't have a problem with Diablo, it's a good game, but Diablo is an action RPG loot fest, extremely far removed from the style of game I'm usually looking for.

The reason this gets my back up is because dungeon crawling is an extremely niche genre and it's been mislabeled so much that now, finding a traditional style dungeon crawl is extremely difficult.  If you go on Steam and type in "dungeon crawl", you get a mix of classic RPGs and rougelikes with the occasional actual dungeon crawl peppered in there.  If I wanted a fucking roguelike, I'd search for fucking roguelikes, but I want a goddamn dungeon crawl.

Still, despite seemingly no one know what a proper dungeon crawl is, all is not lost.  There's a website dedicated to enthusiasts of the genre

http://www.dungeoncrawlers.org/

Not a hack and slash or action adventure in sight.  It's dungeon crawling heaven in there, from old to new, so go check it out.

Severed

So when I was on the plane to the USA for my summer holiday I decided to pick one of the random Vita games I got for free as part of PS+ and the first choice my finger went to was a game called Severed.  I didn't have any expectation for this game but what I got was actually really good. 

The first thing I noticed right off the bat was the art style.  I thought I'd seen it before somewhere and it wasn't until I got off the plane, hit Wi-Fi and was able to Google it that I discovered that Severed is made by a developer called Drinkbox Studios who also made another great game called Guacamelee! Just as an aside, if you haven't played that you should also go check it out because it's fantastic.

So the game starts out and you find yourself in the role of a young girl who's family has been taken away by monsters and your arm has been cut off.  You walk through her destroyed house and an evil thing in a mirror gives you a sword and then you go on an adventure to get them back.  The story is a bit bare bones but it's got everything you need to make you want to press on.  A missing family and a world full of weird monsters and places to kill and explore.

Game play wise the game plays sort of like Zelda had a baby with one of those weird first person horror dungeon crawlers on the Amiga or something.  You have to explore dungeons and each dungeon gives you a piece of gear that will not only solve the puzzles in that dungeon but open up extra bits of the world for you to go and find secrets and whatnot.  There are three "worlds" let say with one hub area that connects them and as you gain gear and skills you'll want to back track for heart pieces (for more health of course) and brain pieces (for mana)

It's the combat however where this game really shines.  You use the touch screen to swipe enemies with your sword and each enemy has different patterns that you have to work out in order to deal damage and to block their oncoming attacks.  At first you just work out how to kill them and then kill them but as you progress through the game it starts throwing multiple enemies at you which surround you.  This puts you in situations where your having to manage not only attacks and blocks but doling out the occasional smack to the enemy behind you or to your side so that their attack meter doesn't fill up and slaps a bunch of your life away.  If you deal out enough hits without being attacked or blocked you fill up a bonus meter and when the meter is full it allows you to....SEVER!....enemy body parts which you collect and use to power up your characters skills.

I have two complaints about this game, the first being that it felt a bit short.  I don't know if it's ACTUALLY short but I managed to finish it after spending only a couple hours on the plane and then a couple more on a bus tour ride but it could just be that I'm really good.  Also the upgrade system is broken and you can basically get all the upgrades you need even if you suck at the game.  Sometimes in pots and things you find "giblets" and one of the first skills you learn is how to transmute giblets into upgrade items.  Even if you somehow manage to go the entire game not being able to sever a single body part (impossible) you could still power up enough for the final boss to be a complete cakewalk.

Still, despite these complaints I had a great time with Severed, it's a fun game with a lot of personality.  I played the Vita version but apparently it's on mobile, Wii U and Switch so go check it out.

Memories of Knightmare

So last night I was playing Haunting Ground on the PS2 for Twitch and I reached a certain corridor puzzle that got me very excited.  The puzzle was a room full of hexagons with a suit of armor at the end.  I had to carefully navigate my character across the right set of hexes to avoid getting a crossbow to the face.  This room reminded me VERY heavily of an old TV show I used to love when I was a kid called Knightmare.

Knightmare was a game show for kids that started in 1987 and ran until 1994 that aired on British TV.  The premise was simple, a bunch of kids met up with this dude called Treguard the dungeon master and they would pick one member of their team to don a "Helmet of Justice" and go into the dungeon.  The helmet blinded the player to everything except what was directly underneath them and it was up to the other kids on the team to guide them to the end.  The real reason for this was that the kid in the dungeon was actually just walking around a chroma key studio so only the viewers could see the dungeon.  If the kid didn't have the helmet he'd just see a lot of green(?) I guess.

Anyway the show, despite being for kids, wasn't easy on it's contestants AT ALL.  Difficult puzzles, traps that would instantly kill the player and fiendish puzzles were all put in place to hinder progress.  Not only that but each team was on a time limit to finish since the kid in the dungeon had a "life force" that was slowly ticking away.  So you could be the best dodger of traps in the world but if you got bamboozled by a talking wall then good fuckin' luck reaching the end.  Off the top of my head, I don't remember a single team winning in an episode for as long as I watched.  However it was a long time ago and I probably missed a bunch of episodes so I'm sure someone won at some point.

I was pretty obsessed with this show as a kid too.  My mother often reminds me of my younger years with stories of us going to the park and "playing Knightmare".  I assume this meant one of us closing our eyes and being commanded around by the other.  Apparently my obsession with Knightmare was so great that we even did this when waiting at bus stops and I can't imagine now how that worked at all. 

I have since learned that there is in fact a Knightmare video game on the Amiga but I've only played it for about 5 minutes on an emulator.  From what I can gather it has very little to do with the show and it's a dungeon crawler more akin to Wizardy or Dungeon Master.

I'm sure if you look hard enough to episodes have been archived somewhere so go see if you can check them out.  It's a great show even now and it might be fun to watch even now for a bit of a laugh.

Etrian Odyssey: Not as Hard As You Think

Very recently I replayed and finished a game called Etrian Odyssey on the DS.  The game was released in 2007 and is a dungeon crawler where the player is tasked with entering a labyrinth and solving its mysteries as they progress down 25 floors of danger.  The game came out in 2007 so this isn't going to be a review but I want to address something people have always said about it's difficulty.

Etrian Odyssey can be a challenging game to a new player, you have a number of classes to pick from who each have their own unique skills.  Then once you've made your team you have to gear them out, go into the dungeon and start to get them to a higher level.  Once you level up you get points to put into a skill and the lists of skills are so long that it would surely overwhelm a lot of new players, it sure as hell did for me my first time round.

So the things I hear the most regarding difficulty is that the encounters can be tough and dying makes you lose a lot of progress.  Well the second one might be true, since save points inside the dungeon are quite few and far between death can me a pretty hefty setback depending on how long you were exploring but encounters, even the special enemies and bosses become disgustingly easy once you get your head round the characters skills.

In my replay I managed to remember all the points required for the best skills and I realized that a great deal of the skills on the characters list are completely useless.  For example, the games version of the warrior has all these skills called things like "stunner" or some whirlwind thing that hits adjacent enemies but it's all crap.  Max out the attack, HP and All Slash skills and he can deal with most of the standard encounters alone.  Another example would be the survivalist who only really needs one skill called Apollon which does massive damage after 3 turns to a single foe.  You can take such a massive chunk of health from a boss in such a short time that the fight becomes almost trivial.  Couple that with a medic who has a maxed Salve 2 and the the game becomes almost too easy.

Granted, you would never know to do all that shit the first time round but I went back to this game with memories of having a hard time but my replay was just pathetically easy.  Even the final boss stood absolutely no chance and I beat him stood in line for a ride at a theme park and barely paying attention.

So what I discovered essentially is that a number of the skills are a bit unbalanced and break the combat a little bit and once you figure out what those skills are the game becomes a cake walk.  I'd recommend Etrian Odyssey since its a great little RPG and fans of dungeon crawl games might get a kick out of the whole draw your own map feature using the DS's lower screen.  It's become a big series too and I've not played a lot of the later ones so I'm curious to see if the later titles are as easily broken as this one.

Mind Zero

So at time of writing this post I JUST beat this game.  I killed the final boss on my way home from work in the train and managed to watch the ending before arriving at my nearest station.  God bless portable systems.

Mind Zero (Or Mind=Zero or whatever the fuck) is a low budget RPG for Playstation Vita.  Usually Vita games cost about 3-5000 yen in the stores but this one was only 1000 and with my Vita library being a bit small I snapped it up and had no idea what to expect.  What I found was a fairly decent game with something horribly rage inducing at the end. 

Mind Zero follows the adventures of Takanashi Kei and his high school chums as they get roped into a strange adventure.  Popping up around bits of Saitama are strange doors that lead to a strange world full of monsters and our heroes are granted the ability to use their MINDs inorder to combat the monsters and stop them from running rampant in our world.  If you have ever played a Persona game then a MIND is essentially the same thing and that's the sad fate for this game is that it's pretty much constantly being compared to Persona 4 as a result.  Anyway, another group of MIND users show up and they are being a bunch of dicks and it all culminates in your buddy being kidnapped so it's up to you to rescue your friend and put an end to this strange groups nefarious schemes.

The game itself is a dungeon crawl sort of thing with all the exploring being done in first person.  When you get into combat you can switch between your MIND or your character although you'll only ever want to use MIND because the only thing your characters can do is use items and suck at fighting.  So you do a bit of story, explore a dungeon, kill a boss and then rinse repeat until you beat the game.  Things do get a little repetitive and the game sucks to try and play in long stints but if you use it to kill a train ride or fill your lunch break then it manages to stay enjoyable throughout.

Other features include a skill system where you get cards in combat and then head to a shop to level them up or change them into stronger skills.  The game has a total of 4 skills that are at all worth any kind of effort and then about a hundred useless sacks of crap that you'll never ever need or use.  I meticulously made sure that my characters were properly skilled out and everything was leveled up but I only ended up using 4 of the available skills because everything is piss easy.  There are also some side quests but they pretty much all involve going into a previously cleared dungeon and finding an item.  It's tedious as fuck so after the first 6 or so of these I just started using guides to find the shit because fuck wandering around  the same environment for another hour or 2 just to find a useless item to tick a useless thing off a list of requests.

Despite my bitching, I did actually enjoy playing the game, it definitely made my lunch breaks and train rides to work much more fun.  That said, there is one thing that really pissed me off and there is going to be some spoilers in case you care so...

!!! SPOILERS !!!

The game isn't fucking finished.  You get to the end of the game, confront the final boss and smash his face in.  He says a few last words, dies and then the bitch you've been trying to rescue the whole game gets sucked through a door of evil and we never find out what happens.  Then it cuts to a support character and his buddy and he gets blown up inside his car which is followed by the fucking credits reel. 

None of the mysteries the game put forth are answered and none of the problems that the characters are facing are resolved.  I guess this means that there's going to be a sequel but this shit pisses me the fuck off.  I play this many hours of an RPG to not get at least some kind of ending.  At least let me rescue the girl and have the characters ponder how fucked the world will be if they don't do something about that big fucking door that opened, you don't need to leave me completely in the dark about what happens next.  I might not even care enough to buy your next fucking dungeon crawling Persona rip off.

!!! END SPOILERS !!!

All in all, Mind Zero is a low budget game that is fun to play but has some glaring flaws and poses no challenge to anyone who's even looked at a JRPG before.  If you can get it for mega cheap like I did then check it out but if the asking price is anything more than about £7 then ignore and pick up something better for your Vita.  Finally, I know that it's been released in the west but I can't comment on the quality of the translation because I played it all in Japanese, so someone should let me know how that turned out.

3 Genres That Need A Comeback

Gaming has changed over the years in both many good ways and a few bad ways.  One of the things that has changed a lot since the days of old are the kind of genres prevalent and the industry right now and this is kind of to be expected.  That said, there are a few genres that were popular back then that aren't so popular right now and I feel it's a bit of a shame.  So I'm going to talk about 3 genres of games that I feel need a little bit more love.  I'm sure no one will listen but I just want to talk fondly about some types of games that I love.

1.  Point n' Clicker

Out of the 3 I'm about to talk about, I feel that this one has died the saddest of deaths.  These games are awesome because they are challenging and a lot of them had pretty good stories to boot which made solving that puzzle running on moon logic all the more sweeter.  Games such as Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky and I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream are all spoken of fondly by fans but there hasn't really been any new games in the genre for a long time.  The closest we came in my recent memory was a PC game called Anna but that ran on so much moon logic that I kind of dampened the whole experience.

Unfortunately, these genre has kind of been ruined by people making games that LOOK like point and click games but actually aren't games at all.  Games such as Gone Home and The Stanley Parable are all talked about sort of in the same was as a point and click, except they have no game play to speak of and aren't really much more than that. 

It's kind of sad that the most excited anyone has been for anything in this genre is a remake of Grim Fandango.  That game is awesome but the levels of hype people have for a remake they have played a long time ago in a genre that doesn't lend itself well to re playability, speaks volumes.

2.  Side Scrolling Beat-em-up

Often mistakenly called fighting games by a few people, Beat-Em-Ups were super popular back in the day.  They were perfect for arcades and the home console ports of these games were perfect for when you had a couple of friends over and just wanted to beat the shit out of lots of dudes.

This genre didn't really die as much as it just faded out of the mainstream and replaced with bombastic combat games like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry.  The hack n slash's of the now are awesome, no doubt, but I miss the simplicity of something like Final Fight or Streets of Rage and just being able to kick back and not worry about crazy combo chains or anything like that.

There have been some attempts to keep it alive with that Scott Pilgrim game and Double Dragon Neon but these are so few and far between it's not enough to satisfy and quite frankly they don't quite stack up to the classics.

3. The Dungeon Crawler

This is another genre that isn't completely dead but is so niche that I haven't found a single other person who I can talk with at length about games in the genre.  I feel like this genre has been pushed aside in favor of a myriad of rouge like games which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I wish the classic dungeon crawl would get more love.

Back in the day, if you wanted to make any kind of progress in these games then you had to get some graph paper and get your cartographer skills on.  I can imagine people wouldn't like this because they don't want to have to play a video game with a pen and paper on hand, but for me this was part of the appeal.  It's like you're ACTUALLY on the adventure, making your own maps and making your own notes in order to survive the hardships of the dungeon.  If you get lost or forget key locations that's because YOU weren't thorough enough as an adventurer and you only really have yourself to blame.  The other thing I find appealing about these games is that they are usually fucking rock solid hard and I'm attracted to stupidly high challenge like moth to a flame.

Recent titles have included things like Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei 4 and Legend of Grimrock but these only really serve to keep the genre afloat except the new school stuff doesn't really have the same kind of appeal as the old school.  A lot of these games have either simplified or automatic mapping and they just aren't as hard as the old stuff.  The ONLY game that gave me what I really wanted was The Dark Spire on DS but that was only 1 game released fucking ages ago, which is a damn shame.

I need these genre to bust my balls a little more, you know?

----

Anyway that's all for now, three genres that I feel need a little more love.  Maybe I'm being unreasonable or weird or whatever but that's just how I feel.  Not that modern main stream genres are bad or anything like that but some of the littler guys would get a little more love.

My Personal Best Game of 2012

Well it's finally happened, we have stepped in to the new year.

I was hoping to maybe put together a list of the best 5 or so games that I played this year, but I found this to be way more hassle than I thought it would be.  Not really because I'm lazy, and not because games this year were bad or anything like that.  The problem is that everything that came out this year was just pretty forgettable. 

I was talking this over with a friend of mine and when I said "best game of 2012? GO!", it was followed by a long pause and then a "I dunno".  When we sat and thought about it for a while, we couldn't think of a game that either of us had played, released this year, that blew our minds or really stood out.

Still, that doesn't mean I don't have a pick for my personal favourite of the year, it means I just don't have a list.  So, my personal favourite game of the year is........

The Legend of Grimrock for PC!  I found it to be extremely enjoyable and got a kick out of playing an old school dungeon crawl again.  Sure, it wasn't as obnoxiously designed or as difficult as classics in the genre (stuff I like by the way), but it was still a lot of fun and probably the only game from this year that really sticks out in my head.  Also the dungeon editor was a nice feature though I haven't bothered to do anything big in it.

If I had to name a runner up it would be Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition but that technically came out 2011, so I don't really know if it counts or not.  But who cares, PC gamers got to enjoy it and the new content was just swell.

Hopefully 2013 will be a little more memorable

THOSE Moments in Games

So today I'm playing Etrian Odyssey on the DS, a cool little dungeon crawl that involves drawing your own map and exploring a vast network of tunnels filled with equal parts treasure and danger.  I thought this game was pretty awesome until I got a certain side-quest, a side quest to spend 5 in game days on the 8th floor of the dungeon. 

That means moving 3600 steps, which means patrolling in that 3 square little space for 5 game days because otherwise I have to fight boring monsters that I can kill in one hit!

This got me thinking, there are a lot of games that have THOSE moments, you know the ones I mean, the moments that throw a dirty big wrench into an otherwise really enjoyable game.  The most famous example that comes to my mind is the Ocarina of Time Water Temple

People love the shit out of this game but this dungeon is one of the most hated things in all of gaming. 

While most of these sections usually involve a sewer, this doesn't quite qualify as a rant on sewer levels because there are a good handful of games where these sections take place outside of those infernal underground pieces of shit.

The problem with these sections is that it can really kill the replay value of a game.  There are plenty of games in my collection that I would actually love to play again, but as soon as I go to play it, I remember THAT bit and suddenly I don't want to play anymore.  I don't know why these are so common as well, I'm sure developers know that what they are putting in kills pacing/fun, so why do they do it?

Fucking. Stop it!

The Legend of Grimrock Dungeon Editor

Do you remember this game?  Fuck yeah you do!  For anyone who missed the posts I made about this one, it's an awesome dungeon crawler game that has a proper old-school vibe to it, and it's a ton of fun so go buy it right now!

What's even better though, is that the Dungeon Editor has just been released FOR FREE, and it allows us non game designers to have a crack at designing our own dungeons for people to download and have a crack at.  Here is an example of what it looks like

Unfortunately, the "Fuck Yes" dungeon will not be available for play any time soon.  That said, fucking look at this thing, it's incredibly simple to use and navigate and the developers have not really put any limitations on this tool, so you're free to come up with whatever devilish traps and designs you think are best.

On top of this, the Steam Workshop allows you to easily share you creations, and if it ends up being really fucking good, it's a good way to get your adventure noticed.  So what the fuck are you waiting for?! LETS GET CREATIVE!

Now that's some bullshit #9: Infinitely Respawning Enemies

I can't believe I've been reduced to making a post about this fucking topic, it should be obvious to developers that putting in an infinite amount of enemies in a section is bullshit, so why do they fucking do it?
So let me tell you a story, about how I became all frustrated and red faced about this topic.  I am currently playing Etrian Odyssey on the DS, a fun little dungeon crawler sort of similar to that Legend of Grimrock thing, but the combat is all turn based and encounters are random and character management is completely different....OK so it's NOTHING like Grimrock, but you have to draw your own fucking map so shut up.

Anyway, to illustrate my point, I'm going to show you a picture!

So you see those two purple arrow things?  They are called FOEs, and they are basically big nasty monsters that you can kill for better rewards and shit.  However in this case, the monsters are just ants, ants with high defence and the ability to call for help.  Now that doesn't sound so bad, it's not exactly uncommon to have enemies in RPGs that do this kind of thing, BUT, when you kill one of these FOEs, another one will take it's place straight away.  It's fucking arse because the ants in this particular corridor have something like 3 different respawn points, so it's almost impossible to make any fucking progress.  On top of that, if you manage to be unlucky enough to fight them on one of the respawning squares, you're just fucked, the fight will never end and you should just run.

But you know what?  As I'm sat here venting about this particular corridor, which I'll get through by the time the next subway trip is over, I can't actually think of another game that has this, apart from fucking Doom, and even then it's only on the highest difficulty. 

I know they exist, I've seen it, experienced it, raged at it before but I can't bring another title to mind right now.  But the point still fucking stands, don't have your enemies respawn till the end of time, it brings everything to a fucking standstill and does nothing but piss off and bore the player as he or she kills the same fucking enemies a million times over.

So if you are a game developer, and you put this kind of thing in the game, go and fuck yourself with a burning cattle prod.

Those "Oh crap..." moments

Occasionally when you're playing a game, something will happen where you have to stop, take a minute and get slightly worried as to what is coming ahead.  These moments aren't brought about by the game being bad.  It's not "oh crap things are about to get worse", it's more "oh crap shits about to go DOWN!"

For the example I'm providing today, we return to the dungeons of Grimrock

Everything up to this point has been made of stone, then you hop down some stairs and BAM! oppressive metal prison walls everywhere.  The corridors seem darker, there isn't a natural light source in sight and as soon as you step through that door, all you can see are pits and ominous shadows.  On top of that, you get a quite worrying little message from your telepathic friend (not spoiling anything)

I stopped just past that door, so I don't know whats coming next, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories pre-release impressions

Writing about this game is very hard for me, and not because there isn't really all that much information about it, but because I can already tell that it fucking sucks.  I'm a big Silent Hill fan, I loved 1-3 and even 4 despite it's flaws.  I was even willing to give downpour some credit for somewhat being a step in the right direction, but this? this is a fucking joke, it's a mess, a disaster, and it's not even come out yet.

So just what is Silent Hill: Book of Memories?  Well it ain't a Silent Hill game I'll tell you that.  The story line follows some prick that you design yourself, and you find a book or some shit where your entire past is written, and then you can bend reality or some nonsense in order to change your past and....WHAT THE FUCK HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH SILENT HILL?! someone please tell me the link here?  also it's on the Vita, thought that was worth mentioning.

You know, if they changed to art style to something more original, and just called it "Book of Memories", maybe I wouldn't be flying off the handle, but why in the name of Jesus thorny butthole does it carry the Silent Hill name?  From what I can tell of the one video I've seen about it, it doesn't even have anything to do with Silent Hill. 

But the story isn't my biggest issue here, Silent Hill's story has been getting fucked every which way since Origins so it's something I've come to expect now.  But the gameplay? oh god does the gameplay look shitty.

First of all, did anyone ever play THIS fucking game?

If you did, your basically looking at the same sodding game.  From what I can tell of the gameplay footage the game focuses on multiplayer dungeon crawling, where all the dungeons look like rusty Silent Hill buildings as opposed to caves.  So first of all, Silent Hill is supposed to be a fucking horror game franchise right? so why the fuck has it suddenly turned into a loot based hack n' slash.  The only difference between this and Baldurs Gate is that the loot now doesn't drop as much so that it semi fits in with the whole survival horror thing.  Secondly, why in the name of holy cock shitting hell does it have a multiplayer focus?  What made Silent Hill really scary, was that sense of being alone, that sense that the only things that exist in the town are you, and shit that wants you dead.  But now its OK! You have up to 3 other friends to cover your back and make sure the nasties don't get you! 

Newsflash! THATS NOT FUCKING SCARY!  Good lord how do you fuck this up so bad.

Just let Silent Hill die, please, for the love of God.  All these western developers have no idea what the holy fuck they are doing and every new game just makes me want to hurl every member of the development teams into an active volcano.  But to be honest with you, even if you got the Japanese to take a crack at it, it would probably STILL be a shitty game.  The stroke of genius with this series has long gone, and it ain't comin' back, just put it to rest and lets look back fondly on what were truly some of the greatest horror games ever.  Stop destroying the legacy of Silent Hill!

Legend of Dance Dance Revolution

So this morning I'm playing through some Legend of Grimrock to pass the time before work when I come across a very strange room.

First of all, I have to take a little moment to explain what I was even doing in this room at all.

These big iron doors are found in every level of the Grimrock dungeon.  You are not required to go through them in order to beat a floor, but behind them is usually some kind of item that will be extremely helpful later on, so it's a good idea to go out of your way to get them open.  Every door has a different opening method, usually some kind of puzzle, but the solution to this particular door is not exactly what I would call conventional.

As soon as you step into the first tile of the room, the middle face statue shoots a magic bolt at you.   The bolts do no damage to the player, so it's OK to get hit by them and if they hit the wall behind you, they activate teleporters that take you back to the entrance of the room.  So the solution is pretty obvious, don't let the magic bolts hit the teleport switches, but holy shit, I didn't expect them to flow as fast as they did.  It's times like this I really wish I was recording because the speed at which the bolts were coming down was like something straight out of a rhythm game.  Luckily I'm pretty darn good at Rhythm games so I beat it pretty quickly.  When you do beat it you get an achievement in Steam

So obviously this was a reference to the widely popular rhythm genre (even more obviously Guitar Hero).  A fun little distraction and an unexpected little event in my dungeon crawler.  Just felt like sharing.

The Legend of Grimrock

This is a post I've been saving for a while, because I'm going to flat out gush about this game, holy shit is it good.

So, to give a little background on what Grimrock is exactly, first of all you have to understand the roots of this genre.  A long long time ago, on the old computer systems that most of today's gamers have probably never even heard of, there were games such as The Bards Tale and Wizardry.  Wizardry is the example I will focus on here because this is what's most similar to Grimrock.  Basically, in Wizardy you had a party of dudes, and you had to fight your way through a maze like dungeon to complete whatever the objective was for the scenario you were playing.

Like a well aged cask of wine

These games were really quite difficult and lacked an auto mapping feature, so you had to sit there with a stack of paper and draw the maps yourself, or be doomed to getting lost in the dungeon forever.  Then the genre just kind of died off for a long time, or at least for a significant portion of my life I didn't encounter any of these kind of games.

But now, in 2012, the old school maze dungeon crawl game is making a comeback!  I can't really explain why but Japan seems to have a huge love for this genre of game.  Huge numbers of Wizardry remakes have been released over the years as Japan exclusive games and on top of that we've had some really good ones come out for portable systems over the recent years, most notably Etrian Odyssey and The Dark Spire (which even had a setting to make it look like a Wizardry game)

Then in April of this year, we were given The Legend of Grimrock, and good lord Jesus Christ on a stick is it really fucking good.

Holy shit even the menu screen makes me wet my pants with excitement.  Where it says Dungeon, you can only select Grimrock right now, but in the future there is plans to release a map editor so people can create their own scenarios, which sounds fucking amazing, something I'm going to drop on ASAP.  The difficulty setting we'll come back to later.  Then there is the obvious option to make your own party, and then the really cool feature, to turn off the auto map!  That's right folks, if you're a die hard pen and paper dungeon crawl kinda guy, break out those old maths workbooks and get doodling because you're gonna have a crap ton of fun plotting the dungeon here.

So the game itself follows your party of 4 prisoners as they get thrown inside the mega jail known as Grimrock.  It is then up to you to guide your 4 characters to the bottom of the dungeon and escape from the damn place, a feat easier said than done.  The one thing I really love about this game is the atmosphere, the tower of Grimrock is actually a really intimidating place to be, and when you start out basically naked and with no knowledge of whats ahead, every step feels dangerous as fuck.

Of course, there isn't much plot aside from "get to the bottom" but it still manages to throw in a bit of mystery in the form of strange text based dream sequences that pop up occasionally when you sleep.

I still don't know who or what it is, I have an idea but I really won't know until I get to the bottom.  Is it a trap? is it salvation?! Holy shit it's so fucking exciting!

Despite what I'm going to say in a later paragraph, the games design is really good too.  Grimrock feels alive, it feels like it's swallowed countless people before you and the horrible creatures that lurk the corridors can't wait to get hold of their next meal.  The game is also filled with puzzles that really make you feel like whoever built Grimrock, really didn't want anyone to get out.  The whole journey feels futile, but you MUST press on, you MUST not be another namless victim who just rolled over and died and the prospect of an seemingly unescapable dungeon.  Basically what I'm trying to say is the game does a really good job of immersing the player, and everyone fucking loves immersion, it's all you ever fucking hear about nowadays.

Wall face demands you solve his easy puzzle!

That is not to say the game is flawless, there are some glaring issues here.  First of all the way the game looks can sometimes be a bit dull.  Sure the dungeon changes wall texture the further down you get, but it just copy-pastes the same wall textures over and over and over and over and it can get a bit tiring to look at sometimes.  Sure, I mean you're making a game in a genre where the graphics used to be wire frame, but c'mon, in this day an age you can do a little more. 

What most of the game has looked like so far for me

 The puzzles are also an issue with this game with none of them being really that challenging at all.  Sure, a room with a maze of teleporters may look daunting when you first come across it, but the solution ends up being a cakewalk.  Hopefully this will be remedied with people designing some really fiendish dungeons in the map editor.  My final issue with this game is the enemy design.  You will fight the same snails, skeletons and crabs so often that it begins to lose all meaning after a while, the same strategy will work every time so combat becomes just a little bit of a bore in prolonged play sessions.

Which leads me to say, if you are new to this genre and are interested in Grimrock, avoid talking to die hard dungeon crawlers like the plague.  The game is really, REALLY good, but you're hardcore player will scream "casual" at Grimrock and may do everything within his power to have to play other, more skin rippingly difficult games in the genre.  I agree that they've made it a lot easier and more accessible, but that isn't a bad thing really.  The more people playing this great genre the better, and the casuals of today will be designing your super fiendish dungeons tomorrow, so deal with it.

So with the steam sales in full force, pick it up and give it a go, it's well worth the $15 you pay for it, and even more so if you manage to get money off during the summer.  If you're looking for a modern take on an old school gaming experience, you can't go wrong with Grimrock.

Below is a load of screenshots I took that I didn't use in my gushing session.  Will post updates as I play more