Grimoire - Demo Available
 

The Grimoire demo is finally available at Filedropper. This is version 1.1 of the demo as version 1.0 had quite a lot of issues. Then again rumour has it this demo isn't without it's flaws either and there are already reports of crashes with this version too. One of the solutions being not to use the installer at all.
More information.

It does seem to work for the most part. You can use the installer and then move the whole folder out of program files, then modify the icon to point to the new location. I am playing on Win 7 64. Also I moved it off my ssd as some parts are a bit speed dependent.

There are some problems, and also no doc, which makes it hard to know what's happening, particularly for those not familiar with Wiz 7.

Looks like it will be a fun game though, quirks aside. Has to have more skills and stats than any other game ever.

Think you have to see it as beta, it's a huge and complicated game with basically a single developer and was mostly developed for DOS, so there are bound to be a few quirks initially.

Yea well… It'll take a decade or two to make one I guess.

Oh the irony…

Wait, didn't Cleve post that he worked on some in-game help page or so?

If you press F1, whilst in normal play - gives you the keyboard commands you need to use.

1.1 still crashes enough to make it unplayable. Supposedly if you run it as administrator that helps, I haven't tried that yet.

Edit: Nope, still unplayable even running it as administrator.

Yeah, there still seem to be some crash bugs on Win7 64 esp sometimes on initiation of combat. Don't think it's really been tested on that platform. Maybe it works better on Win32.

Who had early 2013 in the betting pool from a long time ago?

It appears that he didn't even test the demo on an operating system which is used by over 50% of PC owners??!! For someone who claims to be some sort of programmer god, he sure doesn't know much about the software development life cycle. You need to test your shit. Don't just throw it over the wall and hope for the best. I know this is only a "pre-demo" demo, but this is pretty ridiculous.

I know that you backed the project, Roq. I certainly hope you get a decent game out of it. However, I don't see how you can be so positive when the developer keeps making one stupid mistake after another. Furthermore, given the complexity of the game, there is no way that even a demo should be packaged without a detailed pdf manual. The Wizardry manuals were huge and with good reason. I used to love reading them. Good stuff!! It takes a lot of time to write detailed documentation, and my impression is that he hasn't even started it yet. Let's not even mention the hint guide. :roll: The documents will take months to prepare.

Finally, how does one person balance/bug fix a game with 200+ maps? Has there ever been a blobber game this large? Assuming the game is released this year (personally, I don't think it's possible), it will take a hell of a lot of additional effort to polish. Based on his actions thus far, does Cleve really seem up for the task?

This whole saga is like watching a bad train wreck. I can't stop watching…or laughing. Why am I laughing at this awful and gory train wreck? Do I need therapy? ;)

Another Win7 x64 user here. I just had to see it for myself. Unfortunately it crashed in first battle while clicking on settings to set actions. It created a DMP file which points to CPerformance::PlaySegment (dmime.dll) which is an implementation of IDirectMusicPerformance. If this is a meaningful callstack then I would guess that disabling direct sound could help but turning it all the way down didn't help. I recall that disabling acceleration in sound has fixed games in the past but dont really want to go there yet.

Anyway tried a few things like limiting to 1 processor and turning on Win95 compatibility and it still keeps crashing so giving up on the demo for now. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong like trying to use the mouse or something.

And he still hasn't released the game. Though I wouldn't be surprised if just the demo had its own betting pool.

I downloaded it earlier without issues but now when I went to install it Avast now comes up with it as malware through filerep.

Tried the demo, crashed a lot, uninstalled. Might try again if/when it gets more stable.

No-one did try the "Compatibility Mode" ?

The game doesn't look like it's ready to be published in a few months. I hope Cleve makes it though. The demo makes me want more.

I hear you. Not sure how it will all pan out. Cleve hasn't even acknowledged yet that there are probelms on Win 7 64 with the demo … silly users don't have the right permissions etc. I have worked out a way to play the demo (after a fashion) in compatibility mode though and it is an interesting game of the kind that I like and didn't really expect to see again. We've certainly seen a lot of rubbish games from less arrogant programmers. Plus, there is something rather intriguing and eccentric about the whole circumstances surrounding the game (who else but a madman would do something like this was no idle boast), so not sorry to have pledged.

If the game is good - then I don't give a shit about the personality behind it. I can't say the time in development has been impressive, but at least it looks like it'll release now.

I'm having fun with it. It's pretty hard to play without doc, but possible to work things out by trial and error, taking it slowly. Grimoire has pretty much every mechanism that Wiz 7 had (including some of it's less great features such as being able to throw your primary weapon and not recover it :)), so it's a question of finding out how to do those things … and more.

I haven't been brave enough to create my own toons yet, getting to grips with all the stats and skills is daunting and it looks like you really need some of the skills that were somewhat cosmetic in Wiz 7 and don't go swimming…

Swimming is a skill you need to build up for all your party. Then, as you use it, the skill level will increase. I think you need about 10 for each to avoid drowning.