Legend of Grimrock - How Almost Human Rolled the Dice and Won

Gamasutra writes about the formation of Almost Human and the success of Legend of Grimrock, which as we know from their first post-release blog, has paid for the development costs "many times over":

As for why Almost Human thinks the game has been such a big hit, Salila believes the team was able to strike a crucial balance between staying true to the dungeon crawler genre's essential elements (e.g. difficulty, grid-based movement) to appeal to players' sense of nostalgia, and updating the game's graphics, audio, and user interface to meet modern standards.

More information.

A crucial balance… Well, partly in my opinion. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and do think the mix between modern graphics and oldskool gameplay did work. However, what I missed from (my) 'days of yore' was a truly engaging story. I kept hoping to run into a NPC or two, do a little quest on the side or get a feel of Grimrock's 'subterranean subculture'. It was nice, finishing it, but it's uninstalled already.

It is funny how they talk about 10 months development time all the time. It is obvious this game has 10 years old history. It was known as Dungeon Master 2000 fan project and later as Escape from Dragon Mountain.

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/822

http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/…ic.php?t=21366

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Put6IOUUYLI

I felt the UI was one of the worst elements as well. They didn't need to bring the UI from 1992 also. No hotkeys, no quick-save (upon release). Fun little game, but no story and a little clunky.

Great game, great puzzles.

I don't find anything really bad with the UI. No quicksave on the initial release was just a minor oversight. As for the absence for hotkeys, I think it's just a part of the game, a part of the challenge. Hotkeys to change your weapons in the middle of a fight for exemple, would make fighting not as interesting and less frantic, realistic.

Originally Posted by Zerotown
A crucial balance… Well, partly in my opinion. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and do think the mix between modern graphics and oldskool gameplay did work. However, what I missed from (my) 'days of yore' was a truly engaging story. I kept hoping to run into a NPC or two, do a little quest on the side or get a feel of Grimrock's 'subterranean subculture'. It was nice, finishing it, but it's uninstalled already.

I liked that there wasn't any side quest npc's. It's a nice change and good to see that Grimrock had a proper focus and direction.

I only just started to play this the other night and I must say that I'm quite impressed. Really refreshing to see this gameplay style again with a design philosophy both steeped in the past and with a contemporary edge.

Whilst I've only made it to level 4 so far, the experience has been wonderful. Memories of playing Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore even Arx Fatalis (in the ambient sound mostly, but also the spiders!) have come flooding back. Looking forward to the greater perils and puzzles to come!

GoTY for me so far. The combat is fun, the puzzles were challenging and required both thought and effort. I'm hoping to see some expansions for this at some point. Some bigger companies could learn a lot from this game.


-Carn

It says a lot about what people truly want. Take the RPG and wrap it up in a huge world, complex plot, tons of NPCs, etc etc…

In the end, after all these years and debate over what constitutes an RPG and what do people really want - lot of people simply just want to head down into a dungeon and kill things, and figure out how to progress.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
It says a lot about what people truly want. Take the RPG and wrap it up in a huge world, complex plot, tons of NPCs, etc etc…

In the end, after all these years and debate over what constitutes an RPG and what do people really want - lot of people simply just want to head down into a dungeon and kill things, and figure out how to progress.

I want a variety of rpgs that do different things. Sometimes I want a rpg with a deep story line, other times I want to press buttons in walls and fall down pits without any pesky npcs.

Originally Posted by Scrav
I want a variety of rpgs that do different things. Sometimes I want a rpg with a deep story line, other times I want to press buttons in walls and fall down pits without any pesky npcs.

+1

I can enjoy Vampire and Gothic and Arkanum and The Witcher and Fallout NV and Legend of Grimrock and DAO and Arx fatalis (the list goes on) for very different reasons because they are very good at what they do and plain simply damn good games… Variety is a good thing. Sweeping generalizations, not so much…

Originally Posted by JonNik
+1

I can enjoy Vampire and Gothic and Arkanum and The Witcher and Fallout NV and Legend of Grimrock and DAO and Arx fatalis (the list goes on) for very different reasons because they are very good at what they do and plain simply damn good games… Variety is a good thing. Sweeping generalizations, not so much…

+2 :-)

I started finding myself getting stuck in a rut a while ago and with much angst and pushing started trying some different types of games from my standard. While some were just as expected (i.e. let down) others were a huge amount of fun.

Since then I try to keep a more open mind to experience a bit more variety. of course when I have to many games to pick from I tend to stick with my comfort area … but already my "comfort area" has been expanded.