Legend of Grimrock 2 officially anounced.

http://www.grimrock.net/2013/02/21/a…e-new-project/

A very good news indeed. Now, please add turn based combat, more classes, puzzles and riddles and we're good to go .

Yes great news! I just hope GG doesn't get an exclusive.

Originally Posted by Ball_Breaker
turn based combat

Uh, no. Dungeon Master (1987) was never turnbased.

Looking forward to it.

Personally I´d like to see more complex character system (including more non-combat abilities/spells), more story elements (an NPC here and there, books, etc.), less linear progression between levels and more diverse puzzle elements (though I was fine with them in the first game after a drought of these in more recent RPG outings).

Originally Posted by JemyM
Uh, no. Dungeon Master (1987) was never turnbased.

Uhm, so? Eye Of The Beholder was. Anyway, LoG is just a "spiritual successor", so they can choose the route they want. Speaking personally, I don't care too much about the combay system, being it realtime or turnbased, as long as it's good.
But if they'll go with realtime again, I hope that a spell memorization system will be added.

Yayaaaaa!!!!

Good news!

Originally Posted by Ball_Breaker
Uhm, so? Eye Of The Beholder was. Anyway, LoG is just a "spiritual successor", so they can choose the route they want. Speaking personally, I don't care too much about the combay system, being it realtime or turnbased, as long as it's good.
But if they'll go with realtime again, I hope that a spell memorization system will be added.

No, Eye of the Beholder wasn't turnbased either. Neither was Lands of Lore. The earlier Might & Magic titles were, but the realtime gridbased games were a very specific style.

EoB was not realtime combat; I just checked a video.

Originally Posted by Corwin
EoB was not realtime combat; I just checked a video.

Eye of the Beholder is most certainly realtime combat, I have beaten that games numerous times and even published a full walkthrough on it on YT. All attacks and spellcasting are tied to cooldowns and you can move as fast as you can push keys. Monsters all attack by their own and are not tied to your actions. There are no "turns" like in Wizardry or Might & Magic. You can't even pause the game.

Having a 'cooldown' makes it NOT real time IMO. There should be no cooldown if it's real time. I didn't say it was TB. I can understand cooldown a little with spells, but not with melee attacks; that couldn't happen in real time.

I liked and completed the first one, but when I was done I was ready to be done. I didn't want to replay it or try any mods.

I will keep an eye on it but if its just more of the same I think I'll pass. Especially if they keep the magic system in tact.

@Corwin: That's still real time by gaming definitions. No creatures/events wait on your cooldown or for you to act; that is what is generally meant by "real time".

yep, I agree. Youre in the wrong on this one, Corwin bro

Where do I pre-order LoGII?

I never got around to playing the first one. I'll have to pick it up in a sale someday coz folks here seemed to like it.

EotB = Real time combat.

As for Grimrock 2 - I just hope they'll focus more on exploration and story. I also hope they'll change the nature and pacing of the puzzles. WAY too much jumping/timing last time - and it felt like Portal or Tomb Raider more than anything else.

To my mind, they didn't really understand the games they were trying to emulate.

Excellent news indeed. Congrats to Almost Human.

To be honest, I think it's a bit arrogant to suggest they didn't understand what they were trying to achieve or create with Legend of Grimrock. If you read the blog, I think it's quite clear that they're sufficiently intelligent to know exactly what they were trying to do. Anyway, glad to read that they've been really heavily discussing what they want to do with the sequel.

I'm all for more elaborate dungeon design perhaps with more spread out puzzles and lore based riddles at particular moments. Options for npcs (like Eye of the Beholder I and II did) meeting them and the like would also be very welcome indeed.

Whilst I'm not especially worried about story within my dungeon crawlers, some narrative and lore touches and references to the original here and there would be nice to add to the immersion factor.

I do like the ol' Deathtrap Dungeon idea of parties or individuals going in before or after you and then discovering clues of their fates within. Little things like that help make the experience more involving.

I guess we'll see what happens.

Originally Posted by Pessimeister
To be honest, I think it's a bit arrogant to suggest they didn't understand what they were trying to achieve or create with Legend of Grimrock. If you read the blog, I think it's quite clear that they're sufficiently intelligent to know exactly what they were trying to do. Anyway, glad to read that they've been really heavily discussing what they want to do with the sequel.

Calling someone who disagrees with the developers arrogant is too easy.

Arrogance is about feeling superior - and that has nothing to do with this. Unless I'm arrogant because I'm not happy with their imitation of Dungeon Master. They very clearly stated over and over that Dungeon Master is the game they were emulating.

I guess I'm also arrogant for suggesting that the Blizzard team behind Diablo 3 didn't really understand Diablo? They did sell 10+ million copies afterall.

In any case - according to Steam statistics (I believe) - the completion rate of Grimrock is around 8%.

That tells me that they knew how to market the game - and they certainly got a lot of people to buy it. Myself included.

But not a lot of people actually completed it. Maybe there's a message there.

They over-emphasized puzzles if you compare the game to Dungeon Master. I won't go into quality of puzzles - because that's simply too subjective. But Dungeon Master only had a few levels that were as puzzle-heavy as the entirety of Grimrock.

Saying they didn't really understand Dungeon Master in that way is hardly arrogant, is it?

I certainly fail to see how it could be. Unless my understanding of a beloved genre potentially being superior somehow translates to an overall superiority as a human being.

Again, to my mind - they didn't manage to emulate Dungeon Master sufficiently well.

Sometimes, it's ok to criticise the work of people who've had monetary success in the indie scene. You don't have to be in awe of it - and you can actually be dealing with human beings that aren't perfect.

I congratulate them on their success - but I honestly don't think their take on the genre was all that great. The production values were GREAT for an indie. Very impressive indeed. But the actual gameplay was repetitive after a while, and while the genre always had an element of repetition - it used to be more about exploration and immersion than constant samey puzzles.

I do understand that the short development time meant they couldn't really create elaborate or fulfilling level designs. It takes a lot of effort to create a strong story and appealing exploration. Variation on a handful of puzzles might have been smarter in that way. But that doesn't mean it's arrogant to point it out.

In any case, I hope they'll use their success to go beyond that design.

I love Grimrock. Comparable to my alltime-favourite Lands of Lore if you see the puzzles. But they are different games. Grimrock does more puzzles, LoL is not turn based and LoLs challenge was rather the combat (ugh, the ghost snake in the white tower!) etc… Very much looking forward to Grimrock II.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
In any case - according to Steam statistics (I believe) - the completion rate of Grimrock is around 8%.

That doesn´t mean squat.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
But not a lot of people actually completed it. Maybe there's a message there.

Do you actually have the message, aka statistics for why was it around 8% for people who bought it on Steam?
Btw, you also don´t have any evidence that if the game emulated Dungeon Master to a t the completion rate would be higher.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
They over-emphasized puzzles if you compare the game to Dungeon Master. I won't go into quality of puzzles - because that's simply too subjective. But Dungeon Master only had a few levels that were as puzzle-heavy as the entirety of Grimrock.

There´s nothing wrong with emphasizing the puzzle aspect, different flavours and all.
I, for example, completed Grimrock precisely because it was puzzle-heavy. If it followed the format of Dungeon Master or the first Eye of the Beholder (worse game than Grimrock, regardless of audiovisual side, btw) I very likely wouldn´t because sparse story, simplistic combat and a puzzle here and there would not cut it for me nowadays.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Saying they didn't really understand Dungeon Master in that way is hardly arrogant, is it?

Yeah, it´s just dumb.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Again, to my mind - they didn't manage to emulate Dungeon Master sufficiently well.

IIRC, their stated influences were Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder and Ultima Underworld.
If they didn´t manage to "emulate" one of these, it´s Ultima Underworld, with which the game shares only very general, superficial similarities.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
It takes a lot of effort to create a strong story and appealing exploration.

Yeah, story in Dungeon Master was indeed stellar.
As for exploration, Grimrock is certainly not worse than DM - it comes with a good amount of optional content (more than DM) and a lot of the best rewards come from there. The level design is not significantly, if at all, less inspired than in DM.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
In any case, I hope they'll use their success to go beyond that design.

I´m pretty sure the design of Grimrock came largely from understanding that providing a focused, not overtly ambitious, but well working game was a reasonable way to debut in the field.
I´m also pretty sure they understand that providing a richer and more varied experience is where it´s at when it comes to a sequel, just as the authors of, say, Chaos Strikes Back or Eye of the Beholder 2 did.