Grimoire Greenlit on Steam, Hell freezes over.....

jjstraka34

So, many of you may or may not know about the legendary (in some circles) vaporware title that has been languishing for nearly 2 decades called Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, a absolutely massive blobber in the tradition of Wizardry 7 that boasts of a 600 hour playtime. Some of you may or may not have tried out the various demos floating around the internet (which were beyond tantalizing).

Well.....the game just got the go ahead for Greenlight on Steam, so it looks like this game is actually going to come out.

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Fardragon

Doesn't the title just trip off the tongue?

jjstraka34

Within the next 24 hours there will be a release date up on this site. Just have to make sure everything is in order with Valve for business and tax purposes before setting any schedules in stone.

That's from Cleave himself, though as with everything Grimoire related, you have to remain somewhat of a skeptic until it does, based on the game's history, but at this point if he bails after all this he will have actually lost all credibility, and no one will ever believe him again, so my bet is this is actually happening.

JoenSo

It sounds like Grimoire is to gaming what The thief and the cobbler is to animation.

jjstraka34

JoenSo said:

It sounds like Grimoire is to gaming what The thief and the cobbler is to animation.

That, or "Chinese Democracy" or Brian Wilson's "Smile".

BelleSorciere

Ah, Cleve Blakemore. I remember him being all over video game usenet.

jjstraka34

He has now given a concrete release date of May 29th. Again, until I have it downloading I won't believe it 100%, but this particular title has been something I wanted to play since I tracked down the demo.

ThacoBell

This is the first I've ever heard of both this game and developer.

jjstraka34

ThacoBell said:

This is the first I've ever heard of both this game and developer.

It's a very niche thing to be interested in. A game specifically designed to emulate a DOS-era blobber while at the same time taking the length of one of the longest RPGs ever (Wizardry 7) and saying "let's triple that." Basically, it's the obsession product of a crazy Australian mad RPG scientist (who was, I believe involved in working on the initial follow-up to Wizardy 7 that was scrapped). He (supposedly) managed to hold onto alot of the art assests and has been making the game, on his own, for 20 years. He has teased almost being done with it many times over the past 5 years, but this is the first time it's gottenn to this point.

jjstraka34

The crazy bastard actually did it. After two more delays on Steam, early this morning.....it actually came out. It exists. And it's actually really, really good. If you have any interest in this type of game, if you liked Wizardry 7, or Isles of Terra/World of Xeen, then there is no possible way I can't recommend this game. I still can't believe I'm actually playing it.

Ardanis

*Looks at the game's tags*

About damn time, been a whole year since I played Sakura Dungeon

Jokes aside, I'm impressed it actually saw release. Alas, I'm not retro enough to appreciate grid-based movement...

jjstraka34

I've played the game for about 7 hours thus far, and if it actually does have the 240+ maps it boasts of, this really is going to be a 400-600 hour game. The progress is slow but steady. Right now it's a bit of a community effort on the RPGCodex among about 10 of us who are trying to figure out how the game's systems work until Cleve releases the manual. I can't speak highly enough about what I've seen thus far. The music is superb in the DOS/Midi way, the art style is appealing, the flavor text is some of the best, geekiest hardcore D&D claptrap I've ever seen, and the game is slowly revealing itself. It's no walk in the park, but it IS more accessible than Wizardry 6/7 (if only because of the automap) though less accessible than Wizardry 8 or Xeen.

Cleve is definitely a bit nuts, but I have to give him all the credit in the world. Because he may have called his own shot. If this game continues to play like it has so far, he may have indeed made the ultimate CRPG turn-based blobber just like he always said he would. It is kind of easy to see how this might have taken 20 years. It is meticulously hand-crafted, and very purposeful. Aside from the random encounters (which are necessary for leveling and were also a staple of the games it takes the most inspiration from) nothing feels out of place. Some people will look at the price of $35 (on sale for the moment) and shy away. But I'd have paid double that at this point. If you are even SLIGHTLY interested in this genre, or even if you just want to see what all the fuss was about, throw this guy some money. He's crazy, and a bit of an ass, but despite all that, he deserves it.