|OT| Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest ( Grimrock devs)

prudis

anime occult member
Sep 19, 2018
10,229
26,760
113
The Kingdom of Beer and Porn
twitter.com
The druids of the Menhir Forest are troubled. Not only has the Archdruid disappeared, a darkness in the form of purple cysts has fallen upon the forest. It is up to Aava, the daughter of the Archdruid and her new-found companions Leonhard, a mysterious man with no past, and Oiko the mage, a dropout from the guild of Red Priests, to rescue the Archdruid and find out the truth behind the sinister events. As if this wasn't enough, a murderous maniac impersonating Leonhard is at loose in the forest....

Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest is a labor of love from the makers of the critically acclaimed Legend of Grimrock series. Druidstone is a tactical, single-player, turn-based roleplaying game, which combines the best qualities of modern RPGs with the elegance of tactical boardgames. Every action, every turn counts as you control your party of heroes through handcrafted, challenging missions with varying objectives.

Druidstone is set in a unique fantasy world, Elo Sphaera, filled with ancient, lush forests, standing stones, snow-topped mountains, deadly creatures and puzzle-ridden ruins. The epic story about love and death is centered around the main characters Leonhard, Aava and Oiko, who will along the way meet up with unexpected companions and villains, each with their unique personalities and abilities.

Get ready to venture forth and uncover the secrets of the Menhir Forest!

Key Features
  • A tactical turn- and tile-based battle system where every action, every turn counts.
  • Upgrade the abilities of your heroes as you see fit using power gems obtained by completing missions and discovering hidden treasures.
  • Challenging, hand-crafted missions with playtimes ranging from 15 minutes to 45 minutes.
  • Solve devious non-combat puzzle levels to obtain rare equipment.
  • A gripping, fantastic story of love and death centered around the main characters Leonhard, Aava and Oiko.
  • A unique fantasy setting combining elements from western RPGs, JRPGs and tactical boardgames in unexpected ways.
  • Play custom missions created by others or make your own campaigns with the upcoming Druidstone Level Editor available as a post release update.
 

bobnowhere

Careful Icarus
Sep 20, 2018
1,665
4,288
113
Looks great. I tried to get into Grimrock but it never really did it for me. This style is more my jam.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lashman

Routa

Non-Stop MMO Searcher
Dec 22, 2018
861
3,797
93

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
3,581
8,584
113
Indonesia
Releasing May 15th!

What? That's so soon!

Yakuza will have to wait then, I guess.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Deleted member 113

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
3,581
8,584
113
Indonesia
Oh, oooh...

No controller support, and they never added it on their Grimrock games either. Pre-historic PC devs, not worth my time and money.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
5,463
8,530
113
Grimrock was old school on purpose so calling it prehistoric isn't too far off. It's too old school or rather not within the niches I enjoy with a mouse & keyboard too, as you have to juggle multiple party member attacks, skills, items, spells, whatever, in real time while also moving around and that's all part of its gameplay and challenge. I don't think they could convert that to gamepad controls unless they totally changed it and gave us something like a turn/pause based battle option which would make it so I can play on mouse & keyboard too without the panic of juggling all that stuff in real time. Still, that's not the kind of game they were making (and so not the kind of game I can enjoy, that would be something more like Operencia which Epic stole from me or Might & Magic or Wizardry). Gamepad controls seem feasible for this game, maybe they'll eventually add it though maybe they also don't have the resources or time for it, who knows.
 
Last edited:

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
3,581
8,584
113
Indonesia
Grimrock was old school on purpose so calling it prehistoric isn't too far off. It's too old school or rather not within the niches I enjoy with a mouse & keyboard too, as you have to juggle multiple party member attacks, skills, items, spells, whatever, in real time while also moving around and that's all part of its gameplay and challenge. I don't think they could convert that to gamepad controls unless they totally changed it and gave us something like a turn/pause based battle option which would make it so I can play on mouse & keyboard too without the panic of juggling all that stuff in real time. Still, that's not the kind of game they were making (and so not the kind of game I can enjoy, that would be something more like Operencia which Epic stole from me or Might & Magic or Wizardry). Gamepad controls seem feasible for this game, maybe they'll eventually add it though maybe they also don't have the resources or time for it, who knows.
I'd be okay with it if the reasoning makes sense. Grimrock makes sense judging by your description, but this is not. After their success with the previous games, I don't buy the lack of resources excuse anymore. I'm usually content with playing games with kb/m if it's from a new studio, like ATOM in December.

It's just that I've been in a lot of Steam discussions asking for controller support for various games. I often get disappointing response from the devs, using excuses like "it's a PC game that's best played with kb/m", "we will look into it if there's enough demand", even though it's proven time and time again that their games aren't special. Lots of other games in similar genres that have controller support. I call them pre-historic PC devs because they can't see the landscape of PC gaming today.
 

Madventure

The Angel of Deaf
Nov 17, 2018
1,561
5,440
113
I'd be okay with it if the reasoning makes sense. Grimrock makes sense judging by your description, but this is not. After their success with the previous games, I don't buy the lack of resources excuse anymore. I'm usually content with playing games with kb/m if it's from a new studio, like ATOM in December.

It's just that I've been in a lot of Steam discussions asking for controller support for various games. I often get disappointing response from the devs, using excuses like "it's a PC game that's best played with kb/m", "we will look into it if there's enough demand", even though it's proven time and time again that their games aren't special. Lots of other games in similar genres that have controller support. I call them pre-historic PC devs because they can't see the landscape of PC gaming today.
I mean they aren't horrible horrible devs but still you could always just ask them, they seem pretty reasonable. Plus it's literally 4 for people for their dev team
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
5,463
8,530
113
Yeah that was a rad moment, I instantly thought of it as I was reading your post before even getting to the link embed :)

Makes me ashamed for being unable to play these games well when that guy also has to juggle the moving around with his mouse, when I only have to juggle the party actions with the mouse and use wasd etc to move which should make it much more viable, haha. I hope the guy (and others like him) enjoyed it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Deleted member 113

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
3,581
8,584
113
Indonesia
After reading the impressions in Era, I guess I'll pass. Sounds like it's too difficult and the gameplay loop looks repetitive.
 

bobnowhere

Careful Icarus
Sep 20, 2018
1,665
4,288
113
After reading the impressions in Era, I guess I'll pass. Sounds like it's too difficult and the gameplay loop looks repetitive.
It seems like it's quite similar in idea to Element: Space. Everything is very limited so there is probably only one way to play levels correctly, almost more of a puzzle game. It takes away all player agency and discourages experimentation.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
1,543
2,608
113
I don't like it.

Not a fan of the mission design (even if you can come back to them), and yeah, it's needlessly hard for my liking, especially with turn limits, NPCs to escort, hefty enemy spawns and a focus on activating objectives rather than the more organic D-RPG of Grimrock.

I think it's also incredibly at odds with itself, with deterministic combat (that's good, you know what you will do every turn instead of just missing and dying)... but also crazy RNG with ennemies randomly dropping (I think it's random? Did not seem to get the same thing twice so...) extra actions (!), or even chests getting you absolutely bonkers stuff like a full turn of invulnerability for all characters.

It's not al all what I expected, it feels like a shoddy die-and-retry, mission based puzzle-strategy game with an accidental layer of randomness sprinkled on it.
I wonder why it's so different from Grimrock1&2, it takes almost none of their strengths outside of some nice puzzles once in a while, but it's not even the focus here...
 
OP
prudis

prudis

anime occult member
Sep 19, 2018
10,229
26,760
113
The Kingdom of Beer and Porn
twitter.com
interesting , so more of a puzzle/bordgame RPG rather than cRPG (what i expected) ... dont really have problems with that and still quite interested in it but looking at the impressions will rather wait for some patches and tweaks