Undesirable: I know, but the sequel wasn't announced back when I originally posted.

Argaven: sequels were announced a little before the game was released, but sorry if you didnt know

Undesirable: Or perhaps the official announcement that they were definately working on a Grimrock sequel was 6 months ago and the features were revealed even more recently than that...

Argaven: in the part where you choose the dungeon , it says that there are going to be more dungeons

Undesirable: You said that the sequel was announced before the first game was released. How can you see the announcement in-game before it is released?

Anyway, how does an in game dialog (that I can't even find) count as an official announcement of a sequel? Should I have predicted all the new features the game will have from a message like that? Besides which, in my original post, I mentioned nothing of the unlikelihood of new dungeons being designed for the sequel, I simply said it would be a good idea to incorporate new outdoors areas 4 months before the official announcement of the existence of the game, and 5 months before the announcement of the features.

Face it, you're fighting a losing battle here.

Argaven: Almost Human was always saying that the grimrock wont be only dungeon
NEVAHHH SURRENDAHHH

Undesirable: Remember the part where I said that there was no official announcement until 6 months ago? Any small hints given of new dungeons before that date does not count as revealing that the game will definitely be a fully-fledged sequel with outdoors areas. It could have been referring to an expansion pack or community modded dungeons via the dungeon editor.

Argaven: Okay Okay I lost
but you dont seem to understand the point of this game, even if you were born too late for Dungeon Master or EotB, like me , this game isnt about the story, its about puzzles and survival, a challenge to the fingers and brain.

Undesirable: It could have more of a story, more locations, as well as dungeons, puzzles and survival in order TO ADD VARIETY, which is what I suggested to the original poster of this thread who complained of boredom, along with some others. He mentioned some games that are newer than Dungeon Master, but still very old, which do have some of this stuff. It doesn't have to have as complex a story as Baldur's Gate 2, or as many locations as World of Warcraft but something of either would be good. Now we know that we are at least getting some of that, and I look forward to playing Grimrock 2.

Senestoj: Mmm old but not that old to not mention Dungeon Master. ;-)

I hope you didn't stop play before to have play at least level 3 and 4 (I'm in 4) because it's where the game starts has real depth.

Otherwise it seems like you never played Dungeon Master and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet in that thread. All opinions are valid, but if you ask me, Dungeon Master is unmatched neither by EoB nor by LoD even less by Ishar which is a bit sub quality.

So LoG go back to the sources and is closer to Dungeon Master than any other game. But yes, Dungeon Master is still unmatched.

The point in games like Dungeon Master and LoG is all about puzzles, secrets to find better equipment and tools or handy stuff, progressing in the levels, survival and resources management, manage the fights, find tricks to exploit, discover spread story elements, build an efficient party.

It doesn't match Dungeon Master because of some points, fights has some less depth and the speed increase of monsters movements isn't a good change, difficulty of fights and survival is less well managed than in DM and push too easily to abusive tricks like exploiting too much the crystals, the number of assets is lower than in DM, it's hardly concrete and objective but the mood and feeling of mystery was better build in Dungeon Master.

LoG is still a priceless game and it shines and even compare well to Dungeon Master in some important design points:
- The map layout and progression design including the spreading of secrets and puzzles and links between levels, since level 3 of LoG it almost match DM.
- The puzzles abundance and difficulty management is even better than DM.
- The secrets abundance and hints design (hint there's some secret to find) is at least as good than DM.

The weak points, in my opinion and from knowing only a part of LoG:
- Difficulty management (Normal setup) need be better tuned.
- Fights need a bit more depth, but I'm not sure how improve it.
- Classes need be more documented or more intuitive.
- The game need more environment and mechanism assets but outdoor would explode the game costs and such game can't justify it, not enough players to buy that type of RPG. It needs more asset to add more mechanism of gameplay, to make dungeons more diversified, to increase the diversity of visual hints and mechanisms.

Also for me the gameplay is old school even on some boring design details:
- The command controls really worth a revamping like adding a modifier key swapping turn and strafe commands or better designed/implemented mouse controls for replacing turn commands.
- The classes are a bit simple and aren't enough documented or with not enough intuitive mechanisms.
- The crystal mechanism is too much a gave up on difficulty management and it leads easily on tedious tactics.
- The xp spreading around the team is leading to the classical flaw of dragging a weaker character to be even more weaker.

But I want conclude on a positive note which is my global feeling on the game, it's a priceless game because of the numerous good secrets, plenty good puzzles (last updates seems have tuned down a bit puzzles requiring very precise timing and very fast movements), good ambushes, excellent use of holes and multiples links between levels, well designed levels layout and progression, good hints design, interesting survival management even if probably too rude. There's area of improvements but it's already a memorable game quite fun to play.

And very bad point, no Mac release.

EDIT: I noticed some other points as I progress :
- I do agree that there's few puzzles a bit too much like platform game parts. It's not much but the Time and Tides part of level 4 is a bit tedious for me, well it's just a small part of the game.
- I do understand what's not working well enough in fights but also those puzzles requiring speed. The controls are a bit sticky, there's a small detay and they stack, so it gives the feeling to not control well enough. You can exploit the stacking when try again some speed puzzle but for fights it's a flaw but the problem is more minor it comes from walking for multiple squares and most of the time and most often fights don't need such movements.
- The second point relative to fights is the game doesn't put enough care into providing area for fighting with maneuvering. But well perhaps also I didn't tried enough during first levels. Now that point seems better since level 5 but that could be me.

Senestoj: Mmm old but not that old to not mention Dungeon Master. ;-)

I hope you didn't stop play before to have play at least level 3 and 4 (I'm in 4) because it's where the game starts has real depth.

Otherwise it seems like you never played Dungeon Master and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet in that thread. All opinions are valid, but if you ask me, Dungeon Master is unmatched neither by EoB nor by LoD even less by Ishar which is a bit sub quality.

So LoG go back to the sources and is closer to Dungeon Master than any other game. But yes, Dungeon Master is still unmatched.

The point in games like Dungeon Master and LoG is all about puzzles, secrets to find better equipment and tools or handy stuff, progressing in the levels, survival and resources management, manage the fights, find tricks to exploit, discover spread story elements, build an efficient party.

It doesn't match Dungeon Master because of some points, fights has some less depth and the speed increase of monsters movements isn't a good change, difficulty of fights and survival is less well managed than in DM and push too easily to abusive tricks like exploiting too much the crystals, the number of assets is lower than in DM, it's hardly concrete and objective but the mood and feeling of mystery was better build in Dungeon Master.

LoG is still a priceless game and it shines and even compare well to Dungeon Master in some important design points:
- The map layout and progression design including the spreading of secrets and puzzles and links between levels, since level 3 of LoG it almost match DM.
- The puzzles abundance and difficulty management is even better than DM.
- The secrets abundance and hints design (hint there's some secret to find) is at least as good than DM.

The weak points, in my opinion and from knowing only a part of LoG:
- Difficulty management (Normal setup) need be better tuned.
- Fights need a bit more depth, but I'm not sure how improve it.
- Classes need be more documented or more intuitive.
- The game need more environment and mechanism assets but outdoor would explode the game costs and such game can't justify it, not enough players to buy that type of RPG. It needs more asset to add more mechanism of gameplay, to make dungeons more diversified, to increase the diversity of visual hints and mechanisms.

Also for me the gameplay is old school even on some boring design details:
- The command controls really worth a revamping like adding a modifier key swapping turn and strafe commands or better designed/implemented mouse controls for replacing turn commands.
- The classes are a bit simple and aren't enough documented or with not enough intuitive mechanisms.
- The crystal mechanism is too much a gave up on difficulty management and it leads easily on tedious tactics.
- The xp spreading around the team is leading to the classical flaw of dragging a weaker character to be even more weaker.

But I want conclude on a positive note which is my global feeling on the game, it's a priceless game because of the numerous good secrets, plenty good puzzles (last updates seems have tuned down a bit puzzles requiring very precise timing and very fast movements), good ambushes, excellent use of holes and multiples links between levels, well designed levels layout and progression, good hints design, interesting survival management even if probably too rude. There's area of improvements but it's already a memorable game quite fun to play.

And very bad point, no Mac release.

EDIT: I noticed some other points as I progress :
- I do agree that there's few puzzles a bit too much like platform game parts. It's not much but the Time and Tides part of level 4 is a bit tedious for me, well it's just a small part of the game.
- I do understand what's not working well enough in fights but also those puzzles requiring speed. The controls are a bit sticky, there's a small detay and they stack, so it gives the feeling to not control well enough. You can exploit the stacking when try again some speed puzzle but for fights it's a flaw but the problem is more minor it comes from walking for multiple squares and most of the time and most often fights don't need such movements.
- The second point relative to fights is the game doesn't put enough care into providing area for fighting with maneuvering. But well perhaps also I didn't tried enough during first levels. Now that point seems better since level 5 but that could be me.