Legend of Grimrock II: Automaps and Skill Systems

The sequel’s revised automapping system, character skill systems, end battle, possible mechanic prototypes, and more are discussed in the latest update to the official Legend of Grimrock website. Here we go:

I’m not going to go into too much detail here since it’s still a little work-in-progress and the details can change once we clock in some more testing hours with it, but finally we seem to be reaching an equilibrium where we feel comfortable with how the skills and character traits work. Now we have a system that’s easy to approach but which still offers plenty of depth, tactics and replayability for all players and which should be more extendable and flexible for modders (and us too). It’s so nice when everybody wins! 🙂

Character creation screen also got a much needed makeover, partly due to the ripple effects from the improved skill system, and it’s looking very slick now. Even though a lot of players will only see the screen just once (or not at all if they opt in to go with the default party), it’s still super important since it’s a major part of the first impressions that the game will give.

We’ve also redone the automap. The automap in Grimrock 1 was pretty good but since the sequel features outside areas and a less linear level structure (levels are side-by-side as well as on top of each others), the old way didn’t really work anymore. Now we have a smoothly scrolling and zoomable map which handles the environments of the new game much more elegantly. It’s not 100% complete though since it’s missing the ability to write down notes, some of the icons are still placeholders and a few interface elements are missing but hey, we’re almost there!

One major milestone that we’re also rapidly approaching right this moment is getting the end combat done. We have a very interesting prototype brewing and if it proves to be working the end fight is gonna be one hell of a ride! As a matter of fact, the end fight is really the only major missing bit I can think of that we still need to make the game whole (which, mind you, is not the same thing as finished).