By Nathan Grayson on September 13th, 2012 at 8:00 am.
Here it is: the moment you’ve been waiting for – well, if you’re the sort who loves hurling your friends into devious deathtrap gauntlets filled with beasties of all shapes, sizes, and snail-nesses. And if you’re not, I think it’s safe to say that you’re no friend of mine. At any rate, the – to briefly shift into press release parlance, except with actual sincerity – hotly anticipated more-than-350-item dungeon editor for Legend of Grimrock is finally right around the corner. If you’ve got the tough-as-nails dungeon crawler on Steam, though, you can give it a go right now.
Here’s almost all of the words from Almost Human. Well, actually, only some of the words – which I guess would make it almost almost all of them. Yes.
“The Dungeon Editor is now complete except for one thing. And we need your help with it. Yep, I’m talking about testing. To participate in the beta you need to have a Steam account and the game installed on Steam. Why only Steam? Steam’s automatic update system allows us to do frequent incremental updates to quickly patch issues that may arise. Also we need to be able to isolate the development in a separate branch during the beta. In short, we can react to the feedback more efficiently and keep the beta as short as possible. After the beta has concluded the Dungeon Editor will be available on all available distribution platforms.”
Joining the beta, meanwhile, is as simple as opting in by flipping a switch in Grimrock’s properties menu on Steam. After that, frantically leap out of the way, because your PC will probably proceed to belch out a jet stream of searing flame. Full Steam Workshop support, meanwhile, is in the cards, and Grimrock Nexus is also now up and running.
So, in short, Legend of Grimrock will never end. Perhaps its greatest trap of all was luring you into its utterly compulsive depths in the first place. Actually, wait, no. That’s not right at all. Sorry, everyone. It was the fire. It was definitely the fire.
Here’s a short video of the editor in action. And here’s a longer video. But the short one has a cow, so you should probably watch it first.
13/09/2012 at 08:21 mihor_fego says:
I hope the community makes what I’ve thought of since first getting this game… a full Eye of the Beholder series remake!
14/09/2012 at 20:31 MadTinkerer says:
And Wizardry, Might & Magic, Dungeon Master, and the earlier Ultimas.
Edit: Oh and Lands of Lore 1.
15/09/2012 at 17:54 chicknstu says:
Black Crypt!
13/09/2012 at 08:42 Caiman says:
It is possible that I shall never need to buy another game ever again. The fact that I shall in fact buy another game is more a reflection of my weak will, rather than ever being able to exhaust the awesome possibilities of this editor.
13/09/2012 at 09:09 AngoraFish says:
Finally a good reason for buying the game in a Steam sale, even though I already had a copy from GOG.
13/09/2012 at 09:13 frightlever says:
Grimrock is indicative of a major problem I’m having at the moment. I should be all over it. I bought it months ago, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I haven’t even got around to finishing Risen yet. The original Risen. I used to be able to play every significant RPG within weeks of release, because there just weren’t that many of them, but with the prominence of many indie RPG/Roguelike devs offering more variety and open world sandbox games like Terraria, Minecraft, Gnomoria, Towns etc etc I’m getting sucked into games into which I can sink hundreds of hours. Oh, and now I’m addicted to GW2.
13/09/2012 at 10:06 jrodman says:
GW2 is haunting me as well. A pox upon it! How dare it tempt me with its foul fruits that are tasty and delicious
Yum!
13/09/2012 at 15:19 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
I hate foul fruits that are tasty and delicious.
13/09/2012 at 18:22 TulipWaltz says:
Foul fruits that are tasty and delicious are the worst kind of foul fruits.
13/09/2012 at 09:20 Zanchito says:
Frightlever: the main problem being GW2, I tell you. :( I’m in the same boat!
13/09/2012 at 09:21 jezcentral says:
So say we all. (About the too many games bit, not the playing Risen bit, sorry).
13/09/2012 at 10:14 JiminyJickers says:
I was sad because I didn’t have the Steam version so I would have to wait, but then I realised that since I bought it from them directly I also got a Steam key. Huzzah!
13/09/2012 at 11:11 Severn2j says:
First use of the editor for me is to just remove the spiders… Perhaps replacing them with cows would be nice.
EDIT: After looking at the vid, Im not sure you can change the main game. :(
13/09/2012 at 11:18 Jayson82 says:
No but you could just remake the main game as all the assets are there, For those that would say why? Because you can then mod the main game to your hearts content.
13/09/2012 at 16:22 zeroskill says:
A spider-free version will surely pop-up at the nexus sooner or later. Keep an eye out.
13/09/2012 at 11:15 Zanchito says:
So has anyone actually tried it? How good / easy is it?
13/09/2012 at 12:26 gschmidl says:
It’s all point and click until you get into LUA coding, for which there’s an excellent reference.
13/09/2012 at 12:33 slive cinclair says:
I had a quick go yesterday evening. It’s really easy to use and I made a decent level in 10 minutes.
13/09/2012 at 12:41 Zanchito says:
Awesome, thanks for the replies!
13/09/2012 at 12:50 pointer says:
Is the editor available for average users or is it steam-exclusive?
13/09/2012 at 13:15 JackDandy says:
The open beta is steam only, but the full one will be available to anybody who purchased the game.
13/09/2012 at 13:20 your mom says:
That’s good to know, Jack.
13/09/2012 at 13:13 MistyMike says:
“Ouch” – Public Beta
13/09/2012 at 14:44 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Is it possible to play mods without the editor? I’ve seen a dev-made mod over at the Grimrock Nexus, tried placing it in the game’s folder and the game can’t find it. It only lets me select the “Grimrock” dungeon.
13/09/2012 at 15:25 gschmidl says:
Not yet.
13/09/2012 at 16:46 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Thanks for the heads up :) I’ll wait until the editor’s done, then.
13/09/2012 at 16:06 MythArcana says:
Here we go again! Only the Steam users get access AGAIN. I guess everyone else who bought it is screwed and completely irrelevant. This is like the third game I have to offer exclusive access to editors in this fashion – and the rest of the customers get nothing. Fuck Valve, fuck Steam, and no more game purchases for me if they are even remotely listed on that service. I’ll just pick this up on a torrent site – even though I bought the fucking thing just as well as anyone else.
NEVER buy the Humble Bundles EVER. They only offer Steam support in the end. Fuck ‘em.
13/09/2012 at 16:36 Deadly Habit says:
Paging the whaaaaaambulance. The devs are making the BETA access steam exclusive for the time being because it’s the easiest way for them to push updates while they work out the bugs and to push hotfixes. Everyone who purchased the game will get the editor, next time take your head out from up your constipated ass and read the devs blog linked from the article or even the quotation from said blog in this very article. Might want to download some torrents on reading comprehension.
13/09/2012 at 18:40 Fumarole says:
Oh snap!
13/09/2012 at 20:40 donmilliken says:
What will you be downloading a torrent of, exactly? The beta? That requires the Steam version? And will be automatically updated through the Steam version?
Let’s say you manage this, will you be monitoring the updates for the Steam version and go looking for a new torrent every time the release a patch to fix some problem?
Sheesh dude, have a little patience.
You’re like the Bizarro version of those weirdos who want every game they own to be on Steam, “for convenience.” Not only do you want nothing to do with Steam, you seem determined to make your gaming experience as inconvenient as possible out of spite. You do realize that’s a bit silly, yes?
13/09/2012 at 21:07 Flavioli says:
Anyone know how flexible the tools are in this game? I’d love to recreate the spirit of a Wizardry game by creating a town of sorts to return to, complete with the ability to sell things you find along the way. Also, are the tools strictly for building the dungeon or do they provide mechanisms to expand character builds, say, by adding additional spells?
14/09/2012 at 08:41 pertusaria says:
This was the first article on RPS when I got up yesterday. Thank you for putting cows on wheels into my day. :)