Grimrock II: Considerably Less Grim and Rocky

Hey everybody, let's play a game that just came out!



////// Huge Spoiler Warning: //////
This is largely a puzzle game, and as such, any LP will spoil the crap out of everything. If you want to play it with a virgin brain, leave now and go grab it from Steam; it's worth the $20, especially going to a tiny indie studio.


Anyhoo, Legend of Grimrock II is, unsurpringly, a sequel to the original dungeon crawler love letter Legend of Grimrock. The game is a unique hybrid of modern 3D and old-school grid-based adventuring; You hop about the world in an orthagonal grid, making 90' turns, clicking on weapons to attack, with your party of four permanently welded in a square formation. At the same time, the world is rendered in full 3D, and everything occurs in real-time. No pausing to riffle through your inventory, select the perfect spell, or remember where you stashed that last lifesaving health potion.

Compared to the first entry in the series, II has some major improvements,* most of which I'll cover when they come up. The first big change, however, we deal with right now.


Character creation!

In G1, you were given four races to choose from, and three predefined classes to assign to them. Pretty slim pickins. In G2, we have five intrepid species, and eight fully customizable classes to slot them into.

Race sets the baseline of your four core stats, as well as granting you some additional perk. Any race can play any class and learn any skill, some are just naturally predisposed toward one or another. Each race also qualifies for two unique traits in the Big List O' Traits; each character may take up to two at character creation.

Humans are the Mario of the game. They have no stat modifications, but gain experience 10% faster. A human regularly involved in combat will likely be one level higher than the rest of the party for much of the game, possibly two by the end. They have two racial traits available to them: An additional 10% XP gain (20% total), and starting with an extra skillpoint.
Base stats: 10 Str 10 Dex 10 Vit 10 Will

Lizardmen are quick and hardy, but less than stellar spellcasters. They have a bonus to Dexterity, a penalty to Willpower, and an extra 25% resistance to all elemental effects (spells, fire traps, etc). Their two racial traits are a complete immunity to Poison, and an additional +25% elemental resistance.
Base stats: 10 Str 12 Dex 10 Vit 8 Will

Insectoids are basically the opposite of Lizardmen. They have slightly higher Strength, poor Dexterity, slightly lower Vitality, and high Willpower. Their exoskeleton also makes their limbs less vulnerable, and as a result they're 50% resistant to getting bodyparts crippled. Their two racial traits grant +10 innate Protection (physical damage reduction), and a 10% reduction in ability cooldown, allowing them to act more often.
Base stats: 11 Str 8 Dex 9 Vit 12 Will

Minotaurs are big, angry and hungry. They have massive Strength and Vitality, but equally terrible Dexterity and Willpower. Good at breaking things and staying alive, bad at actually hitting things or using weapon/magic skills. Their racial traits grant +10 temporary Strength when below 20% health (a very bad place to be), and +1 Strength for every Skull in their inventory. (Skulls are rare hidden items which are otherwise useless and waste inventory space).
Base stats: 15 Str 6 Dex 14 Vit 7 Will

Finally, Ratlings are exactly what you expect; filthy thieves. Terrible Strength, good Dexterity, a boost to Evasion (a stat that determines avoiding attacks completely), complete immunity to disease (a fairly rare and not particularly crippling debuff), and a 15% carrying capacity increase to make up for their pathetic strength. Unlike the others, they have only one racial trait unique to them: A mutation that adds a permanent +1 to a random stat every time they level up.

Base stats: 6 Str 12 Dex 10 Vit 10 Will


Each of our four schmucks gets to pick a class, which determines his starting HP/MP values, the per-level growth of both, and some additional perk.

Barbarians are the simplest class in the game. They are MEAT. They have far and away the best health, tie for lowest mana, and gain +1 Strength every level. Simple and effective.


Knights are the other end of the martial coin. They tie for the second-highest health growth (with Fighter), have the same small energy pool, but greatly excel in defence. They double the Evasion bonus granted by shields, halve the weight of any worn armor, and get an innate +1 Protection with every levelup. Their tank is fight.


Fighters are the last of the pure-combat trio, and share identical stats to the Knight. Instead of the Knight's defensive bonuses, however, they pay 25% less to use melee weapon skills, and charge-up time (the duration you have to hold the button down to execute a special attack) is halved. They're honestly kind of lame in comparison.


Battlemage is the first magic-oriented class (though all can use magic, if they choose). Battlemages have flat even health and mana growth (which is actually the second-highest mana growth, surprisingly), share the armor weight reduction perk with the knight, have the ability to cast spells with a bare hand instead of a stave/orb (only matters at the very start), and a +10 Protection and +10% Elemental Resistance bonus when wielding a staff or an orb.


Wizards are the other magic class, and the magical counterpart to the barbarian. They have by far the best mana growth, pathetic health, the ability to cast without an implement (again, not really an issue), and a flat +2 bonus to Willpower. That's it. Spells are super useful, of course, so a gigantic mana pool is nothing to scoff at.


Rogues are the first of three 'other' classes, and pretty much what you expect from any other incarnation. They have the same flat growth as the battlemage, with slightly lower starting health & mana pools. They deal bonus damage (or rather suffer a less-severe damage reduction) when dual-wielding. The also gain a +1% thrown weapon critical chance bonus every level. Thrown weapons are pretty good to begin with, so that's nice.


Alchemists are the last of the 'serious' classes, and actually super useful. They have average health/energy growth, weighted towards health. Their one notable ability is that herbs in your inventory have a chance to spontaneously multiply as you walk. Since potions are your lifeblood in the game, and herbs to make them are finite (AFAIK), that's a pretty great power. Their second perk is that firearms they wield misfire half as much, but firearms suck hard and fast, regardless of misfire chance.


Aaaaand the Farmer. Yup. Farmers have completely average stat growth, but start with 40% less in each pool compared to a Battlemage. They have even less starting health than a Wizard. And unlike the seven other classes, Farmers do not start with two skill points to unlock skills. They start with none. Also, they gain 0 experience from killing monsters, and instead gain it from eating food. They're actually pretty great for solo-character runs Because Math (as SpoonyGundam will attest), but otherwise basically a joke character. No, I will not make a party of four Farmers. If it can even be done, I don't want to do it.

Nearly done with creation, we just have to choose some skill focuses. I'm going to paraphrase from the 16 skills, because several of them are supplementary or mechanically complicated. You tell me what area(s) you want each character to focus in, and I'll make it happen.

Light Weapons include daggers, one-handed swords, and shitty fishfolk tridents. Specializing in light weapons generally means dual-wielding, and usually with Dexterity-based weapons. There are actually very few light weapons in the game compared to heavy, so it's probably not The Best Idea to spec the entire party with them.

Heavy Weapons are axes, maces, and most two-handed weapons, exclusively Strength-based. At the highest skill level you can wield two-handed weapons in one hand, meaning even a Knight can use them alongside his shield. There are (seemingly) many more heavy weapons lying around than light, so it's more reasonable to double up.

Missile Weapons are bows and crossbows. They're Dex-based, and can hit enemies several squares away. You can also retrieve the ammo after firing (even when an enemy is standing on it), so arrows are essentially infinite. At max level, missile weapons pierce 20% of enemy armor, which is nice.

Thrown Weapons are knives, shuriken, tomahawks and bombs. They come in Strength and Dex flavors (though mostly Dex), and act just like missile weapons. With the exception of bombs, they're recoverable. At max level you can throw two things at once for twice the fun.

Firearms are useless. Really bad. They have shockingly low damage and gain bonuses from no stat, and occasionally misfire in your face, hurting the whole party and jamming for several actions. The only upside is that they fire big boxes of expendable ammo, so you can fire ineffectually all day long without having to go get your arrows. Exactly one firearm is actually marginally useful; it requires max skill and an entire party to lug it around, and the whole game loads you up with just enough unique ammo for one single boss fight. A waste of a skill.

Alchemy is the one non-weapon skill I'm having you guys vote on, to be given to one and only one character. Alchemy creates precious, precious potions from herbs you find lying around, and eventually even permanent stat boosts. It's non skill-dependant, so anyone can take it; the question is who.

Fire Magic shoots fire. It does tons of damage. That's pretty much it.

Air Magic shoots lightning and grants invisibility. Lightning isn't quite as good as fire and invisibility is only situationally useful, particularly in getting backstabs.

Water Magic lets you freeze things and make ice puns. It deals less damage than fire or air, but has some useful debuffs and attack patterns.

And finally Earth Magic, which is useless. It poisons things, if you want to do very little damage over a long time. Fire magic also has a DoT effect, on top of the initial giant fireball damage, and outclasses it in every way. The one advantage is that you can waft your gas through gratings, but even when that's applicable, you might as well try yelling them to death.

Note that many spells require more than one school, so, for instance, a fire mage will have to dip into Air Magic for their more powerful spells.

ANYWAY, after that ridiculous information dump, lets make characters! You pick four hapless slobs to get deathmurdered in dungeonland and we'll get the adventure started. Don't forget to name them!


*As a retro game that thrives on self-imposed limitations and a quaint amount of programmed jankiness, is it really fair to call updates and expansions 'improvements'?**

** Yes, the answer is yes.

Ooo, fun! I went ahead and fired up the game and detailed a full list of traits and skills because I fail at reading comprehension (and I like creating parties).

Insectoid Knight
Name: Tenderizer
Traits: Chitin Armour, Martial Training
Skills: Heavy Weapons, Armour

Minotaur Barbarian
Name: Cuisinart
Traits: Head Hunter, Aggressive
Skills: Light Weapons, Accuracy

Lizardman Rogue
Name: Spit Roaster
Traits: Endure Elements, Endurance
Skills: Missile Weapons, Alchemy

Human Wizard
Name: Brazier
Traits: Skilled, Aura
Skills: Concentration, Fire Magic, Air Magic

(You're lucky that Fire that was such a good thematic fit, because I really wanted to stick you with an Earth Mage. I'm running with Earth as my primary school, and I'd hardly call it "useless".)

I totally want to make a Ratling party of Splinter, Mouser, Jerry and Mickey but I don't know enough about this game to subject you to it.

I'd totally give Earth a shot, if people want it. I haven't had a chance max out every skill, of course; I wanted to LP it while it was still new and interesting to me. I may have been completely led astray from what I've read.

I'd do it. Ratlings start with a pretty hefty strength penalty, but you can get by with 4 dex/caster characters, especially with Mutation potentially evening things out. And there are probably enough strength boosters scattered around to make a decent barbarian out of one; he just won't hit the supreme heights a Minotaur would.

Ratling Barbarian
Name: Jerry
Traits: Weapon Specialization, Endurance
Skills: Heavy Weapons, Critical

Ratling Rogue
Name: Splinter
Traits: Mutation, Agile
Skills: Light Weapons, Accuracy

Ratling Alchemist
Name: Mouser
Traits: Aggressive, Mutation
Skills: Throwing, Alchemy

Ratling Wizard
Name: Mickey
Traits: Aura, Strong Mind
Skills: Concentration, Air Magic

I obviously had to take some liberties, but Splinter works out fairly well, and Mouser will be throwing bombs in no time. This party's fairly viable, but when there was a decision between viability and flavour, I went with flavour.

It seems like you should have a farmer to soak up the extra food. Didn't insectoids eat less in the first game than other races? If that still holds true, three insectoids and a farmer is my vote.

No Mutation on Splinter?

And Wizard works for Mickey too.

Whoops.

Ooo, good point. Fantasia Mickey would make this party a lot more competitive. Shame that Water Magic isn't actually water though, so I think Air would be the best fit. I'll go back and update the original post.

ETA: If this party wins, remember that the game supports custom character portraits.

If you do go with a Ratling party, keep track of who is eating cheese. After three, the character gets a stat boost, then the required amount increases. So probably either spread them around or funnel them into the character that needs the stats the most (Probably the Barbarian).

Oh, that's the best part. We're getting four custom portraits regardless of who wins.

Traits aside, Mouser is pretty much what I had envisioned! I figured he should be a Throwing/Alchemy expert and be the Alchemist class if they can make bombs.

He can grow the ingredients for bombs, make bombs, and eventually throw two bombs at once (although that shit ain't canon, outside of some terrible ROM-hack that probably exists).

Don't know that waiting will turn up many more stragglers, so I'll probably start as soon as work isn't kicking my ass. I think The Rat Pack is the winner, unless there's any last minute entries.

Adventure time go!



It was a dark and stormy night.



Cliches flew overhead.



Guy Manntango stands watch. Danger is afoot. He can smell it.



Or maybe that's the four mangy rats below deck. Your heroes, ladies and gentlemice, imprisoned by an uncaring world for crimes they may or may not have committed. They look awfully humanlike right now, but I assure you that's merely a trick of the Ocean Madness, like mermaids or libertarians.



Fortunately, their trusty compass wi-



Oh no




Oh noooooooo



...Well, the important characters are fine. Drowned rat jokes aside. And it looks like we're drifting towards...



Jurassic Park.



And we have title! And, like, 90% of the backstory. But now it's time for the game proper, a sweeping tale of exploration and adventure!



...Or we could still be locked in the cage. As a quick aside, this is what the game looks like on the minimum settings. It's much prettier with the knobs turned up, but those settings make my computer cry. Anyway, lets look around for a way out.



Nope.



Well there's the ship, but I don't think anyone will be coming to help us.



Aaand nope.



I guess we're just stuck here.

Well that was fun. That's for joining the lets play, everybody!

Maybe it's just the ocean madness talking, but I don't see anything holding those bars in place to begin with.

I like the setup for this LP!

I'm out for now because I won't have a chance to play Grimrock 2 until the Mac port, but good luck with this and I'm excited to read it in half a year or whatever.

...Or we could grab that branch through the bars.

Grimrock II teaches you right off the bat something that stumped me in G1. It makes sense that you can reach through bars, but thirty years of Vidya Game Logic tends to teach you that gratings are impenetrable forcefields. Not so here, and it's a key mechanic in a lot of puzzles.

Jerry hefts his new club, swings as hard as he can, and...



...I fail to get a screenshot of the door swinging open, even on my second try. Aaanybutt, we're free now. Lets have a look around!



Right around the corner we find Mouser's new BFF, the mighty Rock. Rocks are the first of many thrown items, used both for combat and puzzle solving. Rock damage is based on Strength, something our mousey friend is lacking in, but they'll have to do for now.



And right nearby we find our first delicious foodstuffs. Like many other dungeon crawlers, your characters have to eat. Every action you take, including walking and resting, slowly depletes your tummy bar until you begin to starve; starving characters won't regenerate health or energy, and their attack power is halved. It's a bad place to be. The only way to refill your bar, as you'd expect, is to eat food, like this here fruit. We pocket it and turn left to-



GYAH! Hey, buddy, how are you doin?

Well, we can probably assume the island isn't uninhabited. Or there's some incredibly fortuitous rock formations. With any luck we'll meet some friendly natives, barter for passage home and we'll be on our way in no time. Splendid!



Right next to the moai we find our first piece of 'armor'. Since you start naked and unarmed, Splinter becomes the first party member to successfully hide his thunder.

Damage is mitigated in two ways in Grimrock, with Protection and Evasion. Protection is usually given by armor, and directly reduces incoming damage. Evasion is granted by high Dexterity and shields, and provides a percentage chance to dodge attacks entirely. Splinter now takes 1 point less damage than he did previously, which is good, since he has half the HP of Jerry and will be taking just as many hits.




Around yet another corner we find a slightly better stick, this one made out of bone. Jerry takes the bone club, and Splinter gets the stick.

Weapons have two primary stats, damage and cooldown. Damage is, appropriately, the range of damage they inflict (before additions from high stats and skills), while cooldown is the recovery time after swinging it. With notable exceptions later, cooldowns affect both of your hand slots, regardless of triggering weapon. You can still drink potions from your inventory while on cooldown, and you can even swap out the offending weapon for another, but you cannot use any hand-based action until the cooldown is up.

In this case, three seconds seems like an eternity between swings, but remember that you have to trigger your entire party's attacks and spells individually, with no Dragon Age pause queue shenanigans. There's quite a bit of frenzied clicking.



And we immediately hit a dead end, in the form of some low underbrush. Whatever can be done?




We beat the underbrush down with stronger pieces of underbrush, that's what.



And through the passage we meet a friendly turtle man!




Turtleman is not so friendly, as it turns out. So, adventurers as we are, we bludgeon his skull in.

Jerry and Splinter provide most of the heavy lifting, because they're the only ones that can reach. Party positioning is key; when fighting an enemy in melee, only the front two characters can hit and be hit. In order to contribute, characters in the rear need some manner of ranged weapon, spells, or a special skill from the Accuracy tree. Otherwise, they're just along for the ride. We can, however, shift party arrangement at will, useful when a fighter in the front is about to die. Characters in the rear can still be hit by spells, however, all of which hit all four characters at once.



Mouser contributes by hurling his mighty rock, using his Thrown Weapons skill. Thrown weapons bounce off the target and land at their feet to be infinitely reused, and you can even pick them up from their feet while you're fighting them. If we planted our feet and toughed it out, Mouser could just get the rebounds indefinitely.



A hit or two more, and the turtle explodes into delicious turtle meat. Turtle meat, like most meat from creatures, is quite a bit heavier than other found foodstuffs. It is, however, a replenishing source, since these turtles respawn. Generally you'll want to eat your heavy MonsterMeats� first and save the more efficient foods for a pinch.



Checking out the rock by the shore, we find an Etherweed. One of the common alchemy ingredients, Etherweed is used to craft energy potions. We'll need to find some equipment before we can start brewing, however.



Behind the guard turtle we see our first door, which is in turn guarding two turtles. I neglected to take screenshots of the fight, but it's the first example of dealing with two monsters at once.

As I mentioned fighting the first turtle, only the characters in the front row are vulnerable to attack.

...from the front.

If an enemy approaches and attacks from the side, it hits the characters on that side. If it attacks from the rear, it hits the two unarmored squishies in the back row. Getting surrounded is bad times.

But, since we can see the two enemies from the chokepoint here, we can draw them back one at a time and fight safely in the tunnel. We do that. Much clicking.



After killing the turtles, we find another etherweed. You'll notice it's also in the water. That's not a coincidence; etherweed only grows in water. It's very abundant in watery areas, and basically nonexistant in others. The other ingredients have similar environments.

Lets play Find the Items!



Bone-colored darts in a pile of bones. These are actually ammo for a blowgun we might find later, but in the meantime they can be used as improvised thrown weapons. Arrows and crossbow bolts work the same way too, which is handy.




Nearby we also find an egg (more omnoms) and a pair of grody waterlogged sandals. They also go on Splinter. He lives in a sewer, he's used to worse.



And our first key!



And our first key door! We use our iron key and it disappears forever, but the door is no more. Keys are generally sorted by type and not specific to a particular door; if we found another iron lock we could have used it on that door instead.



At this point the game reminds us to check our map, so this is it. The automap is actually optional; you can disable it and rely solely on good ol' pencil and graph paper, if you're into that sort of thing.



In the immediate next room we find the final piece of Splinter's canon outfit. It's kind of a shame he won't be wearing it for very long.



We also find the game's first real puzzle! We need to get through that door, and we have two pressure plates to do it.



The second pressure plate opens the door...



...but the first closes it again.



It would appear that we could just squeeze over there, but alas, the grid system prevents it. Once we step on the second pressure plate, we have no way to get back to the door without stepping on the first plate and closing it again. A CONUNDRUM!

I had more prepared, but since I've run out of time to write it up, it will have to wait. In the meantime, try to figure out this DASTARDLY puzzle!

Those character portraits are amazing. <3 axe-rat.

I ended up uninstalling Grimrock 1, because the puzzles were getting increasingly arbitrary and, after checking spoilers a couple of times and thinking "I'm glad I checked spoilers, there's no sensible way I'd have got that", decided just to read the rest of the spoilers and discovered it didn't get any better. (Also, I wasn't enjoying the combat; I like my apparently turn-based games to be actually turn-based.) Hopefully this LP will let me see why other people like the series so much, though; I'd like to be able to see the game through less negative eyes.

That said, I think I can see the solution to this puzzle, at least.

Yeah, if you've played the first, then this is a very straightforward puzzle. But how did those pressure plates get onto the beach?

There are much more hilariously puzzling feats of architecture later.

But for now, back to the puzzle!

The solution, as with most things in life, is to throw a rock at it.




*click*

And through the gate we find-



...that must have been one hell of a storm. But what ho?



A letter! A nice, crisp parchment letter, stamped in wax. Clearly this is a new addition. Whatever could it say?



Well, it's a shame we're a bunch of illiterate rats. That was probably interesting. The parchment was, however, delicious and full of dietary fiber. Left we go!



Well, this looks ominous.



The far gate appears to lead into some sort of forest. It's locked with no visible means of opening it. The plaque next to it displays a message which is apparently impossible to screencap:

*No I didn't forget to transcribe it, stop being accusatory, accusers.



We stand in the circle and air guitar the entirety of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vidda in four part harmony. Nothing happens. We might need an item of some sort.



On the east side of the room we find a sturdy wooden door and golden lock. This door really annoys me, and I'll explain why later.




Heading back to the south, we spy an item stashed behind the marble pedestal. It's a Xafi robe! Jerry dons it.



Oooooh



On the way to the crystal, we're stopped by a turtle that really wants to be murdered and eaten. We oblige. He drops the coveted doublemeat, often mistaken by the layman as two seperate pieces of turtle meat. Of course, we know better. Also, free tree knives, which is nice.



And we find our first save crystal! These are our checkpoints. Touching one fully revives, heals, cures and rejuvenates our entire party (and saves our game), but needs some time to recharge between uses.



As seen here. It doesn't fill our tummies, but there are plenty of turtles around for that.

Grimrock II also features several challenge options, the first of which disables saving except by using these crystals. A second causes these crystals to never recharge, ever. There's an achievement for beating the game using both at once. That is an achievement I will never get.




Next to the crystal we find our first spell scroll!

These do nothing.

Really, they're just notes. They list the pattern of glyphs needed to cast a particular spell, and the spell skill required to keep it from fizzling. If we have the requisite skill and already know the pattern (whether by playing before or simple trial and error), we can cast the spell, scroll be damned. The same goes for alchemical substances and formulae, though we need some special equipment for that.



You may have noticed Mickey's glowing paws on his character portrait; he's a wizard, hairy. Activating a caster's hands functions like a wand or orb, switching to casting mode, in which they'll spend most of the game. To cast spells, you simply draw the appropriate pattern of glyphs and hit cast. If you have the have the skill, it goes off. If you don't, or it's an invalid glyph pattern, the spell fizzles at a minor energy cost.

As you can see from the scroll, the 1rst-tier fire spell is simply the #1 glyph. Efficient.



While I'm ogling the scroll, Jake Turtleman decides to rush us from the next area. We murder him just like his brother.



Behind the ninja turtle, we find a small alcove with some shrubbery and statuary. We can't interact with the statue in any way, so we just mark it down in our map.



And in the final area we haven't yet checked, we find nine more pressure plates arranged in a 3x3 grid, and another locked door. The plaque beside the gate informs us that 'X marks the spot.'

I think you can see where this is going.

I cannot overstate how disappointed I was that arranging a plus sign, i.e. an X rotated 45 degrees, was not an alternate solution that revealed a secret. Missed opportunity.

Funnily enough, throwing a rock was the third solution I thought up for that puzzle (although whether the others work depend on the details of the puzzle).

Solution 1 (recommended because you keep a rock): Place a rock to weigh down the near trigger. Step on the far trigger, then walk back to the gate. You don't press the near trigger again because it's already weighed down.

Solution 2: while standing on the near trigger, drop a rock on the far trigger, thus pressing them in the recommended order and not having to press any more triggers to get back to the gate.

You're going to be pleasantly surprised by some of the following puzzles.

Do you want notes or hints on secrets that you've missed (I by not means have found them all, but I've found a few)?

If so: Take a closer look at your map in the previous update (the one that ended with the controversial rock throw).

Hints are always appreciated! I am by no means an expert at this, and I'm sure I'll forget even some of the things I found the first time.

I actually did find that secret near the end of the tutorial, when it stopped being especially relevant. Missed it completely on my first playthrough.

Since the last puzzle taught us that pressure plates can be triggered by items, it follows that it would work here. We place some rocks, scrolls and turtle chunks on the plates in the shape of an X, and the door pops open. As a nice touch, the door stays open indefinitely; we can retrieve any items we used to trigger the trap.





We're immediately welcomed by a friendly fish-man! He shows us his nifty trident, and we show him how a swift punch to the nose causes fishmen to explode.

Not off to a good start on the 'befriending the natives' front.



Ooh, this looks promising.



But first, we have a visitor we have to murder welcome.



After our friend goes on his way, we check out the mysterious door.

More crazy moon runes. We can't eat the rock, so we leave it alone.



I guess that's Kilhagan. Or his twin brother. Something tells me he could use a sword.



Following our friend back to his neighborhood, we spy another plant!



Falconskyre! Still useless to us.




And some Blooddrop! Some day we'll have alchemical equipment.



And since I forgot to cap the Etherweed I got earlier, here's that.



Or a peasant cap. That's good too.



As the sun starts to set, we're reminded that shadows would look really nice if they didn't melt my gpu.

Time passes on The Island in real... time. This mostly just affects the lighting, with a few notable exceptions.



Hey, another door.



And behind it, a button. Seems simple enough, lets just-



...oh. This is new. Lets put our face in it.





Tingly.

Now where are we?



Ooh.

That wasn't a teleporter, it was a 'windgate'. Totally different. And I'm only partially joking.

What wonders does this strange new world hold?




A burlap sack containing a sling for Mouser. Though he specializes in thrown weapons, our current options are so terrible that the sling still outclasses it.

The downside of missile weapons is that they require two hands, the second holding the ammunition. Our offhand isn't doing much at the moment, so no loss.

Combining screenshots for laziness efficiency, we also see this area's puzzle. It's a door in front of a pressure plate. The madness!



This would have been more difficult if it wasn't a variation of the first puzzle in the game. We stick an egg through the bars and the door pops open. Huzzah!



In the chest we find a Potion of Healing, a golden key, and a newfangled stabbing device.

It's a slight improvement over Splinter's old stick. The stick was not only terrible, but Strength-based. While the knife isn't a huge improvement in base damage, it's Dexterity-based; something that rats actually have.



We take the key back through yon portal and forgot to screencap us opening the door. Alphonse Fishtonbury here chastises us for our foolishness. We hide his body in a ditch.

It's getting pretty dark now. Kiiind of wish we had fire of some sort, but I am a dumb and missed a pretty obvious secret at the beginning of the game.



What's this?



A box!



A box containing things!



A scroll for another spell we will never cast.



A shovel! You know what they say; in a land of pirates, the one-shoveled man is king.



And a mysterious note. We eat it to gain it's power.



Hey, I think someone was looking for this!

Heading back to the MYSTERY DOOR...




Kaching! What could be behind the door?



Down. Down is behind the door.

For now, though, we have a few other matters to attend.



Stealing back the rapier, we pay a visit to Kilhagan's brother Kulhogan.



Behind the bushes, a seeeecret!



A golden key!

Gold keys are super rare; they're hidden throughout the island and unlock special treasure caches containing awesome loot. We've seen our first golden lock already...



Remember this, back in the halcyon hours of yore? This door is super annoying. To the best of my recollection, every other golden door in the game shows you what's on the other side. You can't see the stats, but you get some idea of what you're buying; a sword, a staff, whatever. Not here. I don't actually know if there are enough keys in the game to open all the golden doors, or more importantly if we'll find them all, but banking on the opportunity benefit of getting something good early, we crack this one.



Inside is a chest!

The little wooden box is firearm ammo, or as we like to call it, Shit to Weigh Down Pressure Plates. The glowing jug is an Elixer of Strength, which permanently boosts one character's strength by 1. Jerry chugs it down. He loves being strong.



And the real treasure, Backbiter. The damage is only slightly better than a regular dagger, and it actually swings slightly slower, but it possesses a special attack (which we aren't yet skilled enough to use). Hopefully it will be useful!

Heading back to the save crystal area, we search around for the spot indicated by the delicious treasure note. Jerry hoists the shovel, using it to shove the dirt out of the earth to create a hole.



A treasure!




An Embalmer's Robe for Splinter. The Embalmer's set isn't great armor, but the Vitality helps. Vitality increases your max HP and boosts your poison resistance. So, you know, we have that going for us.

Heading back to the down, we do the down.



This should be familiar to anyone that played the first Grimrock. While GII has much more varied locales, it's not lacking in good ol' fashioned dungeons.



Yeah, let's go the other way first.




Our first torch! We take it.

Somehow, torches burn much brighter in their sconces. They also burn forever, unlike carried torches, which will slowly peter out. Carried torches also, obviously, occupy a hand slot; not an issue this early, but eventually our hands will be at a premium.



A room!



A room with lockpicks! Lockpicks, as you might imagine, are used to pick locks. They don't work on anything with an associated key, however; they're only used for chests that couldn't otherwise be opened. In other words, they're just another flavor of key. Unlike the other kinds, though, lockpicks stack in your inventory.

And in the alcove I didn't get a cap of...



Squeeeeee!



Oh-ho-ho-yes! Our first actually castable spell, Shock! Shock is functionally similar to Fireburst, except it deals lightning damage and lacks the small damage-over-time bonus effect.

Full disclosure, if you're noticed Mickey's energy bar being less than full before this point, it's because I've been casting Shock since the beginning of the game. Like I said, you can cast any spell you have the skill for at any point, assuming you know the glyphs. It's not that the tutorial is especially difficult; rather I've been wizarding the whole time because of the experience system.

Experience calculation is super simple in Grimrock; all monsters give a static amount of XP regardless of party size or level. If a character contributes to a fight—that is to say, they attack it at least once—they gain full XP. If a character is present for a fight, but doesn't attempt to contribute, they gain only half XP. If a character is dead when the monster is defeated, they gain nothing, they lose, good day sir. Therefore, to get the maximum amount of XP, every character needs to attack every enemy.

While I could have given him a rock to hurl... I could also just shoot deathlightning from his paws. So I did.

Moving on!



The Halls of the Dead are pretty blue, a-ba-dee-a-ba-dai.




...and full of the mostly-dead. We are mice of extremes, and aim to fix the 'mostly' part.



Shock is pretty awesome.



Using a torch as an improvised weapon is not.

Note the red damage indicator, however; red letters indicate a weakness to the attack. Being dessicated corpses in flammable bandages, mummies are particularly weak to fire. We'll be able to exploit that more effectively later.



Explodifying the mummy earns us our first levelup, and glorious mutation has gifted Mouser and Splinter with some much-needed stat boosts.

Jerry gets better at wearing the armor we've yet to discover, Splinter gets better at stabbing things, Mickey's lightning gets more powerful, and Mouser learns new recipes for the potions we cannot make.

And what wonders await us in the box, hm?



Oh good, a gun.

This is the first firearm in the game. If you remember Mouser's sling from a while back, this does the same damage with the same rate of fire. Of course, while the sling gains bonus damage from dexterity, which will improve throughout the game, and a 20% damage boost from every skillpoint, firearm damage never increases ever. This is it, 7-21 damage flat. And it requires a skillpoint to use.

Firearms also misfire on occasion and fail to shoot. With the pistol, that just means jamming for several activations. With larger firearms, they will actually backfire and damage the entire party.

And the game actually treats pistol ammo as a rare treasure.



We leave it in the alcove where it belongs.



Looking to the left, we find a completey inconspicuous alcove. I'm sure nothing unusual will happen here ever. But what's this...?



The neighboring alcove has a blatantly suspicious stone. We poke it, as you do.



Oh my goodness what a surprise i cant believe it



Going upstairs, we find a turtle.



And some more moai heads.






And a locked chest! We use our lockpicks from earlier and find another healing potion and our first piece of light armor.

Light armor has superior protective qualities to clothing, but penalizes your Evasion if you aren't trained in wearing it (at Armor rank 2). Heavy armor works the same way, requiring rank 4. The armor skill also boosts the protection granted by all armor, so even if you don't care about Evasion, it's still a worthwhile investment.