Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar demo released
Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar is an indie first-person dungeon crawler.
It is also a punchline–according to its author, Cleveland Mark Blakemore, Grimoire has been in development for more than 17 years. Widely regarded as vaporware, Grimoire suddenly burst onto IndieGoGo in October 2012 with a $250,000 goal and a pitch video that I would describe as “just short of batshit insane.” Seriously, you should watch it if you haven’t seen it already:
The crowdfunding campaign came as a shock, but I still didn’t post about Grimoire, as I still wasn’t convinced that this game was ever going to actually be released. Ultimately, Grimoire didn’t even come close to making its $250,000 funding goal. However, it relied on a flexible funding campaign, and developer Cleve Blakemore has vowed to finish things up with the more-than-$10,000 he raised.
Which brings us to today, the day I learned that Mr. Blakemore has actually released a playable demo of Grimoire. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but boy am I ever looking forward to doing so. Don’t wait on my behalf: you can grab the demo here right now–Windows only.
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I was extremely surprised when that indiegogo campaign showed up. But less surprised when it didn’t get as much funding as he was hoping. The game has been a joke on forums for years and years. Of course, he’s well aware of this, and the video is worth watching for that alone. But still.. Well, if he actually finishes it and releases it, I’m going to buy it. Because I feel like I have to. Like it’s a mythical artifact. It may be big and convoluted and outdated, but, I want to own it if he actually finishes it. Unless he charges too much. Then… Well, maybe I’ll wait for a lower price.
Wait, apparently he’s started another indiegogo campaign? Which means, more people will be giving him money regardless of whether he reaches goal. Oh, this could be bad.
The demo is buggy and freezes a lot. There doesn’t seem to be any options to adjust the resolution so I couldn’t see the top part of the screen. The interface is crazy.
That said, I will definitely buy the game if it ever officially gets released. 😛
The amazing thing was that Grimoire was ready to ship years ago. He put it out for beta testing, got some feedback showing a few bugs and balance issues–the sort that could be fixed in a week’s time–and then withdrew it. And that was that. I still even have that beta floating around, here.
At this point I suppose it’s the desire for money (and $250,000 couldn’t be anything but, on a game that’s finished) plus the need to prove everybody wrong that’s pushing Cleve forward. Best of luck to him.