The Daily Click

::. ::. ::.

Gridquest V2.00

Author:

Pixelthief

Submitted:

19th November, 2008

Favourites:

Genre:

Role Playing Game

Downloads:

989

Rated:

36th Place

(4.62 / 5)

Edited By Pixelthief on 7/14/2009

Edited By Pixelthief on 1/20/2009

Edited By Pixelthief on 11/22/2008

This is V2.00 of Gridquest. Ported to MMF and reworked completely, this is a must-play for those who missed out the first time around, or those who could not play due to crashing. The game features substantial new content, tons of gameplay tweaks and rebalances, and new puzzles. Full changelog is included. Notably, there are no more crashes or glitches.

Gridquest is an epic and sprawling Action RPG in the vein of Rogue, with elements of Diablo and puzzles reminiscent of Chip's Challenge. Its a very large and spunky game. Give it a try!

3000+ Possible Items!
355 Treasure Chests!
90 Unique Areas!
80 Savage Enemies!
20 Magick Spells!
7 Boss Fights!
5 or so Dungeons!
Real-Time Lighting!
Full Keyboard AND Mouse Controls!
Full Saving/Loading System.... Anywhere!

But instead of just believing me, take a look for yourself:

Updated to V2.02; Addresses a saving/loading issue as well as other neat things.

Review This Download

http://sites.google.com/site/claniraq/stuff/GridQuest2.zip (7mb )

Posted by Hempuli

19th November, 2008

Oh, the beholder boss looks rad!

DECISION MADE: I'll finally really try this game x) It looks so cool that I can't leave it this time.

Posted by Del Duio

19th November, 2008

Rated :

I downloaded the first game but it'd crash within minutes of play. I now have something to do later, thanks Pixelthief!

Posted by Knockturnal

19th November, 2008

Yea me too

Posted by Jason Orme

19th November, 2008

Rated :

I've always thought very highly of this project, great job!

Posted by [EclektiK]

19th November, 2008

Rated :

I LOVE YOU!!!...lol

I LOVE GRIDQUEST

Posted by Fanotherpg

19th November, 2008

Rated :

Awesome work

I thought that Gridquest 2 is Legendarium

Posted by renneF

19th November, 2008

This looks so epic! downloading ..

Posted by Lachie Dazdarian

20th November, 2008

Rated :

Mrmpf. I see this being GOTW...again. I don't get this. But, I'll try to play the game once more.

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

20th November, 2008

Rated :

Pixelthief had intended to release Gridquest 2.0 with the Legendarium, but sadly, the Legendarium was put on hold. ;___;

Anyway, this version is even better than 1.0! Everyone should download and play it til they drop!

Posted by Hill Gigas

20th November, 2008

Rated :

I've always really enjoyed this game just for it's scope and detail.

Posted by Hill Gigas

20th November, 2008

Rated :

I notice that the game doesn't change computer resolution when it goes "fullscreen", it just stretches to fit the screen. This causes the fullscreen mode to run a lot slower than the windowed version. You should have MMF change the game resolution when going fullscreen to prevent slowdown.

Posted by Pixelthief

20th November, 2008

-_- thats why I included a windowed mode

(changing resolution mode alone makes the mouse controls go... funky)
Comment edited by Pixelthief on 11/20/2008

Posted by -J-

20th November, 2008

Rated :

"Puzzles reminiscent of Chip's Challenge"

DOWNLOADING

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

20th November, 2008

Rated :

I experienced some slowdown at first. Fixed by going into properties and ticking "run in 640x480 resolution".

Posted by Pixelthief

20th November, 2008

Yah, the problem with changing the resolution is that it causes mouse controls to respond as if they were only in that area, but blows up the image to a larger scale. So it will feel like you are playing with 4x mouse sensitivity, if you're fine with that. I don't think there should be any slowdown with just using the windowed mode that stretches to exactly 2x/3x/4x scale, but I can't test because none of my computers get slowdown at all...

Posted by Mr_Tom

20th November, 2008

Rated :

well its difficult to notice any slowdown on a grid based game, its basically got it already built in!

(i do like the game though)

Posted by [EclektiK]

20th November, 2008

Rated :

Kinda reminds me of "Exile" (I've neverplayed exile but a friend showed me)

Woah I never had any glitches in Gridquest v.1

Comment edited by .:Eclektik:. on 11/20/2008

Posted by [EclektiK]

20th November, 2008

Rated :

I'd seriously buy this game if it was developped for nintendo DS

Posted by Pixelthief

20th November, 2008

how far is everyone getting? And with what gear?

Posted by Mr_Tom

20th November, 2008

Rated :

i've walked about a bit attacking things with a stick! so quite far really.

Posted by [EclektiK]

20th November, 2008

Rated :

I just beated the Beholder, now I got to the Blood river place, with the white equipment...

Uhm.... I guess I could explain better with a complete

LEGENDARIUM ! !

P.S. Nice Game! Have you ever thought of making a compendium?

Posted by Pixelthief

20th November, 2008

I thought about making a text file walkthrough

Posted by Lachie Dazdarian

20th November, 2008

Rated :

What's so good about this?

Poor graphics, animation and sound. Clumsy engine and gameplay. Cheesy story. Maybe its lenght and volume of content? Beats me. I just can't get into this. And how do I quit this game?

Anyway, you people should play more freeware RPGs. This is so not 5 stars material.

Posted by Pixelthief

21st November, 2008

http://www.create-games.com/download.asp?id=4133

Posted by Lachie Dazdarian

21st November, 2008

Rated :

Well, nice if you honestly think that about my clumsy debut game (I would give it 2/5), but I'm sticking to my opinion regarding Gridquest. What makes a game is more that the mere volume of content. I tried 3 times to get into this game and failed. It just wasn't appealing and fun enough for me. If it had better graphics and sound I might give it a higher rating on those merits, but since it doesn't....I'm sticking to my rating (if I could vote half stars it would be 2.5/5).

Posted by Jon C-B

21st November, 2008

Rated :

I think that the ok graphics were fine. I loved the RPG feel and the time and effort Pixeltheif put in to randomize the dungeons. I'm glad you took my advice and change the game over thing. This games faved for me!

Posted by [EclektiK]

21st November, 2008

Rated :

True the RPG feel is really good.

The graphics and sound makes it look like on of those 1994 games which I find cool.

The content is huge that's another cool thing

But hey,
Everybody has a different opinion!

If I could vote half stars it would be 5.5/5

Posted by Hill Gigas

21st November, 2008

Rated :

Lachie, I think most people give this extra attention because of the tools used. To make something like this in Games Factory is pretty incredible. It may look crude, but the scope of the project is huge.

And come on now, if you want to give something a 2.5, you round UP man!

Posted by Lachie Dazdarian

21st November, 2008

Rated :

Wait. My bad. I meant 2.4/5.

Eclektik, what games are you thinking of? I can't remember playing any commercial game from the 90ties that looked this bad. Even the classics from the 80ties had better gfx, despite this gfx featuring less colors and lower resolution.

Poor design remains poor no matter how you pack or present it.

I really don't care in what a certain game was made. I rate the final product, not the journey the developer took to get there. It's irrelevant. Anyway, this is an MMF port of the game.

Posted by AndyUK

21st November, 2008

i can think of plenty of 80's games with worse graphics

Posted by Jon C-B

21st November, 2008

Rated :

http://www.create-games.com/review.asp?id=3411

Posted by Pixelthief

22nd November, 2008

Well the thing is I really agree with Lachie on most of that. I did not by any means attempt to make the graphics 'good'. I'm not a great graphics artist, and I went into this project knowing that. So I intentionally made the game into 24x24 squares, and all the graphics in a directly consistent style. I know I can't draw impressive stuff like FAIND people, but I can at least make them decent enough to look at by keeping it all in the same style. Red Feud had poor graphics, but it was charming because it was kept consistent. I enjoyed it. So I just tried my best to draw the attention more to the coding, which modesty aside is far from shabby.

Actually if I had a reason to dislike the game, its the pacing. Pacing was one of my problems developing it and I couldn't get it quite right. I think the early game, the first maybe 30 minutes, aren't nearly as interesting and well designed as the next couple hours. This was mostly because I was getting better at it as I went.

Posted by Mr_Tom

22nd November, 2008

Rated :

This is quite good for this style of RPG, a style which i totally despise and thus found no fun at all, but I can see that it is good for what its trying to be. I don't give higher marks because this isn't new, just reworked from a previous release (although im sure the reworking involved a lot of effort). Maybe i'll go give the other version a higher rating

Posted by alastair john jack

22nd November, 2008

Rated :

Awesome update on the game Pixelthief, much improved.
I'm glad you squished that exp bar in really helps!

Posted by Pixelthief

22nd November, 2008

im still interested in how far people get

Posted by Pixelthief

22nd November, 2008

Updated to V2.01; there was an issue where if you died in a bossfight and went back to town via Charon, the boss's room wouldn't reset. This is now fixed; if you encounter this in V2.00, you can work around it by going into Gridquest/Grids/Levels folder, and copy/pasting that level.INI into your Save Slot folder. Props to Jon C-B for finding this one

Posted by Jon C-B

22nd November, 2008

Rated :

Loving the game so far, stuck once I beat the Veggiemancer though...

Posted by Pixelthief

22nd November, 2008

did you try exploring south of the town, like south of southfield?

Posted by Pixelthief

22nd November, 2008

Actually, for everyone, heres a mini-walkthrough;

First, you should head east of the town, through the forest, eventually through the castle dungeons & tower. After talking with Phizzy, you can continue by returning to town and heading due south, through the ancient cavern. That leads all the way to the end of the game. Theres two major hidden areas, one hidden somewhere in southfield, one hidden somewhere in the graveyard. You need the teleport spell to get to either of those. The rest is all exploring, up to you

Posted by Jon C-B

23rd November, 2008

Rated :

Hey the same thing happens in the Beholder room. Should I just do the same thing?

Posted by Pixelthief

23rd November, 2008

Yah, but uh, why are you returning via Charon instead of just saving the game and loading it if you die? Just save the game right outside a boss fight, and you can instantly load it from anywhere....

Posted by Jon C-B

23rd November, 2008

Rated :

I wasn't supplied enough when I got there so I went back to town to get stuff.

Posted by Pixelthief

23rd November, 2008

well its all fixed in the v2.01, so if it gets to be a problem you can just redownload it, and copy/paste the gridquest.exe files over the ones in your folder. Don't need to mess with the grids folder.

Posted by AndyUK

23rd November, 2008

argh damnit i keep forgetting to play this properly

Posted by Pixelthief

24th November, 2008

have you been playing it upside down?

Posted by Jason Orme

26th November, 2008

Rated :

Any plans on making an open source version of this. Start a Grid Quest modding community. It would be a great way of keeping the game alive.

Posted by Pixelthief

26th November, 2008

Theres an open source copy of 1.00 floating around from the last release, but I havent put out V2.01 now that I think about it. If you want the source code, you can find it right here:
http://claniraq.googlepages.com/MMF2GridQuest201-79.zip
But I don't think I'll be too terribly involved in anything much support for it. The random levels can be modded straight from Index.INI, and for altering existing levels, scroll down to the bottom of the code in the release, looking for the "On pressing '['" event, and remove the "Never" from it. Then when you press [ ingame, it opens up the dev controls. Theres alot more to it than that obviously, but the Readme.INI file in each folder should tell you what it is for. Just don't expect to be able to understand most of the source code.... its 3445 events short.

Posted by Jason Orme

26th November, 2008

Rated :

I will give it a whirl, I made somthing quite similar to this myself in an attempt to re-create a dungeon crawler like boardgame. I ran into so many problems with it that it got canned, mainly that enemiest wouldnt navigate the corridors and rooms correctly, aswell as the fact that I couldnt do an inventory system to save my life.

I'm assuming this open source version is the older unstable release?

And how easy is it to update the graphics, is everything global? As I wouldnt mind giving it a polish just out of curiosity.

- Cheers

Posted by Pixelthief

26th November, 2008

narr I just uploaded the new version, is what that is. The problem with updating graphics is that the game is incredibly set into a 24x24 pixel square grid, which means it can't get past 24x24 sprites, and well, you can't draw very much at that size. Were it possible, I might have gone back and gotten someone, but I doubt even the best gfx artist can improve it much.

thanks!
Comment edited by Pixelthief on 11/26/2008

Posted by Jason Orme

26th November, 2008

Rated :

Fantastic stuff looking through this file, love some of the systems you have used, I'd never of thought of them, certainly an eye opener.

I know what you mean about the graphics, I did a 32x32 style and that was a challenge, but then I love doing small pixel art, the smaller the better.

If I play about with the graphics I will post a pic on your projects page, it may very well just end up spoiling its charm, I will have to see.

Posted by Pixelthief

26th November, 2008

go right ahead!

Posted by markno2

26th November, 2008

Rated :

I fixed the stretch to screen slowdown by choosing "Run in 256 colour mode" in compatibility mode. Fun game, I preferred playing it using the keyboard, though. ;P

Posted by AndyUK

27th November, 2008

"have you been playing it upside down?"

lol,
when i do play it, it will be with the intention of finishing it.

Posted by Poobical

27th November, 2008

Rated :

Very Very Good! To make this on TGF, it's amazing! Nice for a re-release cause otherwise I would of missed out! (still is playing)

Posted by Jason Orme

28th November, 2008

Rated :

I've been playing this alot more recently.. its very refreshing to see someone with an understanding of DnD. what I mean by that is the enemy difficulty scale, location and grouping, for example you start off with the lesser monster (bugs,slimes etc) and then move upto goblins, then skeletons and the locations you find them in are also right, aswell as the enemy grouping i.e not mixing the undead with goblins/orcs etc.

Certainly on the same wavelength.

Very much enjoying the game the second time (couldn't really enjoy the first release due to crashes etc).

Posted by Jon C-B

28th November, 2008

Rated :

I've beaten it. I was sadly surprised at how short it was. Maybe it wasn't short, I just played it a ton...

Posted by Pixelthief

28th November, 2008

Good tip mark! Yarr the game balance and scaling is one of the things I'm more proud of with Gridquest. It starts off simple, with just easy monsters who have very basic attack patterns, and easy puzzles. As you get into the game later, the puzzles are complicated and the monsters and bosses will have unique attack patterns; the forsaken that teleport around with homing missiles, or the vampires that morph into bats, etc. I think it makes it keep the pace pretty well throughout the game, without making it *too* easy or *too* hard. I'm actually a little proud of some of the puzzles, especially the hidden "secret" areas, and the blood tower.

My gripe with it though, is that because the game gets progressively more interesting, the first half an hour or so isn't very great. I think the game doesn't have enough of a hook; most people probably just killed a few rats in Westfield and called it a day and never even saved a game. Making it feel like its worth getting into, thats something I'll have to work on in future games...

Posted by Del Duio

29th November, 2008

Rated :

I like this game a lot in a lot of ways Pixelthief, but the one thing that's kind of a big problem for me is how long it takes for your guy just to move from space to space. On my computer it takes almost 2 seconds or so when you hold the arrow keys to walk to the next space. Not bad, unless you're trying to play for a long while like I was the other night, and then it gets really annoying. I liken it a lot to the SNES port of Might & Magic III: Isles of Terra. If anybody's played that game, it's very good but just moving around feels like you're stuck in molasses.

The weapons descriptions, the music, the inventory, the fun factor, the enemy types, they're all awesome. It's just that it takes way too long to move from place to place and that's a real bummer. Is there anyway to speed up the rate at which the hero moves around? This game'd kill if it took less time to move from space to space (instant would be perfection if possible).

Posted by Pixelthief

29th November, 2008

if you have 50 FPS, movement from space to space should take no more than 0.2 seconds per movement, which can be reduced by finding a weapon "of speed", or using the "unholy haste" spell; you must be running at like 10-20 FPS, but its not very noticeable when you're not moving

Maybe try checking the 256 color option, and/or using the windowed version. The game uses the INI object a ton each time you move, which can cause a little slowdown, but it shouldn't take 2 seconds

Posted by Skelux

29th November, 2008

Rated :

This is great! I thought it was creative that you used people from TDC as some characters, including your self as the evil one

. Im abit stuck at the moment though, where do I go after ive talked to "king phizzy"? He told me to go south past his guards but I couldn't find anything

.

Actually, never mind, I found your old comment on what to do

.
Comment edited by Celux on 11/30/2008

Posted by Pixelthief

30th November, 2008

I wish I had made that part more obvious. I added in a sign in town at the last minute in hopes it would point people

Posted by Del Duio

1st December, 2008

Rated :

I want to know where I can edit the weapons files to change some names to my own Mwhahaha!

Curious, since I suck at this still and have only found a stick +1 (I think?) do all armor and weapons show up on your character when you equip them?

I also will try the 256 color option, I've just come back from vacation so I didn't have a chance earlier.

Posted by Pixelthief

1st December, 2008

Or use the 'windowed' mode, I can't see why there would be any slowdown converting from 320x240 to 960x720. The in-game names are hardcoded, but you can change the lore-button data by editing the grids/legendarium/lore.INI file. As far as animations, theres a new character animation for like every 2 sets of weapons/armors/shields.

Posted by Pixelthief

8th December, 2008

Oh well I'm still proud of taking the time to write my own sphinx riddles.

Posted by dndfreak

18th January, 2009

Rated :

Say, my firewall/virus detector (Kapersky) doesn't let me go to the now decommissioned googlepages. When are you gonna upgrade so sites so I can actually play this gem?

Posted by Pixelthief

20th January, 2009

Hrmm didn't notice that it was being switched over to Google Sites O_o... I went and uploaded this over there. I suppose in time I'll have to change *all* my downloads... sigh
http://sites.google.com/site/claniraq/stuff/GridQuest.zip

Posted by dndfreak

20th January, 2009

Rated :

Not bad, but the controls can be a little glitchy and the death penalty seems high. I also had no idea as to what the plot was until playing into it for about fifteen minutes, perhaps an informative intro would have been a good idea. The game was pretty fun though (:
Comment edited by dndfreak on 1/20/2009

Posted by Pixelthief

20th January, 2009

actually the intro *is* the plot, its all a quest to retrieve your sandwich :X

Posted by UrbanMonk

30th June, 2009

Rated :

Must Vote UUUUUUUPPPPPP!!!!

Posted by Pixelthief

14th July, 2009

Updating to V2.02, which should address some issues
And submitting to the KLIKDISC

I'm not 100% sure this release is stable, since the filesize reduced a ton, but if I notice any funny business while further testing it I can revert the download to 2.01.

Posted by Disthron

12th October, 2009

Looks pretty hectic.

Posted by Del Duio

30th November, 2010

Rated :

Downloaded this again, this time on a "real" computer and there's no slowdown at all

I'm doing much better than last time, however is there a keybaord shortcut to picking up items under your feet or another way to quit the game aside from task manager -> end process because that would help a lot!

Progress: Went through the graveyard and the haunted woods to eventually kick the shit out of a billion spiders (which are very hard but I did it). I got a stick of fire which has a flame effect and is awesome, and just got a small shield of health which adds a whopping +25 max HP to my level 4 guy and makes a huge difference. Also got some stud leather and the regular lamp.

I'm going to be giving this a better shot and see how well I can do.

Posted by Pixelthief

30th November, 2010

you'll find the game picks up dramatically once you've made it past the big cyclops guy underneath the castle, so theres a lot to be seen

The keyboard shortcut for picking up an item you're standing on is "Enter", and nothing but alt-f4 quits the game :S

If you struggle at all, try collecting enough gold (1450) to buy the teleport spell for 2x blue tomes from north of town, then explore the first level underneath the graveyard. Lots of easy high powered treasure, but if you go too far....

I was thinking recently about finally making my legendarium for this game but progress on Asunder has been going like nuts. Im still looking forward to hasslevania 2 of course

Posted by Del Duio

30th November, 2010

Rated :

Too bad there wasn't a quit button in the save menu but it's good to know there's another way aside from the task manager way.

Do the different weapon elements have more than straight damage increases? Ex. Can fire set some guys on fire or something like that?

Also I think if there were a way to see what an item's stats were while on the ground (or in your pack) without having to put it on that'd be very helpful. Especially if the item's in the shop. Example: I couldn't tell if the dagger for sale was better than my stick of fire but didn't want to spend the $400+ silvers on it to find out.

Posted by Pixelthief

30th November, 2010

Yeah, if you use your mouse to play the game! If you're adamant about using the keyboard, what I like to do is position the cursor on top of the player- that way it will display the stats of any items you are standing on top of without having to pick them up, since they'd be under the cursor. The fire effect doesn't do anything but add +damage based on your character level :S

Also you can press 'delete' while selecting any item to bring up its stats, so it would let you do that too
Comment edited by Pixelthief on 11/30/2010

Posted by Del Duio

1st December, 2010

Rated :

That's pretty cool, it's like the +1 damage / player level mod in Diablo.

Do you have a listing of what the mods or elements do anywhere, Pixelthief?

Posted by Pixelthief

1st December, 2010

Almost all the information in the game is listed in the Lore.INI file in the grids/legendarium folder, but I just noticed that the affixes aren't. Remember you can read about any item by selecting it and pressing the "Delete" key. But yeah:

The prefixes all give +10% defense/damage/blocking per level, all the suffixes give special effects. Prefixes have different names for armor + shields / weapons.

Prefixes:
1: Noob/Sturdy
2: Sharp/Strong
3: Grand/Solid
4: Potent/Great
5: Deadly/Brazen
6: Warped/Silver
7: Silver/Auric
8: Gold/Hero's
9: Holy/Holy
10: Dark/Evil

Suffixes are different for armor/shields vs weapons:

Weapon Suffixes:
1: +1
gives +1 damage
2: of Fire
gives +1 damage/level
3: +10
gives +10 damage
4: of Spells
gives +1 to all spells power (same as being 1 level higher)
5: of Mana
+75 mana
6: +20
gives +20 damage
7: of Speed
makes you +33% faster
8: of Frost
freezes enemies on attack
9: of Power
gives +2 all spells power, +50 hp, +50 mana, +10 damage and +3 regeneration
10: of Death
gives 1/3 of the ultimate secret death curse

Armor/Shield Suffixes:
1: +1
gives +1 armor / +1% blocking
2: of Health
gives +25 hp
3: of Magic
gives +50 mana
4: +3
gives +3 armor / +3% blocking
5: +5
gives +5 armor / +5% blocking
6: of Mana
gives +75 mana
7: of Heal
gives +5 regeneration
8: of Gaea
gives +100 hp
9: of Power
gives +2 all spells power, +50 hp, +50 mana, +3 armor / +3% blocking and +3 regeneration
10: of Death
gives 1/3 of the ultimate secret death curse

Posted by Del Duio

1st December, 2010

Rated :

Oh man this game is so fucking good, it sucks that it took me until this long to be able to play it right to find that out.

I'm getting really pretty far (I think) and just made it inside the castle's dungeon level 3. I know this is an old game but I found some bugs I'd like to report:

*Getting the "Barkward" shield lists the name as "Vine Trellis" in the info display.

*I found a magik chest in the Spider Secret area and it was solid black with white sparkles on it (like there WAS no chest, just a black square with the sparkles).

*If you get a tome and equip it, and then load up your saved file from before you had the tome, the spell still shows as equipped and worse yet you can actually use it!

*I fought some cyclopses and there was way way too many flails spinning around (like 8 for 3 cyclopses). Seemed like a bad error however I do like the idea of the attack behind it.

I got the hatemail off a minotaur and it's awesome, penalties be damned! I also got the thief's circle buckler and that thing's +15 damage kicks so much ass I'm picking it over better blocking shields all the time

Observation: It's kind of crappy how there's only one place to sell anything at, and that it's so far away from where I am now. Is there anyplace else to sell your extra stuff? Also is the magic lantern the most expensive thing in the game because once I get back there I'm going to have almost $5000 extra once I buy it for $3500 silvers.

Also I downloaded the .mfa for this game and was wondering how hard it would be to add more items? Is it as easy as adding more info to the text files? Also is it possible to give the unique items unique graphics? Ex. Hatemail might have a skull on it and look red or something.

Anyhow, AWESOME GAME and favorited too. Once I win it I'll review it Pixelthief. Now to go kick the shit out of more knights with the Purify spell...
Comment edited by Del Duio on 12/1/2010

Posted by Del Duio

2nd December, 2010

Rated :

Ah crap, nevermind I found the secret warps through the rune cave (which takes you back to town to sell things quickly). I also found the vegetable garden WTF that's a different idea hahaha good job!