Grimoire Beta (1998)
17Grimoire is a massive turn-based RPG currently being crowdfunded over at IndieGoGo, and all old school fans should seriously consider backing this ambitious project. Those who might still be a bit skeptical about whether the game actually exists or not would do well to check out this early beta version from 1998, which can easily be found floating around on the Internet. As evidenced by the brand new gameplay footage posted at the developer's own YouTube page, a lot has happened in terms of the look, feel and overall polish of the game in the intervening 14 (!) years. At the same time, you can clearly see the same basic gameplay structures in place in both versions...and, at the very least, there's no reason whatsoever to suppose that Grimoire is any *less* of a game in 2012 than it was in 1998.
This video shows me going in completely "blind" with no idea about how the races, skills and spells work (making character creation almost impossible, but it was cool to check out regardless). Since I also don't know anything about the interface I make all the classic old school RPG mistakes (fighting without weapons equipped, sleeping in dangerous places etc.), but hopefully this raw unedited footage nonetheless gives a good overview of what Grimoire looked like at the time. In case you want less fumbling around and more actual gameplay, fastforward to about 19 minutes in).
Official gameplay videos of what Grimoire looks like today:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TexasArcane/videos?view=1
Developer's IndieGoGo campaign:
http://www.indiegogo.com/grimoireforever?c=home&a=1618975