魔岩山传说

Legend of Grimrock

2008 年的独立游戏潮兴起时，我挺希望这股潮流能重新复兴一些往日很火的游戏类型。出乎我意料的是，有一群芬兰人完美契合了我的想法，并且制作了《魔岩山传说（Legend of Grimrock）》，一款致敬并立志于重振第一人称实时地牢探索 RPG （又名为第一人称小队制 RPG，Blobber）的游戏。

《魔岩山传说》的游戏设计与 UI 设计，完美的继承了上世纪 90 年代中期的《魔石堡（Stonekeep）》系列与《黎明之砧（Anvil of Dawn）》系列，同时还加入了很多独特的元素。游戏里那些经典的设计全都被沿用了，比如全屏视角、极简 UI，内建的自动地图，以及易用的物品栏管理系统；同时游戏还使用了符合现代标准的画质和音效，以及真实的光影系统，怪物动作的实时动画以及自由视角系统等先进设计。

像我这样从小玩第一人称小队制 RPG 游戏长大的人来说，这就像小时候的梦想成真一样：我们终于能玩到一款兼顾了现代游戏的先进技术以及经典老式游戏手感的游戏了。

游戏的剧情也很简单但不出戏：你的队伍是一群罪犯，被丢进了一个叫魔岩山的山间监狱，而监狱承诺如果你的小队能最终逃脱成功，你们的所有罪证都会一笔勾销。

When the indie game scene took off in 2008, I was hoping that some of the abandoned game genres from yesteryear might make a comeback. To my surprise, a group of Finns were thinking just that and made Legend of Grimrock, a game that honours the real-time grid-based dungeon crawlers (aka blobbers) from back in the day.

In terms of game design and UI mechanics, Grimrock picks up exactly where games like Stonekeep and Anvil of Dawn left off in the mid-90s, and then adds some new tricks of its own. The de facto standards of a full-screen view, minimal UI, inbuilt automap and easy inventory management are all present, but then today's standards of graphics and sound are added. Realistic lights and shadows, full animations for the monsters and even a Freelook view.
For someone like me who grew up playing many of the predecessors to Grimrock, this felt like an old dream coming true: playing an archaic game genre with modern-day luxuries.
The plot is simple and non-intrusive: your party is comprised of convicts that are thrown into the eponymous mountain-prison with the promise that your escape will grant you amnesty for your crimes.

2014 年 1 月，一款基于《魔岩山传说》改编的同人网剧在 Kickstarter 开始众筹了，这个项目是由之前负责《辐射：核子可乐之旅（Nuka Break）》的主创团队筹划的。可惜的是，最后的项目依旧没有正式落地。

In January 2014, a live-action web series based on Legend of Grimrock was funded on Kickstarter, made by the same team responsible for Nuka Break. Sadly, the project was never concluded.

你梦中听见一个声音，力劝你到山脚下寻找一个东西，而你照做后立马找到一个之前的冒险者留下的日志。这一次，你不再需要拯救世界，这只是关乎你个人自由的求索，在这途中你需要穿过这个充满各种谜题与怪物的设计精巧的地牢。

游戏沿用了经典的“四人小队（four party members）”设置，但其简陋的角色创建系统说实话有些令人失望。游戏里只有 4 个种族，3 个职业，其中 3 个种族完全是针对 3 个职业量身定制，而最后一个人类种族则是一个万金油种族。

游玩中你倒是可以更进一步的定制你的角色，游戏里有很多技能可以学习，但是却没有足够多的技能点让你去加点。这样的结果就是，战士只能专精于一种武器，法师也只能专精于一种学派的法术。很显然《魔岩山传说》在这方面完全能做的更好，但我们也只能接受这样的结果了。

另一个不足之处则是其界面。这样极简界面的设计初衷是好的，但是由于图标实在太小，最终导致游戏里有很多误触。特别是在玩家施法的时候，他们必须输入指定的如尼文字咒语组合来施法，而这个过程中误触会尤其多。

A voice that speaks in your dreams urges you to come find it at the bottom of the mountain, and you'll soon find journal pages of an adventurer that came before you. For once the world doesn't need saving, it's just a personal quest for freedom through a well-crafted dungeon filled with puzzles and monsters.

The game goes for the classical “four party members” approach, but its bare-bones character creation system is somewhat disappointing. With only four races and three classes, three of the races are custom-tailored towards each of the classes and then humans are thrown in as all-rounders.

Further customisation is gained through the skill system, where there are plenty of skills to learn but not enough skill points to go round. As a result, Fighters will have to choose a preferred weapon and Mages must pick a preferred school of magic. Obviously they could have done better with both systems, but it works as is.

Another valid point of criticism is the interface. Its minimal approach is a good thing, but its tiny size leads to many unwanted misclicks, especially with the keypad-esque spell interface, where players must input specific rune combinations to cast spells.

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¹ 译者注：此处原书有一处印刷错误，原文为 Toorun，但实际应该是 Toorum。