Cleveland Blakemore's one man project, Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, has been delayed once more after a promised release on July 7th.
As previously reported, Grimoire was scheduled for a release on Friday, after over 20 years in development. The game has been single-handedly developed by Australian programmer Cleveland Blakemore, who previously worked on a failed sequel to the Wizardry series.
Blakemore had delayed the game's release due to substantial bug issues plaguing the game. According to a post on Steam, Blakemore is hoping to iron out these bugs before release, stating that "I did not want all the schadenfreude army to take delight in the fact the game was released with these glitches present."
According to Blakemore, the issues are his own observations, independent from a game test conducted as early as 2005. Some of the changes include touch ups to the game itself over actual bug fixes. One example given is useful log entries from NPC's in your quest book. Blakemore wanted to add more content that was "sensitive to context" and in between bug fixes added about 92 additional notes to "make sure the interactions are memorable."
He notes that Grimoire can be released right now, but that people would notice it was not the final version. "I am going to work on it intensely just a little more and then release it as a product polished to enormous perfection," he stated. "If you get this close a couple days is not a big deal, compared to 23 years of working on it."
This is far from the first delay for Grimoire which has had a lengthy history of them throughout its 23 years of development.
Grimoire is a dungeon-crawling RPG inspired by the Wizardry series, which Blakemore promising over 600 hours of play possible in a single game. The game includes 14 playable races, 15 professions, over 50 skills, and over 244 maps to explore with 2D hand drawn artwork.
What are your thoughts on Grimoire? Hoping the game will actually release? Leave your comments below.
