Purplewisp

The Etrian Odyssey games is an interesting series if you want a modern rpg with an oldschool feel. You have to map everything yourself but you can do so ingame. I wouldn't exactly say its similar to the Spiderweb games, but I think its similar to the other games in this thread.

That is very interesting and not something I would have expected at all. Is there any way to force the older games to display the grid, or just add some lines to help gauge distance? I heard that the Geneforge series in particular is hard to mod so I'm not sure how practical it is to add another layer of lines on the floor.

The Spiderweb games seem like they are perfectly suited to be a grid based tactics rpgs in every way, except for the lack of a grid. I can't even count the multitude of times my character moved one inch to far and the lost ap needed to attack, or is one inch out of range to attack, or needs to be one inch further to see around that corner or theres a tiny gap that someone ran through or a gap thats just too small to squeeze through. All of that is easily fixable with a grid. A grid would tell you at a glance what your characters can and can't do. Don't get me wrong, I've become an expert at gauging distance and range in these games, and I rarely make a mistake like those listed above unless theres a misclick involved somehow. But I remember how much it irritated me in the past when half my force would die because one guy was blocking the path by pixels. Although I suppose these are less of a problem outside of playing a shaper in Geneforge since you have less characters to control or if you use a mix of melee and ranged creations. Not like that will stop me from doing so for RP reasons though. So could someone explain to me why a grid isn't used, and how the games benefit from a lack of a grid? If this has been discussed before I apologize, but I did search around in advance.

I'm missing the focus orb, which I know is in the three warrens on the pedestal in the middle where you kill the named caster boss. It seems likely that I sold it, since I would remember dropping it somewhere.. probably. It isn't too hard to go and check every shop, the only problem is I decided to kill one of the awakened researchers and I shopped there pretty often. I'm pretty sure theres no way to get loot from a shop keeper thats angry with you. I've always wanted to kill every single creature in a Geneforge game and I've finally got a character to roleplay that would do so.. I might spare the loyalists however. I might just have to hack my save after I've 100% (well, 99% not like I want every crafted item) it, if I ever end up wanting to do so, I'll probably end up replaying it instead.

Is there a way to locate a stash, or an item that you misplaced or sold accidentally? I've been replaying through Geneforge 2 as a pure shaper/ buffer and I've gotten into a bad habit of dropping piles of loot in various areas so that inventory management isn't too tedious and somehow the only item I have misplaced so far is for a +shaping belt recipe. I literally haven't lost anything else for longer than a few minutes, I'm starting to question whether I picked it up.. Maybe theres a way to read my save file to see where its at? I guess it isn't terribly important, after getting drayks I'm invincible, I have 200 essence free, so its not like my drayks need to be doing more damage or tanking more. Any help is appreciated!

I'm surprised that there isn't a mod for this kind of thing.. Is there no modding scene for Geneforge at all? The only thing I can find are basically cheats, like fast movement. I would have assumed new campaigns or at least more summons and skills would be in high demand. Even just extra challenge areas for late game would be neat to have. Is it just that Geneforge is hard to mod? If that is the case it would be amazing if the developers could add modding tools if it wouldn't take too much time (I don't want future games delayed alot just for a feature most people would never see or care about). Anyways, this thread was originally about games (somewhat) similar to Geneforge. So I'll start it off by saying the game Kenshi, by Lofigames, looks pretty amazing. It's still in a (n open?) beta of sorts so I haven't tried it out yet. Its also more about sword fighting, with little (or none at all) focus on magic, but the monsters seem fairly original and there are alot of factions (that you can actually interact with and destroy if you choose to do so). You also have the option of controlling massive armies, or well trained elite groups that I imagine are as overpowered as they are in old samurai movies. It seems as open ended as fallout 1 and 2 as well. This is mostly just stuff I remember reading from blogs of the game, so alot of it could have changed by now. I don't know how well done the story is going to be, but it has shown alot of promise so far! Hopefully someone else contributes and recommends another (preferably) rpg that has something special to it so we can discover some great games that we might not have heard of! Please write what you think is interesting about it if you recommend something. I can probably dig up some more games that are interesting if anyone wants that sort of thing as well.

Anyone know if the devs (or anyone for the matter) plan on making a game set in the Geneforge story? Or even just a game set in a similar setting? I don't know why but the Avernum/ Avadon games just don't immerse me in the same way. Don't get me wrong, they are great games, but theres just something about the Geneforge style that they don't have. And its not just the addition of shaping either, I have done shaping free playthroughs before, and it doesn't lose that certain something that Geneforge has. If I had to guess, I would say it has to be something to do with how most of the creatures and magic in Geneforge are original fantasy. Maybe I have just played too many games set in the same type of fantasy settings to be captivated by them anymore. Since I expect that the answer to the first question is no, or at the very least its not in the near future, so I'll ask another in advance. Are there any good rpgs set in an original fantasy settings? (To clarify.. there are alot of games that only use goblins, orcs, giants, big spiders, merfolk, undead and similar creatures, along with the exact same types of mages and clerics: In other words, things that have been far too overused. I don't know about anyone else, but I originally liked the fantasy setting for a sense of wonder and of discovering things that I knew nothing about!)