Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar New IndieGoGo Drive Launched, Demo Released

In a surprising turn of events, Cleve Blakemore kept to his promise of releasing a demo for the legendarily-delayed Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, and marked the occasion with the (also promised) launch of a new IndieGoGo drive.

The goal for the campaign is one tenth of the earlier one ($25,000), its length 60 days, and it will feature the same flexible funding scheme, that means that Cleve will get the money whether the funding goal is met or not.

Grimoire's pitch is, in Cleve Blakemore's own words:
Having self-funded the entire development of the game over the past 17 years out of our own pockets we are now turning to crowdfunding to put the final polish on the game before delivering it to fans worldwide who have been waiting on the game for more than a decade. A pledge to the game will secure you a one-of-a-kind collector's edition of the resulting masterpiece and a guarantee that the completed product will be artistically perfect. Only pledges will get DRM-free copies of Grimoire once it is completed.

Grimoire is a turn-based, 3D, first person perspective roleplaying adventure in 1024x768 256 Color graphics. The 3D step-based engine is pixel perfect and smooth scrolling with zero distortion handcrafted images.

The style of play is very similar to that of CRPGS during the golden age of computer roleplaying before 1992 like Eye of the Beholder, Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Crusaders of the Dark Savant, Might & Magic, The Bard's Tale, Stonekeep and other classic games.

The emphasis in the game is on the story, exploration, discovery, character advancement, puzzle solving, strategic phased combat, treasure hunting, inventory management and interaction with the non-player characters encountered during play.

You can find the title's demo here, in case you want to get a taste of the 17-years-in-the-making Wizardry-like title.