Grimoire
A downloadable game
Settle in to your favourite chair, grab a big ol' mug of pumpkin spiced beverage, and pick up your Playdate for a quick game of GRIMOIRE.
Grimoire is a casual Minesweeper-like puzzle game for Playdate with a twist.
Grimoire 2.0 now includes:
- Two difficulty levels — Easy and Hard
- Notes — Hold B and select either 0, 1 or 2 using the directional pad to leave yourself a helpful note
How to play:
- The numbers 0, 1 and 2 are hidden among the stones
- Find all five 0s before you run out of health
- Finding a 1 will remove a single block of health, while finding a 2 will remove two blocks of health
- The numbers on top of the stones are the sum of the numbers hidden above, below, left and right of the stone
- For example, a stone with a 4 on top is the sum of the surrounding stones — which include a 1 above, 1 below, 2 to the left and 0 to the right
To install the game on your Playdate, follow the directions on the official Playdate site.
Download
Development log
- Update v2.0May 16, 2023
- Update v1.3Feb 21, 2023
- Update v1.2Nov 08, 2022
Comments
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I've been playing this for a year now and it's my favorite game on Playdate. As a very experienced player I have some thoughts:
This is a lot of fun! Was nice getting to see your demo at the event the other day; downloaded it to put it on my own Playdate.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you stopped by :>
My favorite game on Playdate. I just wish it had a way to place a generic flag on a tile where you know there's a number underneath, but you're not certain which one.
I've worked out my strategy, I just use the 0 as my generic flag. Still love this game.
that’s actually quite smart, I’ve had the same problem but didn’t think about that, thank you :)
To be completely fair, the 0 marker is useless because you'd just hit the block if you knew it was a 0
I LOVE THIS GAME!
thx!
absolute cracker of a game. Love the visuals, love the simplicity and yet still challenging. Cool to see something so similar to minesweeper and yet completely it’s own thing. Keep up the good work. Your other game (the poker one) is also amazing, some of the best looking games on the platform.
Maybe implement an option to write as a note that the space could be 1 of 2 numbers (e.g. 0 or 2 as the note on a single space). I think that would help
thought of a simple way to implement this:
when you already have one note written down, selecting a second number doesn’t replace the original but instead appears below the other note. The button that removes the note would act like a backspace and remove the most recently added note. Hope that makes sense. I think it would really improve the gameplay
just sideloaded this! what an amazing and unique puzzle game. it perfectly scratches the minesweeper itch while being its own clear thing, and the aesthetic of it is top notch. being able to leave notes with B is such a great feature as well.
feedback: leaving notes with B is good, but once you write a note you can't get rid of it again if you know its wrong but dont know the right thing to replace it with. also, a how to play page would go a long way to making this game stand up on its own
overall, really great little game on my playdate! super satisfying to pick up and play a few rounds whenever
follow up comment after playing it a lot more, it would be nice if the music was a bit longer, its a short loop and starts to get a bit maddening after long enough. everything else i said still stands
Open the note menu with B and hit Down on the d-pad!
this is such a cool puzzler. it has all the appeal of sudoku/minesweeper/picross, and simultaneously manages to be new and refreshing!
i think a tutorial would help to give players a better understanding of how the game works. i, as with other folks here, had to return to this page to read up on the rules.
this game belongs on catalog! please consider submitting it
Really cool puzzle! Two suggestions only:
1) Include a "how to play" page inside the game.
I didn't really read the description before downloading it, so I was completely lost at first and had to come back here.
2) Better distinguish between the weight of the neighbors and the weight of the stone itself. Even after several games, I still catch myself mixing them up.
(Unsolicited game dev thoughts. Skip to the end for praise. :P )
Hmm... didn't the previous card-like version have a "how to play" menu item? Where did that go?
Separately, I had a thought about presentation. I can find it a little confusing to have the numbers under the tiles to be in the same part of the square as the number on top, and yet be referring to a different thing, while the number on top moves to the side. It's only a small annoyance, but I was thinking how to convey that better.
On the right, you have gems and roman numerals. What if, when you remove a tile, the number on the tile stays in the same spot, but its backdrop shows either a gem or an imposing roman numeral? Similarly, since you can place notes on tiles, maybe if you make those numerals look more scratchy and hand-drawn, and in the style of a gem or roman numerals?
Still, this is such an elegant little game. I still occasionally boot this game up after nearly a year of it being on my playdate. It's good. :3
(I wonder how a hex grid would change the deductions?)
please make another game for the Playdate. Your games have a presentation and ease of access that make games fun and visually engaging. Thanks so much!
Thank you so much, Austin! :)
Will this be updated with a List View icon for Playdate 2.0?
I'm really trying to wrap my head around how this game actually works and I'm having a difficult time with the instructions. I've heard many great things about this game and would love to play it, but I need to understand how to play first.
Some instruction in the game itself could likely be useful as well.
It's like minesweeper. The tile on top is the sum of the numbers around it (below, though). With that knowledge, find the 0s and try to select no tiles that have numbers underneath.
I've been really enjoying this game! Thanks so much for putting effort into a game on a niche console like the Playdate :-)
I have a few suggestions after a few hours of playtime:
1. I'd love to see more difficulty options or some kind of additional progression since, after getting good enough to beat hard mode most of the time, it doesn't feel like there's as much point to continue playing.
2. Change the ability to mark a tile as a "0" to the ability to mark a tile as a "?", indicating that you know a tile contains a 1 or a 2 but don't know which number it contains specifically. To me, if you know a tile is a 0, it makes sense to just collect it immediately, so I never mark tiles as 0s. However, there are many times when I know that a tile is greater than 0 but can't tell whether its a 1 or a 2 and it would be helpful to be able to write this down.
3. The music is pretty simplistic and short. It'd be nice if there was some more varied and longer music. A few different tracks would be great.
Again, awesome job on this game! Thanks for sharing!
I second those suggestions and would also add another one:
Maybe include a small “how to play” text that can be reached from the menu. Not everyone reads the game’s description here on itch.io, and it would lower the barrier for first-time players.
Just got my playdate last weekend and both my fiancee and myself have been obsessed with this game. Only problem is we only have one playdate. I would love to see an android version of this so we could both play at the same time.
10/10 little game, love it
It took me quite a few rounds to make it click but I think I finally understand the rules. When you realize that the main number on the white tile has nothing to do with the main number on the black tile beneath it, and that the main number on the white tile turns into the top right number in the tile, I can from there begin to figure out the puzzle. I don’t know if I’ll ever not find that confusing, but when I can work with it it’s a good puzzler!
Also it’d be nice if after completing a puzzle I could exit to the main menu without it saying “Give Up”, that feels demoralizing after beating a tough puzzle!
I absolutely love this game. May be my most played game on the system. Is there any way we could get an extra hard mode? Or a way to further customize the difficulty?
I second this! I would really love more difficulty, this is an awesome game.
I also second this! I now win the hard mode every run. 1hp-mode and more tiles would be awesome to crank up the difficulty! Other than that, best playdate game I've played so far. Big thanks!
I really enjoy your game! I appreciate the fantastic art design paired with the simple, yet engaging logic-based gameplay. You should allow donations at least, this is totally worth paying for!
Thank you for the kind words!
Hi, after latest playdate update, I haven't been able to open the game again. Is there an update for the game? or do I need to restart playdate? by the way game is excellent (: one of my favourites on the playdate.
Ack! Thanks for letting me know, should be fixed now. And thank you for the kind words!
Great game! You could definitely charge money for this!
I've noticed the win/loss counter seems to double count games sometimes, unless there is some bonus counting if you do particularly poorly/well that I am not realizing. I went from 6-4 to 8-4 to 10-4 with just two wins, for example.
Awwww crud. Ya I’m gonna have to look in to that. Thanks for letting me know!
Interesting, often pretty simple to beat, but since it's randomized the difficulty can massively vary. Once you play it a lot then it remains easy though; I wish there was options for more board sizes and other modifiers. I also wish there was the ability to mark cards with numbers. I absolutely love the artwork in it, certainly the best part of the game.
Really fun logic game! The artstyle is super tight, transporting me into the world of grimoire. The icons are very readable on the small screen. The mechanics are easy to understand, and I really appreciated the How to Play section.
One request as a quality of life improvement would be to add some ability to mark cards through our deductions. Sometimes if I process that a card *must* be a specific number, I’ll do another part of the puzzle and forget my previous logic.
This is such a fun little game!! I also love the art!
Thank you so much!
I enjoy it! It's pretty fun until you play it so much that the puzzles become too easy to solve :) I wouldn't mind seeing larger puzzles but it may just not be consistently fun if already tested. It's only Minesweeper-like on the surface but to compare it would only do it a disservice - there is its own logic and the beginnings of a fun theme. Bonus points for the filesize :)
Hey, I’m having a lot of fun with the game but I found a bug. If you press B twice quickly while in the game it crashes.
Also it would be really nice if there was a way to mark cards when you’ve figured out what they are.
Also also, you could totally charge money for this! I’d happy pay 3 or 4 dollars.
Ah, crud! I’ll look in to that ASAP. I thiiiiink I might know what the deal is.
That’s a good idea! I know you can do something similar in most sudoku games. Makes strategizing a bit easier.
And thank you so much! Appreciate it.
Pretty clever puzzle game! Maybe marking the cards could be done with the crank (rotating between the numbers). Having a campaign with increasing difficulty and added twists would be amazing!
I like that! Been meaning to prototype it out. Was initially thinking a long press of the direction pad somehow? But crank is A+ idea.
And yes! I’ve got ideas for a sequel already. Add in more depth, another layer of gameplay. Thank you for the kind words!
Second the marking cards feature request. Great game!
Same here, absolutely love this game, just want a way to mark the cards because it's too easy to forget which ones I figured out.
I love this! Great, polished little puzzle game.
Wonderful game! Could we please have more indications on which numbers are possible on the cards? Can they be 1-9 or some other range? Just to know how many numbers to consider in the logic.
Ah! Great idea. I’ll work that in to any future updates I do. In the meantime, only numbers are 0, 1 or 2. And thank you!
After playing some more it's quite tough to reach high confidence in the guesses. I suppose that's why there are lives, to take chances. I enjoy it!
Tricky little logic game. 666KB download 🤘