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Legend of Grimrock iOS port announced, sequel enters beta
Finnish developer Almost Human Ltd. has two pieces of great news for fans of its classically-styled first-person dungeon crawl Legend of Grimrock: Not only has the game's sequel reached beta testing, but the original Legend of Grimrock is now coming to iOS. According to an official press release, entering beta means that all content to be included in Legend of Grimrock 2 is now in place and needs only polish and quality assurance testing before the game will be available to the public. "We feel the game is like a raw diamond and now we're concentrating fully on polishing every aspect of the game until everything is perfect and shining," said Legend of Grimrock artist Juho Salila. The developers plan to begin beta testing soon, after enlisting a "carefully selected" group of testers. Almost Human believes this tight-knight testing group will allow for better developer feedback and more fluid interaction between testers and the people building the game. Barring any major problems, Almost Human hopes to launch Legend of Grimrock 2 on PC this Fall. Unfortunately, information on the iOS version of Legend of Grimrock is currently lacking. Almost Human has yet to confirm a release date for the game, or even which iOS devices will be supported (though the above screenshot indicates the iPad is a very likely candidate). The developer claims that more information on the mobile dungeon crawl will be coming soon. [Image: Almost Human Ltd.]
Indie studio Almost Human is more human than most
Yesterday morning, Juho Salila went to work as usual, expecting to streamline the graphics and build a few monsters for Legend of Grimrock, Almost Human's imminent dungeon crawler. He sat down, booted up his computer, and noticed the Grimrock site had crashed multiple times throughout the night due to traffic overload, and his inbox was inundated with new emails.Hours earlier, Reddit user meandertal had posted this screencap from the Almost Human blog, highlighting a fan's question about the inclusion of on-screen arrows in Grimrock. That wasn't currently an option, programmer Petri Häkkinen said, asking the fan why he wanted to know. "I'm disabled and use a mouth stick for typing," he responded, saying he'd adapt to the existing controls and couldn't wait to play the game.Two and a half hours later, Häkkinen posted this: The fan was blown away -- and so were the Redditors who read meandertal's post. "When we got our inbox open, we almost couldn't believe our eyes; it was just pouring with encouraging emails," Salila told Joystiq. "All these people writing in saying thanks and wishing us good luck, just like in the mountain of comments on Reddit. "For us it was a rather simple thing to implement, but we couldn't imagine that it could mean so much to somebody else. It kind of gives you perspective on life itself."
