Crtl Alt Ninja is a new Finnish studio made up by former Legend of Grimrock developers, and they’ve announced their first game.
Titled Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest, the new game is an isometric RPG for Windows PC that bucks the first-person, dungeon crawling predecessor they worked on previously. The game is also single-player, and pans out via a procedurally generated world.
You’ll play as – you guessed it – a reincarnated, amnesiac druid who has no recollection of how he died. He is determined, however, by a nebulous purpose: “The forest called you here because it needs you.” A release for the game on non-Windows platforms is “possible later.”
You’ll start off lacking not only memories, but also no gear to speak of whatsoever. You’ll be quickly entering ruins, fighting baddies, as well as developing new abilities and skills.
Combat unfolds via a two-dimensional grid, and it’s described as”tactical and turn-based, so you have plenty of time to think through your options.” The studio is keen to point out that combat “is not the main focus of Druidstone,” saying that “instead we are concentrating on the tactical battle system, exploration, and storyline.”
It’s also worth mentioning several of the staff from Legend of Grimrock studio Almost Human are moonlighting for this project. When co-founders Juho Salila and Petri Hakkinen founded the studio, it was after four years of nothing but Grimrock work – they “started to have that old familiar itch” to make a new game.
Other staff who felt the same were working on other projects, so the pair founded the studio and started prototyping, with the others joining later.
“To keep things simple, we decided to found a new company and started prototyping new game ideas. We made something like seven prototypes including one that we developed almost six months before abandoning it. In the end we settled with Druidstone and started working on it full steam,” Salila said.
“One other advantage of developing a game under different name is the freedom of fresh start. With a new company we don’t have the pressure of making another Grimrock game and we had a lovely blank canvas in front of us.”
A release date for Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest isn’t confirmed, and the game is seemingly early in development. For now, you can check out the game’s official website. We’ll keep you guys posted – so make sure to stay tuned to Niche Gamer.
