I'm an old player.
One that remember EOB Trilogy, Lands of Lore, Ishar, and many other Dos era games.
I still own my 286 somewhere...

Legend of Grimrock is exceptional. Quite beautiful to look at, hear, etc.

BUT... after same levels, I simply stop playing it.

I don't know why, but the game just isn't intriguing or interesting.

Anyone with the same experience?

Not at all. For a while, I did feel like that the game was softballing me with regards to the puzzles and (to a lesser degree) the combat. However, by the time I reached level 6, the puzzles had become much harder and immensely satisfying to solve, and the combat, while made manageable through strategies I had discovered fairly early on, became far more harrowing.

I did feel the same way... at the very end of the game. That was perfect timing. 1 or 2 more levels would have been a tedious gaming experience to me.

I havn't played much, but i love every minute of it so far!

Same thing here. I too loved the Eye of the Beholder series in the years, as Lands of lore, wizardry and Ultima series (and others golden boxes or M&M) and i was thrilled to play Grimrock. But after a few levels I quit without knowing exactly why. I feel that while mostly true to its ancesters, the game is lacking something that made the Westwood or Origin ones unique and addictive. Don't think it"s all on my side (you know, aging and all that) as I still find the same pleasure playing EoB 1 with Dosbox.

The reason it got boring eventually was because of lack of diversity. i.e. Most of the levers and switches were in exactly the same position on walls and had exactly the same graphics as each other. What we need is other locations than just a multi-level dungeon. For example: cities, forests, mountains, swamps, etc. Those other games you mentioned have most of these locations and thus were more exciting to progress in.

I don't think the game is boring but I did lose interest after reaching the 5th level. I was enjoying myself, but just sort of fell out of playing.

I'm guessing that the game probably gets more difficult and presents more puzzles as you go on to keep it interesting.

You hit the nail on the head here. That is excatly why this game got boring...that and timed puzzles that are too damn hard., and combat doesn't feel like it did on those old games. I remember the sense of wonder playing EOB and Ultima underworld that is lacking in this game once you realize the walls barley ever change. They needed more assets.

I absolutely loved this game - great for an first indie release. I to am an old rpg addict. I finished the game and have since gone back and played EOB 1 and am currently playing EOB 2. I think LOG was better than EOB 1 - the Stone Portal but EOB 2 is hands down better. I can't say I was ever bored with LOG but some of the timing puzzles were a stretch.

Mmm old but not that old to not mention Dungeon Master. ;-)

I hope you didn't stop play before to have play at least level 3 and 4 (I'm in 4) because it's where the game starts has real depth.

Otherwise it seems like you never played Dungeon Master and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet in that thread. All opinions are valid, but if you ask me, Dungeon Master is unmatched neither by EoB nor by LoD even less by Ishar which is a bit sub quality.

So LoG go back to the sources and is closer to Dungeon Master than any other game. But yes, Dungeon Master is still unmatched.

The point in games like Dungeon Master and LoG is all about puzzles, secrets to find better equipment and tools or handy stuff, progressing in the levels, survival and resources management, manage the fights, find tricks to exploit, discover spread story elements, build an efficient party.

It doesn't match Dungeon Master because of some points, fights has some less depth and the speed increase of monsters movements isn't a good change, difficulty of fights and survival is less well managed than in DM and push too easily to abusive tricks like exploiting too much the crystals, the number of assets is lower than in DM, it's hardly concrete and objective but the mood and feeling of mystery was better build in Dungeon Master.

LoG is still a priceless game and it shines and even compare well to Dungeon Master in some important design points:
- The map layout and progression design including the spreading of secrets and puzzles and links between levels, since level 3 of LoG it almost match DM.
- The puzzles abundance and difficulty management is even better than DM.
- The secrets abundance and hints design (hint there's some secret to find) is at least as good than DM.

The weak points, in my opinion and from knowing only a part of LoG:
- Difficulty management (Normal setup) need be better tuned.
- Fights need a bit more depth, but I'm not sure how improve it.
- Classes need be more documented or more intuitive.
- The game need more environment and mechanism assets but outdoor would explode the game costs and such game can't justify it, not enough players to buy that type of RPG. It needs more asset to add more mechanism of gameplay, to make dungeons more diversified, to increase the diversity of visual hints and mechanisms.

Also for me the gameplay is old school even on some boring design details:
- The command controls really worth a revamping like adding a modifier key swapping turn and strafe commands or better designed/implemented mouse controls for replacing turn commands.
- The classes are a bit simple and aren't enough documented or with not enough intuitive mechanisms.
- The crystal mechanism is too much a gave up on difficulty management and it leads easily on tedious tactics.
- The xp spreading around the team is leading to the classical flaw of dragging a weaker character to be even more weaker.

But I want conclude on a positive note which is my global feeling on the game, it's a priceless game because of the numerous good secrets, plenty good puzzles (last updates seems have tuned down a bit puzzles requiring very precise timing and very fast movements), good ambushes, excellent use of holes and multiples links between levels, well designed levels layout and progression, good hints design, interesting survival management even if probably too rude. There's area of improvements but it's already a memorable game quite fun to play.

And very bad point, no Mac release.

EDIT: I noticed some other points as I progress :
- I do agree that there's few puzzles a bit too much like platform game parts. It's not much but the Time and Tides part of level 4 is a bit tedious for me, well it's just a small part of the game.
- I do understand what's not working well enough in fights but also those puzzles requiring speed. The controls are a bit sticky, there's a small detay and they stack, so it gives the feeling to not control well enough. You can exploit the stacking when try again some speed puzzle but for fights it's a flaw but the problem is more minor it comes from walking for multiple squares and most of the time and most often fights don't need such movements.
- The second point relative to fights is the game doesn't put enough care into providing area for fighting with maneuvering. But well perhaps also I didn't tried enough during first levels. Now that point seems better since level 5 but that could be me.

Im not going to try and top the arguments from Senestoj, my 2 cents are simply:
Take your time with the game. It is not something I ever thought I would devour in a weekend or by any means hours of playtime in each sitting. I would need greater character development and story for that to happen. Im playing it casual, 1 level or 2 at a time. I still think its a great game, yet it lacks incentive to keep playing because of the similarities in design and combat.
As Undesirable says, other enviroments and locations would be a welcome addition.

I would love to see more games like this in the future, and I hope this game sparked the interest for games like LoG among players and developers, and dream to see more developers tend to this niche down the line.

I can understand players (especially those who grew up with games like this) who find LoG underwhelming, since it does not come without flaws and its main attraction is merely that it draws inspirations from older games such as Dungeon Master without bringing something particularly fresh to the table (aside from updated visuals, of course). Personally, I like the game for its classic charme and I can totally see where it is coming from, but if you are a dungeon crawling veteran, you might end up a bit disappointed.

Given that the game was being developed by an Indie startup, I'm not surprised that they kept the asset list (and thus the art budget) down. Now that they have sales going it'll be easier for them to add new stuff.

That said, don't sell LoG short - EoB1 wasn't exactly tileset-abundant, and Grimrock has a better scripting engine than most of those early games (which also didn't have the challenge of needing to keep an open design for modding's sake).

this is happening in the sequels
there will be more dungeons and areas

I know, but the sequel wasn't announced back when I originally posted.