I've tried to play it three times, and every time I haven't even gotten past character creation before my screen goes black and the computer starts making terrifying grinding noises. The last time it happened, my monitor was covered by even more alarming lines and patterns when I started my PC back up; happily, those went away.

Has this happened to anyone else? Am I just going to have to give up on playing this game? I can play other modern games like the Mass Effect trilogy, I don't see why a first-person tile game would be the one that my computer can't cope with.

Are you playing the original release or the patched version (version 2.0.0.17 of the GoG installer)?

If you're running the original release, you should get the patched version right away. This isn't a problem with the game, per se, but the first patch added the framerate cap to deal with a common hardware problem (one that many people have without realizing until they run a stress test - or something equivalent).

If you're running the current version then try making two changes to see if they make a difference. (If they do then there is good news and bad news.) Turn on Triple Buffer in the video options, and check the grimrock.cfg file for a line reading "maxFrameRate = 120" and change that value to 60.

Separately, it's a good idea to set everything to default in the video card's control panel before running Grimrock. or to create a profile for it that has everything set to default. While this isn't directly related to your current problem, some non-default settings - particularly driver-controlled anti-aliasing - can cause in-game graphical glitches.

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I'm afraid none of these things help. Well, patching it causes the game to just silently crash my computer instead of crashing my computer and making alarming noises, so step in the right direction, I guess? Thanks for your help, though.

Okay, next thing to try: fully uninstall the game and then get a new copy of the installer, since it sounds like there might be some file corruption.

Unfortunately, that didn't help either. Damnedest thing, this.

Like Garran said, sounds to my like teh infamous "LOG is only GPU bound and creates therfore an insane amount of FPS and overheats therefore (weak cooled!) graphic cards" issue.

Did you checked the framerate (link) and limit the framerate (link) to a sane amount (e.g. 40fps) (also, check the cooling of your graphic card)? In extreme cases consider selecting lower resolutions and clocking down your graphic card (e.g. ati tools).

If it's an new issue (not FPS related) you can also post it in the grimrock support forum, is regularly read by the devs.

You were both right about the FPS issue ; 60 didn't quite do it, as I mentioned, but throttling the fps further down to 40 solved the problem nicely. Thanks a lot, both of you.

Thanks for feedback, good to hear that this is a solvable known issue. :)

We should not forget that some of the Almost Human guys worked before on Future Mark and know therefore how to bring down graphic cards to their knees.... ;)

Question for curiosity from my side: do you have an some years old ATI card in your rig (this issue hits mostly them)? Had you taken a look on the temperatures with GPU-Z while running LOG? Could be shockingly high.... http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

It's also possible that your power supply isn't capable of handling the load when your graphics card is running at high capacity for an extended period. Many budget systems have this issue, but it isn't limited to them. Essentially, the power supply can cope with the high demand for a short time (burst) but can't sustain it without overheating or faulting, either of which results in a system crash. As is the case with the graphics card overheating, most games don't provoke this because they're effectively throttled by the CPU acting as a bottleneck.

My card isn't terribly old (I think): NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450. I downloaded SpeedFan when it was suggested to be a heat issue, and yes, it was shooting up to incredibly levels in a matter of minutes; it seems to be under control now, though.

To be on the safe side, double check for potential causes of overheating - dust accumulation, fans not working properly, bad air flow inside the system, etc.