the Grimm FAQ
General Grimm InfoPurchasing Support
Technical Game Support
Mouse ControlsGeneral Playing Support
Keyboard Controls
Gameplay Settings
Graphics Settings
Sound Settings
Episode-by-Episode Support
Episode 1: A Boy Learns About Fear
General Grimm Info
Q. What is Grimm?
A. Grimm is an episodic game developed and produced by Spicy Horse Games (www.spicyhorse.com). The game is delivered in 24 individual episodes, published and distributed by GameTap (www.gametap.com). Each episode is designed to be played in a single session of roughly 30 minutes, although many players report playing for much longer, just for the twisted joy of it. Episodes are based on well-known fairy tales, mostly taken from the collection of the Brothers Grimm.
Your goal is simple: Make things dark. Replace the cloying nonsense of the stories with the danger, misery, and darkness that were emblems of the original tales. As the main character (Grimm) transforms more things in the world to dark, his powers grow. He runs faster, jumps higher, and converts larger and larger objects. Resisting his efforts are the inhabitants of the fairy tale world - they'll work to clean Grimm's mess and stop him from achieving his goal.
Q. What does "episodic" mean?
A. Think of regular single-volume video games as being like movies. They're usually at least an hour and a half long and wrap up an entire story during that time. Now think of episodic games like television series. They're smaller segments and stretch the story out over several weeks. Our version of "episodic" involves a regular release schedule of once per week, just like on television.
Q. Why does Grimm have a T (for Teens) rating?
A. The main reason for the Teen rating is that there is cartoon violence and gore, and when we say that the fairy tales are reverted back to their more feral nature, we're not kidding. Hands are lopped off, deals with the Devil are negotiated, people are burned at the stake, cows are trebucheted... it can be pretty graphic and mentally disturbing to the unprepared. Also, we talk about booze a little.
Q. What is Grimm's favorite color?
A. Black, like my soul.
Q. Is he really a pirate?
A. What?! Where did you get that crazy idea?
Q. Is American McGee a pirate?
A. What are you getting at?
Q. Is Johnny Depp really GRIMM!?
A. I think you've been watching too much Pirates of the Carribean, mate.
Purchasing Support
Not like you have to buy support from us, but on the average it helps if you buy the game first (at least in the “non-demo” sense). While there is more than one source for procuring our lovely little bundle of joy for your sick entertainment, for US and Canadian fans, we recommend GameTap. If it weren’t for them, Grimm would never have come to fruition.
If you don’t live in the US or the Great White North, you can purchase from any of these other fine distributors:
* Jack's Bean Emporium
* RCS
* DriveByMe
* Silver Gauntlet Warehouse
And, unfortunately, that means that until it’s released on CD or for a console, you’ll have to talk to them about any issues you have on the money side, downloading side, or installation side.
Technical Game Support
Q. What kind of system do I need in order to play Grimm?
A. On the whole, any reasonably new system will be sufficient to play. At the same time, “new” is a completely subjective term. The minimum requirements are:
* 4 GHz single-core Pentium processor
* 2 GB of RAM (memory)
* at least 128 MB of video RAM
* We recommend Nvidia 6600 or better as far as video cards go.
Q. Everything’s jerky and weird and it looks all krunked up. What’s wrong with me?
A. Assuming you're not abusing some sort of illicit substance, you probably need to make sure your system software is up to date and that you've installed some necessary support software.
* Update your video card drivers. Doing so can improve your frame-rate by as much as 50%.
* In XP, you can go to: Control Panel - > Performance and Maintenance - > System - > Device Manager - > Display Adapter. From here, double-click on your video device, click on the tab that says “Drivers”, and click on the button that says “Update Drivers”. It should give you some options at that point about inserting something somewhere or virtually going someplace, and that’s your choice.
* In Vista, go to Control Panel - > System and Maintenance - > System - > Device Manager (click on “Continue” if a dialogue box comes up) - > Display Adapters - > Drivers - > Update drivers
* If, for some bizarre reason, these steps don’t work, or you’re convinced that there must be some bigger, better, smellier driver out there to make your Grimm experience Grimmier, you can visit the website of your video card manufacturer:
* Nvidia cards go to this site and follow the instructions found there: www.nvidia.com/Download/index.apsx?lang=en-us
* ATI cards go to this site and follow the instructions found there: http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
Q. Okay, my software is updated, the game is downloaded and ready, but how do I play?
A. For illustrated instructions, be sure to click on "Instructions" in the Main Menu.
Start a new episode by clicking "Play" in the Main Menu.
Select "Theater Light" to begin a new episode, or select “Scene 1” if you want to skip the puppet theater. If you've previously played an episode you can access unlocked scenes from the "Play" menu as well.
Each episode begins with a Puppet Theater presentation of the episode's fairy tale. When the theater ends, Grimm invites you to jump into the fairy tale and make things "better".
You goal is simple: Make the fairy tale world dark. You accomplish this by running around game scenes and converting light things to dark. Begin with smaller objects, and convert the terrain as you go. The more you convert, the more powerful your dark effect becomes - allowing you to convert larger and larger things.
Obstacles in scenes are overcome by reaching the required Dark Energy goal - indicated in the Dark-O-Meter bar at the top of the screen.
Avoid falling in water, other liquids or ravines. If you fall in water or other liquids, Grimm gets cleaned and you’ll have to restart that scene. Falling into a void or running into fire will also reset Grimm to an earlier point in the scene.
NPCs in the game will try to stop you from turning the world dark by cleaning the objects you've converted. When an object is cleaned, Grimm will lose some of his Dark Power! You can convert NPCs to dark to make them stop cleaning.
Power-ups such as "Super Speed" and "Super Butt Stomp" can help you convert things more quickly.
Secrets are hidden around all levels. Collecting all 10 secrets will unlock the Object Gallery in the Main Menu.
Mouse Controls
* Left Mouse Button = Run
* Right Mouse Button = Jump
* Right Mouse Button (double-click) = Butt Stomp
* Mouse Move = Look Around / Turn
Keyboard Controls
* W = Run Forward
* A = Strafe Left
* D = Strafe Right
* S = Run Backward
* Q = Turn Left
* E = Turn Right
* Space = Jump
* Space (double tap) = Butt Stomp
* ESC = Menu
(You can also use a gamepad to control Grimm's movement.)
Inside the menus, use the Mouse Pointer to highlight options and click Left Mouse Button to make selections.
Q. How do I change the game settings once I’m in there?
A. The Options Screen offers a wide range of video and audio settings. Adjust these to improve (or not) the performance of the game.
Resolution Settings: Higher resolutions look pretty, but might decrease performance. Lower resolutions may increase performance on less powerful computers. Get that? "Pretty = slow, Ugly = fast."
Gameplay Settings:
* Subtitles: Toggle them on/off. If on, you can read what people are saying. If not, then not. Unless you can read lips.
* Mouse Smoothing: Toggle it on/off to adjust the smoothness of mouse movement. Toggle off for mouse “roughing”. Useful if mice owe you money.
* Mouse Speed: Changes response speed of mouse movement.
Graphics Settings:
* Dynamic Shadows: Toggle on/off. Dynamic shadows are pretty, but might cause performance issues on slower computers.
* Visual Effects: Toggle on/off. Visual effects are pretty, but run slower.
* Fullscreen: Toggles between window or fullscreen mode. Playing in window mode might make sense if you're at work.
* Texture Detail: Toggles between old-school blocky texture detail and normal texture detail. Useful if your computer is slow. You could also buy a new computer.
* Visual Quality: Sliding range of visual quality. Lower is better for slower computers. Seriously, why don't you just buy a faster computer?
* Adjust Gamma: Sliding range of screen brightness. A bright screen is highly visible, but could cause blindness.
Sound Settings:
* Open AL Support: Toggles on/off support for Creative’s OpenAL sound thingy. Only applies on restart!
* Enable EAX: toggles on/off Creative’s EAX thingy. Only applies on restart!
* Sound Quality: Slider to control number of sound channels 32, 64, or 128. Apparently, more is better.
* Adjust Music/SFX Volume: Loud volume is awesome, but could cause deafness. Try full volume with maximum Gamma and see where that gets you!
General Playing Support
Q. I’ve played this twelve times and that damn intro song is stuck in my head as it is. Is there any way to by-pass it?
A. To skip the intro (or any other cinematic, for that matter), just press the space bar. See? Wasn’t that easy?
Q. Can I save my game someplace and come back to play it later?
A. Let me get back to you on this one.
Q. Help! I keep running into the lava/water/nails/piranha/spoo when I’m trying to jump!
A. Unlike some OTHER games (that we didn’t write), the protocol for jumping forward is to jump from any position – even standing still – and THEN move forward (either with the left mouse button or the W key if you’re using a computer like a normal person).
Q. Oh, god! Is that PEE?!?
A. Why, yes. Yes, it is. And it's there for a reason. It is not just gratuitous voiding like you might tend to find in some weird random back alley. You'll notice that Grimm has remarkable control over his urine stream - so much so that you can use it for aiming and gauging the distance he can jump.
Q. Is there any way to get around those obnoxious cleaners?
A. Sure. Once you reach a sufficient level of corruption, butt-stomp near them repeatedly until you see an exclamation mark over their heads (you'll also hear them complaining more bitterly), and then walk near them or butt-stomp them again. They will revert to their dark versions and no longer able to clean things at all, kind of like that magical moment when a lovely helpful child turns into a teen-ager. That moment of transformation changes for different types of cleaners, and sometimes, instead of changing dark, they just explode. That part's really fun. And messy. Which really is kind of redundant. And repetitive.
Q. Is there a time limit on these levels?
A. Play for an hour or two and get back to me on that. Seriously. That’s as long as I’ve made it and I still haven’t managed to run out the clock. Remember, though, that you get a gold star for running through in the shortest time AND another gold star for turning the entire level dark. You cannot possibly do both at the same time, but you could try.
Q. Where are all the secrets located?
A. If I told you that, they wouldn’t be secrets.
Q. Are there any cheats?
A. Are you seriously asking me that? It's a video game. Of course there are!
Q. Well… what are they?
A. Oh, you want me to tell you? Good luck with that. Because maybe there aren't and cheats and I'm just messing with you. Maybe. Or maybe not. Am I the one that always lies, or am I the one that always tells the truth?
Episode-by-Episode Support
Episode #1 – “A Boy Learns What Fear Is”
The first fairy tale on Grimm’s list is “A Boy Learns What Fear Is” (also known as “A Boy Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was”). In this story, a boy sets out to discover what “fear” means. It’s no wonder he’s stumped – in a world where everything is sickeningly cute, there is no fear. Grimm visits the boy’s hometown and gets the tale off to a fiery start. Gallows, graveyards, haunted castles, and the greatest fear of all are featured in this ghostly episode. Welcome to the world of Grimm!