Legend of Grimrock Guide

The Legend Of Grimrock is an indie role playing game made with absolutely professional stature. Boasting high quality graphics, close cooridors, exploration, in-your-face action, 4 classes, and all the weapons, spells, monsters your RPG heart could want.
The unique aspect of Grimrock goes back to the original RPG's of the 80's with grid-like movement & dungeon mazes. In effect its a combination of old skool & modern game engine.

Naturally I wanted to play The Legend of Grimrock in Linux.
Follow my step-by-step guide on installing, configuring and optimizing The Legend of Grimock in PlayOnLinux.

Note: This guide applies to the Steam version only. Other downloaded, GOG or retail versions may require additional steps. Not to mention that Grimrock now has a Native port to Linux and you can run it with the native Linux Steam client.

Tips and Specs

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual:
PlayOnLinux Explained

Mint 14 32-bit
PlayOnLinux: 4.2
Wine: 1.4

Installing Wine with PlayOnLinux

Installing different versions of Wine is necessary for running different games because one Wine doesn't work for them all. PlayOnLinux makes it possible to download, install and test your game in all the versions of Wine until you find the right one for your speicific game.

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click Tools
Click "Manage Wine Versions"

Wine versions manager
Select 1.4.1
Click the right-arrow

Note: Try using stable Wine 1.8 and 1.8-staging

Wine wizard
Click Next
wine02.png

Downloading...

Extracting

Complete

Thats it! Try downloading newer versions of Wine

Installing Windows Steam

Open your internet and browse to www.steampowered.com
Click "Install Steam" at the top right

Welcome to Steam

Note: Don't click "Install Steam Now" because it will automatically install the Linux native Steam client.

Click "Windows" instead

Save "SteamInstall.msi" in your downloads folder
Click Save

Setting up PlayOnLinux

Launch PlayOnLinux
Click "Install"

Click "Install a non-listed program"

Manual Installation
Click Next

Select "Install a program in a new virtual drive"
Click Next

Name your Virtual Drive: Grimrock
Click Next

Select all three options:

• Use another version of Wine
• Configure Wine
• Install some libraries

Click Next

Select Wine 1.4.1
Click Next

Note: If you are running a 64-bit system, PlayOnLinux will prompt if you want to use a 64-bit or 32-bit virtual drive.
ALWAYS SELECT THE 32-bit VIRTUAL DRIVE

Wine configuration

Applications Tab
Windows Version: Windows 7
Click Apply

Graphics Tab
Check: "Automatically capture the mouse in full-screen windows"
Click OK

Install some Libraries


Check: "POL_Install_d3dx9"
Click Next

Installing Windows Steam

Select "Select another file"
Click Next

Click "Browse"

Navigate to downloads
Select "SteamInstall.msi"
Click Open

Click Next

Steam Installation Wizard

Click Next

License Agreement
Select "I accept the license agree..."
Click Next

Internet connetion speed
Select your internet connection speed
Click Next

Language
Select your language
Click Next

Destination Folder
Click "Install"

Confirmation
Click "Finish"

Steam Updating

Steam Downloading

Steam Extracting

Steam Installing Update

Steam Login
Create your new account or login to your existing account

Enter your login and password
Click "Login"

Installing Legend of Grimrock

Library
Double-click "Legend of Grimrock" to begin installation

Click Next

Leave the shortcuts un-checked
Click Next

Click "Finish" to start downloading

Downloading
Wait for Legend of Grimrock to download

Note: The full game is less than a Gigabyte of data. My internet connection took about 30 minutes to download all the data

Installing DirectX

Installing VC Redist Package

Close Steam

Shortcuts
Select "Steam.exe"
Click Next

Name your shortcut Steam
Click Next

Select "I don't want to make another shortcut"
Click Next

Bug:
Every time I click the Steam shortcut in PlayOnLinux I would get a "Couldn't load a PNG image - file is corrupted or not enough memory" error. Just ignore it. Steam still runs properly.

Grimrock Shortcut

Open PlayOnLinux
Click "Configure"
Select "Grimrock" Virtual Drive
General Tab: Click "Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive"

Select "grimrock.exe"
Click Next

Name your shortcut: Grimrock
Click Next

Select "I don't wnat to make another shortcut"
Click Next

Launch Grimrock

Conclusion:
Everything ran GREAT in PlayOnLinux and Wine 1.4.1
Saving, Loading, weapons, spells. I didn't bother configuring the video options because the game looked beautiful and ran perfectly. The whole game takes place in close cooridors so it should run on most computers and laptops.
This guide should also work with the GOG.com version, just skip all of the Steam installation steps.

Screenshots:

 

Or you can install the Linux version? I bought the game and installed it via steam, and it has worked like a charm with no playonlinux shenanigans. It seems it's available via non-steam channels too: http://www.grimrock.net/buy/

 

Thanks for the link.
Yeah I had originally started the guide before the Linux version was public. Then later it came out. Oh well, I figured just-in-case someone doesn't want to install the Linux version or already has the Windows version installed (dual boot) then this would be a guide to help them.

Also if they have the GOG.com version... this guide can help them set up libraries and virtual drive accordingly.

 

Hey booman, I noticed that you had mentioned the native Linux version in your guide just after I posted, but a bug on this forum prevented me from editing or deleting my post (I have contacted the site admin so hopefully that'll be resolved). You do mention that it's available. It's certainly very helpful to have guides like this available when trying to install other games on PlayOnLinux .. personally I have about a 10% success rate getting things to run, even on a fully updated modern Fedora system, so I've completely given up trying and dual boot for non-native games. I'm very glad Steam is finally out for Linux and more native games are becoming available. If you can, you might want to update the guide where it reads "Unfortunately Legend of Grimrock doesn't run in Linux natively yet."

 

Yeah, I'll let Gizmo know that you are having problems editing your initial post.
Check out my success list: GameCave
I'm experiencing a 90% rate of success! Of course inspired me to start doing these guides. I want everyone to know that games really ARE running in Linux and just requires a few extra steps and some patience.
I'll definitely update my guide to show that Grimrock now runs natively in Linux.
Initially I tried using Fedora and PlayOnLinux. I was having a lot of success, but Gnome 3 interface that Fedora uses natively is a little peculiar for most new-to-Linux users. So I went to Mint because it still kinda has an "XP" interface with Cinnamon.

Two of the major factors in my success has been modern hardware & video card, but also using Mint 32-bit. I'm sure Ubuntu will have just as much success too.
One thing I found with Fedora is that the 64-bit Operating System doesn't have a single package for installing 32-bit libraries. Instead, you have to find which libraries your game needs and then download them separately.
In Mint and Ubuntu all you have to do is install "multiarch" libraries and you are read-to-go.
Were you using a 64-bit Fedora?

 

I've got the linux native version (from HUmble bundle) : it's a really great game, working perfectly. The only "issue" is the difficulty of the game if you want to discover everything, especially for someone not very good like me.

I didn't remembered that old school dungeon games were so hard (I remember especially Black Crypt on my amiga) when I was a teenager !

 

Agreed, I should have played it on easy because on "normal" I spent a few hours and then had to give up. Just got way too hard!
I never figured out how to cure poison or heal my characters. Actually I never figured out how to do any alchemy at all

 

You need some alchemy devices (some kind of recipient), some empty bottles and take some herbs in the dungeons, and then find the rolls of receipes. But it's very hard to make a lot of them, since I didn't find that much empty bottles.

I went relatively far in the game, but apparently I missed a lot of stuff because I finally made something I hate, reading some online solution guides because I was blocked.

Seeing all the things I missed (like ranged weapons, and stuff like that) I gave up. For now...I 'll probably start the game again, with this time my own heroes.

 

Yeah, I'll start over one day too. How do you actually combine the bottle, herbs and recipes?

 

You need some kind of pestle (in french, "pilon", not sure of the translation). Then you put the correct herbs in it (drag and drop), a bottle et voilà

THe recipes just indicate the correct amount of specific herbs.

But during my journey, I didn't find a lot of bottles...But I missed a lot of things as I said.

Perhaps a good way to play this game for a poor/average player would be to read a online solution guide once, and then play the game a few weeks later...lol

 

I actually got pretty far without alchemy...
But it would have been nice to heal from poison.
I think I remember a pestal in the game...
Grimrock was easy enough to figure out just they way it is... but it would have been nice to include a short tutorial