Grimstone Valley

Grimstone Valley is a compact supernatural action adventure that combines the imagery of the American frontier with cosmic horror and grotesque transformation. Developed and published by Cut The Mines, the game builds its identity around a Wild West settlement devastated by occult forces. Rather than playing as an ordinary gunslinger, the protagonist survives a cult sacrifice that costs her an arm and leaves her with a mass of living eldritch tendrils in its place. This transformation is not merely a narrative device, because the unnatural limb becomes the foundation of the combat and gives the game its most distinctive mechanic. The story establishes its conflict quickly. A doomsday cult attempts to offer the protagonist to a mysterious entity, but the ritual does not produce the result its followers intended. She survives, while the surrounding valley is left corrupted by monsters and unnatural growths. Her new arm becomes both a reminder of what happened and the weapon she needs to fight back. It is an effective premise because the character is physically connected to the supernatural disaster she is trying to stop. The game does not need an overly complicated introduction to e…

such a kewl game! SO loveable characters >w< Also overseer is my fave

"Grimstone Valley" is possibly a student project or something? Like so many student projects, it's short, more a tech demo than a full game, features a basic gameplay format/genre but also includes a "twist" in the game mechanics (to make students think). This is a very short 2.5D top down brawler. The theme: Wild West meets the exhumed corpse of HP Lovecraft. You're a farmer, you get kidnapped, you wake up with a tentacle arm. What do you do in the game? The crux of the game is using your tentacle arm to grab objects and smash them into the baddies. That's it. And it's short... you could speedrun this in less than 10 minutes. That's the main reason this doesn't get a pass... no matter how visually impressive or well polished a game is, if it doesn't have any substance, it's hard for me to say it's worth downloading. The graphics in this game are passable, but could be better. And while it's vital for any game to have impressive visuals (gaming is a visual medium, after all), there's more to a game than just the graphics. To be worth a gamers time, the game must match top tier visuals with top tier gameplay, and that's not happening here. Top down brawling is a dying …

This game looks and feels phenomenal. The core mechanic is odd at first but an incredibly refreshing and unique. The 2D art is grungey and odd but in the best way possible. I couldn't help but stop to look at the environments and all that's supernatural and just think "damn. this is so cool." And the ending just makes me want more. Highly recommend playing!

Quite short, and the combat lacks depth, but for the short hour or so that it's there, its good enough. Despite the iffy voice acting and a few other janky aspects like the audio panning and mixing, it clearly has a lot of passion put into it, with all the cutscenes, item descriptions, and characters. I love the story and aesthetic, and would love to see where this goes next.

Grimstone Valley is a really interesting mix of western action and cosmic horror, and I liked the setting almost immediately. I play as a woman who survives a failed occult sacrifice and ends up with a strange tendril covered arm in place of the one she lost. From there I am thrown into a corrupted version of the wild west filled with monsters, cultists and bizarre alien growths. I really liked how unusual the whole setting feels. The tendril arm is easily my favorite part of the gameplay. Instead of simply shooting or attacking everything normally, I can grab enemies, move them around and use objects in the environment against them. That makes positioning much more important because I am constantly looking for ways to turn the battlefield into a weapon. I enjoyed throwing enemies into dangerous objects and finding different ways to deal with groups rather than relying on one basic attack. The combat also benefits from the environments themselves. Walls, defenses and strange organic growths can all become useful, so I often find myself looking around before deciding what to do. I liked that because it makes fights feel more tactical than a typical action game. There is a real sat…