A supernatural being wakes in a medical bay to an astonishing and terrifying surprise. What should be a moment of overwhelming joy is instead one of fear and guilt.
At first glance, GrimValor is little more than a Dark Souls game dressed up like a Metroidvania. And I can’t shame anyone who looks for lore and still finds the narrative content lacking. Because it is lacking, from the characters you interact with, the bosses you encounter, and the history of the kingdom Vallaris.
In part 1, I gave an introduction to this game and discussed its gameplay.
In part 2, I covered the environments and level structure.
In this third and final entry, I’ll be going over the narrative of GrimValor, including the good and what could be improved in a hypothetical remake.
GrimValor is a Dark-Souls-inspired Metroidvania released on ios and later other platforms. It’s a diamond in the rough of a game, and here, I go over what could be improved for a potential remake.
Mobile gaming has a bit of a stigma around it: drowned in gachas and shovelware of all kinds. But a particular diamond in the rough I remain fond of to this day is a metroidvania called GrimValor.
Inspired by the indie game “Carnivore!”, Census is a world made up of animal-like people in a dark, meat-based society.
I recently posted a proof-of-concept fantasy narrative called “The Blight Campaign” after the conclusion of The Small Speculative Fiction Writing Jam (2026). I thought I’d share a bit about how The Blight Campaign came to be. EmberLight On New Year’s Day of 2026, I joined a discord server called EmberLight. I was trying to get
“The Blight Campaign” is the creative property of Tris Strudel (Joshua Park) and The Pending Game Creative Collective. Originally submitted to the Small Speculative Fiction Write Jam (2026) on March 30th, 2026. Read about how this project came to be here. Segment One: The Expendable Victim I am Syrol run’Pror, or Syrol the VII, of
A short story about a simple and mundane life lesson.