First of all, before we get into the nitty gritty, before you realise how long this article is and get bored, if there is one thing we want you to read before you click off, it is: thank you.
Thank you to everyone who has joined Grimwych, made a character, written scenes, explored the village, reported bugs, suggested ideas, tested new features, asked questions, and generally helped turn what began as a fairly small idea into an actual living roleplay space.
A game like Grimwych only works if people use it.
Rooms, systems and lore can create a setting, but it is the players who make that setting feel occupied. Every friendship, argument, mystery, strange encounter, parcel, journal entry, badly considered decision and unexpectedly emotional scene adds something to the world that we could never build ourselves.
So, genuinely, thank you for being part of it.
Right. Now, if you want the whole spiel of what has happened? grab a coffee, because here come the details and the boring bits.
Our Vision for Grimwych
Our vision for Grimwych has not really changed since we opened? which was 10th September. We aren't even a month old yet!
We want it to be a small, atmospheric, character-focused roleplay world where writing comes first and the technology exists to support that writing rather than get in its way.
We are not trying to build the biggest game.
We are not trying to fill the map simply so we can say we have hundreds of rooms.
And we are not interested in adding systems just because other games have them.
Everything we add should ideally do one of three things:
- Create opportunities for roleplay.
- Make existing roleplay easier.
- Make Grimwych feel more alive.
We want the world to reward curiosity and help towards inspiration, without turning everything into a quest.
Sometimes you may find something that matters. Sometimes you may find something that becomes important much later. Sometimes you may find something that exists simply because it makes Grimwych feel strange, old, lived-in, or whatever ambience we are trying to achieve.
We also want players to feel able to create their own stories within the world.
Your characters should have room to form relationships, rivalries, friendships, grudges, romances, alliances and completely terrible ideas without needing an admin to constantly generate plots for you. You have creative minds that do not need to be led by others.
At the same time, Grimwych has its own underlying lore and mythology.
Players are welcome to speculate about it, investigate it and build theories around it, but major facts about the world itself remain part of the game canon rather than something an individual character can establish simply by declaring it.
Most importantly, we want Grimwych to remain a comfortable place to roleplay. After all, roleplay is a hobby. Let's face it: people have jobs, children, partners, responsibilities, other hobbies and lives away from their screens. Nobody should feel that they need to be online constantly in order to belong here.
RP Features
A lot of the things we have added since launch are deliberately quite small.
The idea is not to give you enormous systems to manage.
It is to give characters more reasons to interact.
Journals
Characters can keep journals within Grimwych.
These are intended to give players somewhere to record thoughts, observations, discoveries or simply how their character feels about what has happened to them.
They can be used very differently depending on the character. One character might keep careful factual notes. Another may write emotionally. Another may record theories about the village. Another may write something once every three months and then forget the journal exists.
All of those are fine.
Journals are there as an additional character tool to opt to use, not as homework. Though we have loved seeing the insight into characters that we might not otherwise see, and having our curiosity sparked about characters we might not yet have had the chance to interact with.
The Post Office
We added the Post Office because we wanted characters or players to be able to interact even when they weren't in the same room.
Characters can send parcels and letters to one another and recipients can collect them from the Post Office.
The admin system knows who actually sent the parcel, but the recipient only knows whatever the sender chooses to reveal.
So if you send something anonymously and do not sign it, the parcel remains anonymous in character.
That opens up quite a few possibilities! Gifts, letters, warnings, apologies, objects returned to their owner, objects that absolutely did not belong to the sender in the first place? or something that simply leaves the recipient wondering why on earth somebody sent it.
The system provides the parcel.
What it means is entirely up to the players.
Making Slow RP More Accessible
Grimwych still has a strong live-RP culture. We like live roleplay.
There is something enjoyable about two or three ? or more! ? people being online together and watching a scene unfold in real time.
But we also know that not everybody can regularly dedicate several uninterrupted hours to roleplay. So we have made changes to make slower RP much easier and allow the game to be more adaptable to different lifestyles.
Idle Characters Are Logged Out After 24 Hours
Characters are no longer disconnected simply because somebody has stepped away for a while.
You can remain logged in for up to 24 hours before the game automatically logs an idle character out. That means a scene can continue over a longer period if the players involved want it to.
For example, someone might post before work.
Another person might respond at lunchtime.
The first person may return that evening.
That is completely fine if everybody involved understands that the scene is being played slowly.
The important bit is communication. If somebody thinks you are going to reply in five minutes and you actually mean tomorrow, tell them.
Slow RP works extremely well when everybody knows it is slow RP.
Logging Back In Will Not Give You an Empty Screen
Previously, logging out could make returning to a scene awkward because you were effectively returning without the context of what had happened.
That has changed.
Grimwych now retains recent roleplay so that returning to the game does not simply present you with a blank screen.
This means slower scenes are much easier to continue and you can see what has happened since you last cleared your active view.
There is also an important difference between using the Clear button and typing clear.
The Clear button clears your immediate view while allowing Grimwych to remember that point. Therefore, when you log back in, it will show everything after the point at which you clicked the Clear button.
Typing clear is the more deliberate full-clear command. This will wipe your RP history and it will not be recoverable.
For normal use, the button is probably the one you want.
A Small Request About Lurking
We know people lurk. We do ourselves.
Sometimes you have Grimwych open while you work. Sometimes you are waiting to see whether somebody logs in. Sometimes you walk away to make dinner and forget the tab exists.
That is fine.
However, if you know you are going to be sitting idle for a long period, please try not to leave your character in one of the main RP locations. If your character has a home, leave them there.
Otherwise, use a quieter street, path or another location that is unlikely to become the centre of a scene.
Why?
Because seeing somebody sitting in a room can affect whether other people choose to roleplay there.
Someone may avoid starting a private or potentially sensitive conversation because another character appears to be present, even if that player has actually been away from their computer for six hours.
If a character is left idle for a significant period in a heavily used RP area, admins reserve the right to quietly relocate them somewhere more suitable.
This is not a punishment. It is simply to keep shared RP spaces usable.
This is also why admin characters that have been dormant for over 24 hours are moved away to an admin area, to prevent them from being a deterrent to roleplay.
Navigation and Areas
One of our bigger areas of development has been making Grimwych easier to move around.
As the world grows, navigation becomes increasingly important.
We do not want people spending half their evening trying to remember whether the road to somewhere was north, northeast, east, north again and then somehow through a greenhouse.
Maps
Maps are there to help players understand how Grimwych fits together.
The intention is not to remove exploration completely. You should still be able to discover somewhere for the first time. But once a place is known, finding it again should not feel like a memory test.
We have also included a You Are Here marker within the map so you can easily work out where you are and navigate to where you want to go.
We have deliberately not mapped most individual interior rooms. So, for example, the map may show that you are at a particular building rather than showing the specific room inside that building.
There may also be occasions where admins deliberately choose not to make a place appear on the map? but that does not necessarily mean it does not exist.
Having maps in the game is another reason why we won't be building rooms simply for the sake of having more rooms. We want our builds to be intentional so the maps do not become overwhelming or unnecessarily complicated.
The map also automatically relates to the area you are currently in. For example, if you type map while in Grimwych Village, you will see the Grimwych Village map.
When and if we build other areas, that same command will show the relevant map for wherever you currently are. This removes the need to remember multiple different map commands.
Quick Travel
Quick Travel allows players to move quickly between established locations rather than manually walking through every room each time.
This is particularly useful when you are trying to meet another player for a scene.
The walking routes still exist.
Quick Travel simply removes unnecessary friction when the journey itself is not the interesting part.
When the world becomes larger than the village, this may become even more useful. You may still have a Quick Travel port to Grimwych Village Square, for example, while another area may have its own central travel point.
Character Ports
Characters can also have their own useful locations available as personal ports.
These may include places that character uses frequently, such as their home.
The idea is to make repeated movement around Grimwych easier without turning the game into a list of teleport buttons.
Again, this may become more useful once new areas are built.
To have your own character ports added, please contact a member of the admin team. You may have up to five per character.
RP Requests and Invitations
We have also added tools to make organising scenes easier.
Commands such as rprequest, rpinvite, rpjoin and the related RP commands are designed to make it easier for players to actively arrange roleplay rather than relying entirely on standing around and hoping somebody wanders past.
They are optional tools.
You can still simply enter a room and roleplay normally.
But if you know you want to write with somebody specific, these systems should make that easier.
Future Areas
There will be more.
We are currently expecting larger future areas to begin appearing early next year.
We deliberately do not want to add everything immediately.
Part of the atmosphere of Grimwych comes from the sense that the world is gradually opening.
We would rather build areas properly than release fifty empty rooms simply to make the map look impressive.
We also don't want the game to be filled with areas that are not used, or for it to become so large that it feels overwhelming to players.
If you have a genuinely good idea for somewhere that could exist in Grimwych, whether it is an area or building, tell us.
We may say yes.
We may adapt it.
We may save it for later.
And we may simply say no.
Not every building needs to exist.
Our main question is usually:
What does this place give people to roleplay?
A good location should either create scenes, inspire scenes or provide a setting people will genuinely want to use.
We want areas to have a unique vibe and to be built with deliberate consideration of a range of aspects.
Making the map or game bigger simply for the sake of making it bigger is not particularly interesting to us.
Player Homes
Players can request homes for their characters.
However, we do expect the character to have actually been played first.
Ideally, they should have been involved in several scenes and have a genuine in-character reason to establish somewhere as their home.
Not every character automatically needs a private house.
If you expect that you will genuinely roleplay there ? invite people over, use it for scenes, develop relationships there or otherwise make it part of the character's life ? then a home is entirely reasonable.
If it exists purely so that every character has a house listed on the map, it probably is not necessary.
We also reserve the right to remove, repurpose or eventually give unused spaces to somebody else if a character becomes inactive for a long period.
That is not intended to erase anybody's history.
We simply do not want Grimwych to slowly become a museum of inactive characters.
The world should feel inhabited by the people who are actually using it.
The Wiki
The Grimwych Wiki has had one of the biggest behind-the-scenes overhauls.
At first, the Wiki was primarily a collection of information pages.
It still does that.
You can use it to learn about the game, places, mechanics, lore and other useful information.
But we also wanted it to become something more.
We want the Wiki to gradually become a record of Grimwych itself.
Not every conversation.
Not every scene.
Not every time somebody orders a drink in the Tavern.
But the things worth remembering.
Uploading RP to the Wiki
There is now an in-game Wiki tool that can help prepare an RP scene for archiving.
You do not need to manually copy hundreds of lines.
You do not need to know HTML.
And you do not need to understand how the Wiki is built behind the scenes.
The system looks back through your recent roleplay and identifies the likely scene based on your character's RP activity.
This is important because scenes do not always happen neatly in one room.
A conversation might begin in the Village Square, move through the Market, continue in the Tavern and eventually end somewhere else entirely.
Rather than blindly uploading everything that happened in a particular room, Grimwych attempts to identify the RP itself.
It can then prepare that scene in a cleaner form.
The tool looks specifically for roleplay commands ? actions, speech and whispers ? while excluding things such as OOC messages, tells, movement and system noise.
You will be able to manually add anything that requires it.
It will assume that if there is a 90-minute break between you executing RP commands, this is likely to be a different scene and it will not automatically pull anything earlier than that.
You can still manually include anything it has missed.
The result should feel more like reading a scene than reading a server log.
You Review It Before Anything Is Published
The in-game Wiki tool does not automatically publish whatever it finds straight onto the Wiki.
It prepares what it thinks is the relevant RP scene first.
You will then be able to review it, check what has been included, remove anything that does not belong, and manually add anything the system may have missed.
If the RP includes other players, they will also need to consent before it can be published.
They will receive a notification letting them know that the scene has been submitted for the Wiki and will be able to approve it before it goes live.
The scene detection is there to save you from having to manually copy and format an entire RP from scratch.
It is a helping hand, not an automatic publishing decision.
So if the system decides that half the Tavern belongs in your scene, don't panic.
Nothing is going live until it has been checked and the people involved are happy for it to be published.
You Do Not Need HTML
This bit is worth repeating.
You do not need to know HTML or Wiki formatting for in-game Wiki publishing.
The whole point of putting this inside the game is so that players do not need technical knowledge in order to preserve something they have written.
The system does the formatting work.
You concentrate on the writing.
Not Every RP Needs to Be Archived
Please do not feel that every scene needs its own Wiki page.
It does not.
Some scenes are important to the wider Grimwych story, especially at the beginning.
Some contain discoveries.
Some are major character moments.
Some are particularly funny, dramatic or beautifully written? and some scenes are simply Tuesday.
All of those are valid roleplay.
The Wiki is there for the scenes people want to remember.
Think of it more like an archive or scrapbook than a compulsory transcript of the entire game.
Other Things We Have Added
Active and Dormant Characters
The Who list now makes it easier to tell the difference between somebody who has been active recently and somebody whose character has simply been sitting connected for a while.
This should make it easier to work out who is genuinely around without immediately assuming that every character listed is actively watching the screen.
IC and OOC Boards
Grimwych has both IC and OOC message boards.
These give players somewhere to leave information that does not need to be communicated in real time.
The IC board can be used as part of the world.
The OOC board gives players somewhere to communicate game-related information without everything needing to happen during a live conversation.
Help and Reference Pages
We have also expanded the help system significantly.
There are pages explaining commands, game features, rules, navigation and other practical information.
The intention is that players should increasingly be able to find answers inside Grimwych rather than needing an admin every time they forget a command.
Although you are, of course, still allowed to ask us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I invite someone to Grimwych now?
Yes.
When Grimwych first opened, invitations were deliberately limited while we established the game and the sort of community we wanted.
Existing players are now welcome to invite people they think would genuinely enjoy it.
We simply ask you to keep the atmosphere of Grimwych in mind.
One of the things we value most is that it remains relaxed, respectful and comfortable to write in.
You are not responsible for policing another adult's behaviour simply because you invited them.
But please give people an idea of what Grimwych is before bringing them in, and help us continue the atmosphere that has developed here.
Growing Grimwych is good.
Growing it without losing what makes it enjoyable matters more.
Can I become an admin?
We are not looking to expand the admin team at the moment.
Being an admin is not really a reward or status symbol.
The current admins are the creators and owners of the game. They work well together, trust each other, can communicate well even when they have different viewpoints, and share an understanding of the direction of the game and the kind of community we are trying to maintain.
If we need more admins, we are much more likely to approach somebody who has been around for a while and demonstrated those qualities.
There is no need to campaign for it.
Can I build my own area or room?
You can absolutely suggest one.
That does not necessarily mean it will be built.
Every area has to fit Grimwych and ideally serve an RP purpose.
If you have a strong idea, tell us what the place is, why it exists and what sort of RP you imagine happening there.
That gives us much more to work with than simply saying, "Can we have a bakery?"
We may use your idea exactly, we may alter it, or we may combine it with something else.
Or we may decide it does not currently fit.
We probably won't begin work on larger new areas until early 2027.
We already have a development roadmap for the first new areas, so player-submitted areas are unlikely to be something we begin building until later in 2027.
Please still send us good ideas. It simply means they may sit with us for a while before we are ready to consider them properly.
Again, we are focusing on slow, sustainable growth.
That may be frustrating, especially if you are excited about your idea, which we apologise for, but we won't expedite something simply for the sake of getting it built quickly.
Please also keep in mind that the admins have lives outside of the game.
The admin team are players too.
We built Grimwych because we wanted somewhere enjoyable to roleplay, so we won't spend all our available time developing and administering the game.
We intend to actually play in it as well.
Can I have a house?
Possibly.
We expect you to have actually played the character first and to have a reason for them to need one.
A home should ideally become an RP location rather than simply a trophy room.
If you expect to genuinely use it, ask us.
What happens if I stop playing a character who has a house?
Nothing immediately.
People take breaks. Characters disappear and come back.
But if a location remains unused for a long time, we may eventually repurpose it.
Grimwych should evolve with its active player base rather than preserving every unused space indefinitely.
How many characters can I have?
You can have multiple characters.
We do not currently want to impose an unnecessarily strict total character limit.
The important thing is that you can actually manage the characters you create.
How many characters can I have logged in at once?
We do not currently have a limit.
In practical terms, most people will probably find one or two much easier to manage during actual RP.
If you have multiple characters logged in and you are roleplaying with multiple people, please communicate with the people you are playing with and be considerate.
If somebody is expecting live RP and you are taking two hours to post because you are trying to run several scenes simultaneously ? or you are getting your different RPs crossed ? this may cause frustration and reduce people's enjoyment of the roleplay.
We may introduce rules or further guidance around this if it becomes problematic.
But if people remain considerate and communicative, we can't currently see the need for a hard rule.
Can I slow-RP?
Yes.
Just communicate with the other person.
If both of you are happy for a scene to move gradually over several days, the game now supports that much better than it used to, with the 24-hour idle period and screens no longer clearing when you log in.
Grimwych will still have plenty of live RP.
Slow RP is simply another option.
Do I have to archive my RP on the Wiki?
No.
Archive what feels worth preserving.
Leave the rest where it happened.
Do I need to know HTML to use the Wiki?
No.
The Wiki itself uses Wiki formatting, but logging RPs via the in-game button removes the need to know that formatting.
Can I create my own Grimwych lore?
You can create your character's history, beliefs, theories, culture and interpretations.
You cannot independently establish major facts about Grimwych itself as canon.
If you have an idea that would affect the wider setting, talk to us first.
Do I need to participate in the main mysteries?
No.
You can investigate everything.
You can investigate absolutely nothing.
You can spend six months developing a bitter rivalry over who keeps taking the good chair in the Tavern if that is what makes you happy.
The mysteries are there for people who want them.
They are not compulsory.
Do I have to be online all the time?
Absolutely not.
That is one of the reasons we have introduced longer idle periods and better retained RP history.
Come online when you can.
Play live when you have the time and want to.
Play more slowly when everybody involved is happy with that.
And if real life becomes busy, go deal with real life.
Grimwych will still be here.
What Comes Next?
More world.
More strange places.
More systems that encourage characters to interact.
More tools that make roleplay easier without dictating what that roleplay should be.
There are larger areas planned for the future, and we have a fairly long list of smaller ideas we still want to experiment with.
But we want to grow Grimwych carefully.
We would rather add one location that people genuinely love writing in than twenty locations nobody ever visits.
We would rather have one feature that creates years of character interaction than ten systems people use once.
And we would rather have a smaller community where people feel comfortable writing than a huge one where nobody knows anybody.
Grimwych is still young.
It will keep changing.
Some things we try will work brilliantly.
Some will probably need changing.
And occasionally we will build something, stare at it for a while and realise it was a terrible idea and maybe remove it, repurpose it or bury it in shame.
That is part of building something while people are actually living inside it.
Where Has the Sleep Button Gone?
So, a certain Admin got fed up with clicking it by accident and randomly going to sleep during roleplay.
Also? does it benefit roleplay at all?
We couldn't really see an RP purpose for it.
So, because we wanted an Upload RP to Wiki button, rather than adding another button while keeping a redundant one there, we swapped them over.
The Sleep button has therefore gone to sleep permanently.
Final Words
For now, though, thank you again for being here.
The world feels considerably less empty than it did when we opened the doors.
? The Grimwych Team