Vaporum

Vaporum is a good old fashioned grid-based dungeon crawler. Everything you would expect is here - secret doors, puzzles, traps, and deadly enemies. You can choose one of three rigs at the beginning and distribute skill points upon leveling up, which allows you to specialize into one of a few available weapons and a style of fighting (being more tanky or relying more on gadgets, think spells, that deal damage). Overall, I found the game to be pretty fun, with only a few frustrating passages. A lot of the story is voice acted decently well and provides a backdrop as you climb the tower. For around 10-12 hours of simple dungeon crawling fun, you can't really go wrong here and I definitely recommend Vaporum if you like these kinds of games.

Only worth on a heavy sale, and even then do not recommend. Visually the game is WAY TOO DARK, which wouldn't normally matter, but all the good gear is locked behind secret rooms you have to pixel hunt for. Far too many cheap death/trap rooms that don't feel clever, it feels like your time is being wasted for the sake of it. Combat balance overall is way out of wack, if you don't build your tree in a specific way, you will feel weak most of the game. The dual wielding tree overall feels like a trap when you invest several levels into it. Overall can't recommend, at best it's worth on sale if you REALLY need a new crpg. For most other people - skip, put the money into grimrock 1+2 - it generally executes everything here better.

I tried REALLY hard to like this game. the theme, the way it plays stylistically has a cool concept, and it had a story i was at first interested in. But FUCK this game so much. The level design, the enemy placement, and the way the concept plays in actuality is AWFUL. After a few hours i figured i must have been doing something wrong so i looked it up and all i found was people lecturing others of how they're "playing the game wrong" and so, i went ahead and took their advice, and it started feeling less like i was playing "as intended" and more "you're cheesing the game because the game is so poorly put together" And that wasn't even the worst part. the game gives no hints at how puzzles are handled alot of the time. Yes a puzzle has some value to figuring it out on your own, but the game will put a lever infront of you, have you pull it, then have you fucking fall in an instant-kill trap, without giving any proper warning to the logic that it will open, and this just erases ALL your progress since your last save, and it's fucking OBNOXIOUS with the enemy types. The game is plagued with enemies who deal massive amounts of damage if they make any contact with your character, with long range attacks, and it's filled to the brim with hallways and 90% of enemies are down these fucking hallways. Even trying to improve your situation by taking the enemies back to a more advantageous fighting position is STILL going to cost you health. Simply put: Fuck this game. A cool concept ruined by some of the worst implimented gimmicks i've ever seen. The entire game is so poorly designed you essentially are given a cheat feature to fix how bad combat encounters are, and this is meant to be seen as 'good design' by the defenders of the game.

Great dungeon crawler. Criminal that it hasn't had more attention. I saw it on Splattercat. Simple story, simple gameplay, but keeping me playing. I'm an old school Dungeon Master player on the Atari ST that I bought in the late eighties, so I don't fear the grid-based dungeon crawler game. And neither should you - it's not just nostalgia - it's a good game. A lot of these types of games are good. This one has a pause that turns it almost into a turn based game if you activate it. Recommend.

The game starts off pretty promising and engaging. The concept of a sci-fi dungeon crawler is in itself very appealing. The fighting is simple and satisfying, and the little tweaks you can do to specialize your character in this regard are a nice addition. The story seems par for the course, but the overall setting and ambiance are very well achieved; the game even managed to unnerve me at some point with its eerie sound design. The creature design isn’t too special, mainly robot spiders, bulky bugs and Bioshock-inspired humanoids, although these last ones do emanate a threatening aura. To vary the experience, the game encourages exploring, finding secrets and solving little puzzles around the map, which end up as a good change of pace. However, as the game progresses, the encounters start getting predictive; as a player, you end up knowing exactly when a door will close behind you once you pass through; you know with accuracy from where enemies will spawn. It also gradually starts feeling tedious; fighting several enemies at once starts being fun and challenging, but as the number of foes grows, it begins to feel chaotic and sometimes quite clunky, taking into account the limited movement options. Instead of adding progressively more difficult enemies mechanic-wise, the game just throws numbers at you. For example, I just got introduced to the Illusionist, who’s whole thing seems to be summoning spectral versions of other already known enemies. In the end, I felt that the combat is more about endurance than wits. The puzzles also get a bit obtuse, like having to put certain books into specific and far-spaced shelves that look like any other storage in the game. The problem with said puzzle isn't the difficulty of it, but the fact that I didn't even realized that it existed. Then we get to the trapdoors. Level 8, "Poisoned Halls", was especially infuriating in this regard. There is a (very obvious) moment when the door on a big room shuts down and a light flashes on one tile, indicating that this one will be secure to stand on while every other tile opens to a trapdoor; the idea is to be attentive to where the light shines next and run to the designated tile to avoid falling. As simple as it sounds, the game itself seems to forget that the camera is stuck in one of four directions and the free-look option is quite finicky, so most of the time the light shines without you seeing it and turns of immediately making you fall to your death and having to begin again, with a big chance the same thing happens again, pretty much forcing you to save-scum if you don't want to waste your time. Finally, at the end of level 8, which is where I leave this game, there's a fight in a big room full of boxes and crawling with bugs. I don't know if I was under-leveled or just didn't find a much needed improvement of equipment, but it's quite the complicated affair; I died the first time to some frustration, but went all out at the second, managing to win the encounter. However, the moment it ended, and I started getting my bearings, all the boxes when down trapdoors and new enemies poured in, killing me almost immediately through projectiles. That’s where I quit. It's not the difficulty of the fight what annoys me; probably another try would been successful, but the fact that Vaporum actively tries to "surprise" you to get a cheap death, be it with sudden trapdoors, enemy spawns, or whatever, and it feels like it's just the developers forcing more playtime out of me at the cost of my enjoyment of the game. I don't regret having played this game but, sadly, I cannot recommend it wholeheartedly.

Great game. Got some Bioshock vibes storytelling wise. Very nice puzzles and secrets. It wasn't as hardcore as Legend of Grimrock 2 - which is my favorite in the grid-based sub genre. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing as this has less opportunity for frustration and backtracking. So it has less of a feeling of accomplishment because LoG2 tests you hard. But it is still very satisfying because it still is challenging and engaging. [b] Do not spoil your game using guides. This game is about finding solutions by yourself. It is NOT an RPG or an action game. [/b] It involves some elements of those but it is a game about tactics and timing (in combat), puzzle solving and finding secrets. I enjoyed it very much on normal difficulty and finished one playthrough. I don't see me playing it again, though. The mystery and the puzzles are solved, the secrets found - for me, that's it. I used a gamepad for medical reasons. It takes s bit to get used to everything but they did a great job implementing gamepad control imo. (Some tipps for people unfamliar with the genre: Time stop mode is mandatory in many situations. Use the map and make good use of the notes function.)

[i]Looking for something to fill the void which [b]Legends of Grimrock (1/2)[/b] left behind? Then here’s perfect game for you.[/i] Taking more of a steampunk approach. In [b]Vaporum[/b] we spend most of our time smashing, slashing and shooting some mechanical and bio lifeform enemies. With special gadgets on our arms any obstacle doesn’t seem too difficult, if you are wise enough to use them. Main difference from LOG, that you play solo the whole campaign, no party members to mix and match equipment with, keeping eye of your surrounding becomes vital as you keep dancing around your enemies. There are quite a lot of hidden rooms and analyzing the map is essential for finding them, as these provide something special. Backtracking is possible from final boss level to first level. As normal to this genre, there isn’t possible to redistribute skill points, but I was able to change the main setup from middle way to new one as searching the hidden secrets from each level. [h2]Final score: 9/10[/h2]

A good dungeon crawler which will keep you entertained. Only con I could say is there are too many enemy ambushes.

This was a very hard game to review because I love these old school RPGs. HOWEVER, Vaporum does so many things wrong that for me it lands close to a 5/10. Here's the good: - it's an old school grid based turn based RPG - it's atmospheric and has a good premise - its use of skills based on elements works reasonably well - finding unique weapons is fun Here's the bad: - it's too dark with no variation - it all looks the same after a while - the game desperately needs more variation - box pushing puzzles - you're a single person meaning that you have to constantly swap gear depending on the enemies you encounter. Most RPGs of this type offer 4 party members with each a specialty to combat this - combat relies on slowing down time - this doesn't make the game much fun - combat is also quite boring and so are the enemy types - it has bugs - for example I lost an unique weapon with no prompt or anything? - the game relies heavily on enemies popping up behind you. What is this, Doom? - movement and turning is very slow for this type of game which can get frustrating in battle I had a few hours of fun but already I'm tired of it. It's a maze game with dull puzzles and boring enemies and it just doesn't feel fun. The devs took the worst parts of these games instead of the best and it's a shame because there is the germ of a good game here. Honestly, there are WAY better modern gridbased RPGs.

3d sokoban with a twist