Dungeon Master Forum

Hello, there!

Recently put my hands on a brand new DM clone: Vaporum
This game is a grid based Dungeon Crawler settled in a Steampunk world and realized with modern tech 3D engine whose movemtents are restrained to a grid and rotations to 90°degrees (much like Grimrock).

Right now I have less than 10 hours of gameplay in it, but I can already tell that the game itself is very athmospheric, combat is well balanced and riddles are a bit easy on the start (as is dungeon complexity). But the more you proceed, the more it becomes complex.
Right now I'm at the very first place that completely puzzles me and nothing seemed unfair up to now

Gameplay wise you have only one character in your party and you will pick your "class" early in the game. I won't spoil how because it is merged with the whole setting and story, so you'll have to discover it by yourself
Magic is obvioulsy replaced with experimental tech, so no casting runes, but I like the way they implemented it, so not a big problem.

The lore of the place you are adventuring through is told by written notes and vynil records that you can pick and listen to. Up to now it is very well told, mysterious and immersive (Something near to the quality of Bioshock audio notes)

Only thing I don't like is that when an object is on the ground (Because you drop it, or because it is dropped by a dead monster) it is represented as contained within a sack, instead of having it's own enviromental sprite as most of the other Dungeon Crawlers do. Not a big deal, but they could have done it better.


For those who are not scared by Italian speaking or, even better, can understand it, I've started a youtube Bliundrun of this game, if you wish to have a look please feel free to: https://youtu.be/buUKj7Pg_6Y

Otherwise, if anyone wisth to starrt a SPOILER FREE discussion of this game, count me in!


Seey you soon!

Exploration of the Arx Vaporum continues with Episode 2 https://youtu.be/sd2aeJJlduE where our character gains his first insightst about the substance called Fumium.

Now, let'st get back to talk of the game. As I write I progressed much further into the Ark Vaporum and while the dungeons seem quite (much!) easy at the first levels, they get more complex and filled with mind bogging riddles and secrets while progressing. There is a steep curve in that (won't spoil at which level), but I suddently got from 1 hour of gameplay for completing a level, to a whopping 4 hours completing the next.
Up to now combat seems to be very balanced, even if I literally wasted a couple of advancements spending ponts too much "horizontally", enemies always have some "weak point" to discover and use against them, no matter how powerful they are.
Speaking of whitch, it is one of the first Crawlers where strategy do matters while facing opponents: combat brainlessly and you'll get overwhelmed; observe enemy, evaluate them and act accordingly... and you'll win.
This happens because "monsters" happen to be well tought and to have a good variety of characteristics: speed, endurance, range and rate of attack, special movements/special attacks, and so on... and for each of them you can come up with a good way to counter their strong points and use their weaknesses against them.
And feels great while playing

I like these videos.
An intersting way to evaluate a new game.
Waiting for the next episode.

Thanx a lot, terkio!
I'll try to make them weekly, if job and real life don't kick in too much!

Exploration of the Arx Vaporum proceeds within this video, and with it the insight of what happened into the Arx Vaporum starts to deepen
https://youtu.be/y7dZHqzKx2o

Huh... Mad Scientists you say? How could a setting like this exist without them?

Enjoy!

While announcing the 4th episode of the blindrun https://youtu.be/uD24t2ZabrE
I'd like to talk you about some of the defects of this game: they are few (up to now), but nonetheless present.

Number one: "Reload" key, if pressed on the keyboard, reloads the game from the last save witout asking anything! That is dangerous, VERY dangerous, and I hope it will be patched in the near future: I lost 20 minutes of game because I pressed by mistake the wrong key

Number Two: The first "boss" has a cool noisy soundtrack, which is fine and appropriate while the fight lasts... but then it continues without pausing and for who loves to play a good dungeon crawler with headphones, it can become pretty annoying very quickly. However it happened only once (in the fight you can see at the end of the last episode and near the beginning of this one) up to now, and my recorded gameplays (yet to be edited and published) are 6 hours ahead of what you are viewing now... so maybe it is a unique case.

Number Three: Each object found or dropped on the ground magically becomes contained in a small sack... this is ages worse than Dungeon Master that in 1988 already had a different sprite for each kind of object dropped on the floor, making the experience far more immersive and realistic.

Don't misunderstood me: I'm enjoying very much the game and those three defects are not ruining my experience, but I hope the programmers make experience from them and avoid them in an ipothetical sequel.

See ya!

It's incredible how old school gaming experience still helps in today's gaming. Vaporum brings elements from the old good Sokoban in an intriguing way, adding a wellcome mechanic into classic Dungeon Crawler's routine



Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/j4TyJpv3fpE

New episode of this blindrun.
If I ever expressed my sensation that the first levels of Vaporum were too semplicistic, now the game is putting me "back in place".
Whoever has already finished the game will know my meaning by simply reading the title of the video.
Fro everyone else I won't spoil anything, but rest assured that I'll eat back my words from now then...

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD9IsLZ ... dex=7&t=0s

Full of riddles, this library is. Inexplicable and solutionless they seem.
But as a true Dungeoneer I won't surrender, you'll see

https://youtu.be/EjhCPJnx-8k

Enjoy!

Damn, this level is hard (Or my mind is tired by daily job... or both! ) However it is, I manage to grasp some of the riddles after almost two hours in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHuKWFG ... dex=9&t=0s

In this episode I finally manage to solve all the riddles of the level I were stuck in, and the prize is some juicy bit of Lore from a room that formerly seemed unaccessible.
Man, hidden buttons are really hidden in this game (at least, to my eyes), and the fact that they change shape accordingly with the wallset does not help... or does, since it makes the game even more challenging.

By the way, here it is the relative (Italian) gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji0X1Wt ... ex=10&t=0s


Enjoy!

Vaporum blindrun (ITA) resumed on my channel, here is the 11th episode of the playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbeSY5X ... 4&index=11

For those who start watching it now, I suggest to start from the beginning inside the playlist itself:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... AJnTQcJGK4

I hope to upload at least a new video each week... if not, it's just job stress that ates my free time away, so be patient

Not going to spam all my videos, but for whose interested to follow my walktrough and are not subscribed to my channell I'm trying to upload a new video at least once a week.

By the way, I think I'm not far from the Grand Finale, judging by the audio log revealings and the increased combat difficulty.
And I have to say that this game get better the more you progress: each group of level has it's own style and the puzzles and fights involved change accordingly. I'm even having some "Legend of Skullkeep" feelings now and then (In a good way, mind you).

Difficulty is well calibrated and the developers did their best to put you in many different combat situations, so you have to switch your approach quite often and that's refreshing for the genere.

EDIT:
a forum member asked me in private where to get the game, I purchased it on Steam, but I guess it is available also on other platforms.
There even is a PS4 version

Vaporum last levels are a continuous challenge.
Both player's skills/adaptibility and character build proficiency are continuously checked.
It is uncommon to find such stimulating Dungeon Crawler nowdays. Which is a good plus for this game

I played the first couple of levels, found it nicely designed but the combat too unforgiving for my tastes these days.

Yes, it is.
But once you get into it (Basically you must constatly be on the move and never stand still), becomes very satysfiyng

From now on my YT videos are becoming Live Streams.
I'm in the latter parts of the game so if you don't mind or, even better, understand Italian you can interact with me during gameplay (No spoilers of any kind, please).

Having said that, I want to reinterate once more how much fun is this game to play: even if it's mechanics are not on par with Dungeon Master and Grimrock (This is a matter of personal tastes, I suppose), it keeps on growing and improving each level and pushes the player to learn playing properly not to die during combat. It's incredible how both character progression and player's skill play such a big role in game's balance.

I'm now Hyped for "Vaporum Lockdown", it's Sequel/Prequel that will eventually come out soon

I think Vaporum mechanics are more in tune with something like Dungeon Hack but instead on steroids - the game is blazingly fast!

I can't wait for Lockdown but apparently the epidemic slowed things down to a crawl when it comes to its development.

Never played Dungeon Hack, so I can't tell... (I'll eventually Investigate)

I finished the game two days ago and the final battle was fun, even if a bit undertone if compared to the rest of the game.

I'm taking a little break from Dungeon Crawlers (A week or so...), then I'll decide if replay Chaos Strikes Back or give the Grimrock Master Quest mod a go.

I looked through a number of your videos. Interesting, but it seemed to be repetitive, as far as the types of enemies you faced.
Perhaps I just didn't see some of them, since I doubt I watched over 10 of the videos.

It is a bit of ripetitive, yes
Even if some minions have similar shapes but different powers/tactics