Vaporum
Vaporum: Lockdown is a prequel to the award-winning steampunk dungeon crawler Vaporum. It is a grid-based, single-player, single-character game, seen from a first-person perspective in an original steampunk setting, and inspired by old-school games like Dungeon Master I and II, the Eye of the Beholder series, and the more recent Legend of Grimrock I and II. Vaporum: Lockdown follows the story of Ellie Teller, a scientist who is a part of a mysterious research project in the middle of an ocean. Following disastrous events, she struggles to survive and escape the tower of Arx Vaporum. Key Features First person real-time combat Unique Stop Time Mode Puzzles and level-wide objectives Gadget-based RPG system Lots of exploration, loot, and character customization Mysterious storyline filled with secrets Fully voiced main characters Immersive steampunk setting You will encounter nasty enemies with unique strengths and attack patterns. To beat them, you will have to employ a broad array of weapons, gadgets, upgrades, and smart tactics. Fortunately, there's plenty of powerful toys to play with. Many different weapon types, each with a specific use, synergistic armor pieces, gadgets that allow you to raise your own army of underlings or to manipulate the battlefield, boosters, and more.
Game Discussion
Steam User 9
Wanted to wait till completing the game on the normal difficulty before writing.
Preface: Never played any grid based real time games in my life. Mostly shooters old and new and been slowing getting into in more JRPG's and turn based RPG's in general so take my criticism with that in mind.
What does it offer: A 8-10 hour ride with RPG perk building for your voiced character. Puzzles are try and error you will not get some of them unless you know their coming with a guide or this isn't your first crawler. Enemy models are recycled throughout the entirely of the game with the final acts having one new model which is reused 2 additional times but given "abilities". No new game plus or additional rewards for beating the game. Single ending that just ends the game without much additional Narrative closure.
Reasons to buy: Art design of levels and rare steampunk style story and setting. Lore of what happened and why everything went wrong are told through notes, environment and diary logs following similar trends as Bioshock storytelling. Combat is tight and challenge is welcome.
Reasons not to buy: Leveling takes a lot of grinding through and cannot pick more then 3 perk trees to complete, enemy ambushes and instant death traps and many puzzles are not explained via notes or context clues in area leave a frustrating and unfair experience sometimes.
Final thoughts: Good 8/10 with guide use. Advice for builds do as you please but put points into rifles, you'll thank me later with the knock back.
Steam User 8
I bought this game because I was looking for another experience like the two Legend of Grimrock games (my first experiences with a grid based dungeon crawler). While this game doesn't reach the excellence of those games, it did scratch the itch. It has only a single character that you play as, which I honestly found easier because you don't have to balance all of the party members at the same time. It has a cool steampunk setting, and the story is decent, although the voice acting isn't great. I wish they had opted to not voice the protagonist, but that's a minor complaint.
Steam User 12
I bought this as I love the old style Dungeon crawler games. I'd played and completed Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2 with my 11 year old daughter. I would do the movement and she would perform the fighting and interaction. Together we would solve the puzzles and talk about strategy. We're only part way through this and are loving it. It's tough but highly enjoyable.
Steam User 5
Ignore the recommendation and Read first:
Honestly, the puzzles, the story and the general feel of the game were a bit generic. Nothing too crazy to break your experience and want to stop playing but just underwhelming. It also unfortunately felt like a relatively lazy Bioshock wannabe story-wise (without getting into spoilers). Absolutely no issue with getting inspired from somewhere and wanting to emulate such a masterpiece, just could have been done a lot better.
Unlike other people I didnt experience any crashes, so Im sure it's compatibility issue/driver issue.
Overall I would recommend it, given how it was the studio's first game. It definitely wasn't a bad attempt and I saw there is a continuation of the story which I will give a try. Just, probably not worth the full price.
So if you want to scratch that Legend of Grimmrock itch and have a few extra dollars and this is on sale, that's a good way to do it, although iirc LoG had plenty of free mods that had better puzzles and story overall despite not having a "Fully-voiced main character."
Steam User 5
Easily recommended to fans of dungeon crawlers, it holds its own against the best in the genre but suffers some of the same pitfalls such as occasionally relying too heavily on obscure puzzles to move forward. I would also recommend you check out Operencia, StarCrawlers, Infinite Adventures, Legend of Grimrock, Might and Magic X, Bard's Tale IV, Dungeon Travelers, Sakura Dungeon, or Etrian Odyssey.
+Visuals, environments
+Options, rebinding
+Voiced dialogue and main character
+Difficulty options
+Auto and manual saves
+Intuitive controls
+Choice of rig/class
+Variety of skills, weapons/armor
+Choices on level up
+Automap
+Gadgets
+Variety of builds
+Time slow/stop
-No character creation
-Some obscure puzzles block progress
-Frequent backtracking
-No minimap
-Interactables not always clear
-Items/keys need manual use, not detect inventory
-Many junk items, no selling/convert
-Leveling can feel slow
-Some instant death trap gimmicks
-Infrequent autosaves
-Some speed puzzles
-Unclear direction at times
Steam User 2
Legend of Grimrock brought back the old school dungeon crawlers and made them cool again. Vaporum is one of those games that came after LoG and is surprisingly good, nearly as good as Grimrock in my opinion. Its mechanics are very similar, but with unique twists and features. That, together with completely different setting (steam punk) makes Vaporum an original and interesting game that every fan of dungeon crawlers should have in their collection.
You play as a single man who enters the mysterious tower full of traps, puzzles and deadly machines trying to kill him. You explore the tower and discover the secrets behind that dark and frightening construction and its inhabitants. And you fight numerous enemies. I played on hard difficulty and the game wasn't too difficult - except those (way too frequent) moments when you press the button or enter the room and suddenly you're locked in a very small area with huge number of enemies attacking from all sides. Also, I was a bit disappointed with the secrets - which I love to discover by myself. While initially they were based on some clever ideas, later on they become purely based on hidden switches that are difficult to find - who has time and patience to observe every inch of every wall to find the small switch that opens hidden stash?
But apart from those minor issues the game is very nicely put, everything works perfectly and bug-free, skills and level progression are interesting and allow for different builds. The story while not groundbreaking, fits the overall setting well and kept me interested throughout the game. If you're a fan of "modern" dungeon crawlers - this is something you have to play.
Steam User 4
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.