Vaporum

Vaporum is a dungeon crawler. You know, like the ones Grandpa used to play. The ones he even had a pen and paper to draw something he called a "map" for. Because games back then were awful, just the way Grandpa liked them. And now they're back in style!
The story is...not that important. You must climb a tower. Why must you climb the tower? Because it's there. It's really not that important! The game looks and sounds great. And the steampunk setting, the sweaty cousin of the much cooler cyberpunk, is a good choice compared to the usual fantasy fare. There's also voice acting. It's a mixed bag, but there is voice acting. It is a fact.
So once you head inside the tower you get to choose your playstyle. I chose to play a bog-standard hammer man who eventually learns he can use a hammer in his other hand as well. It worked alright, but after a few hours I would've given anything for a more active spell gadget-oriented build. At least the game offers replayability.
Real-time combat can get hectic at times. Especially when the game has a habit of luring you into murder rooms and locking the doors behind you. Grandpa loved these. You can always switch the game to a pseudo turn-based mode at any point with the press of a button. It's mostly useful in timed puzzles, though. And what's a dungeon crawler without puzzles? The ones you must complete in order to advance are all pretty good and offer a decent challenge. Optional ones sometimes require a PhD in Sierra video game logic. There's enough variety in them to keep things fresh, and the items and upgrades you find as reward for doing them are worth it. Secrets, however, can be incredibly hard to find without resorting to a guide. Trying to find a hidden button on the wall in the dark gets old pretty fast.
I reached the end at around 15 hours, so the game definitely has some meat on its bones. It's a good game and even normal people can enjoy it. No pen or paper necessary. I'm really digging this nostalgia-necromancy times we're living in, so much so that I'm looking forward to playing the sequel one day.

Overview
Vaporum is a dungeon crawler with real-time combat developed by Fatbot Games. It tried and successfully lifted a somewhat archaic genre into a more accessible and polished form without too much compromise in complexity.
Gameplay
The tower of Arx Vaporum is divided into several levels of increasing complexity as players scale it. The dungeon isn’t as vast and sprawling as Grimrock 2 or older games, but as a location it’s well fleshed out and fun to explore. Movement is strictly confined to grids that make up the entirety of the level’s layout. In Vaporum, The combat uses its grid-based map creatively. Vaporum also features a pause button that really helps give some room to breathe during combat and puzzles.
Cheese Free Combat (almost)
One simple addition that Vaporum implements is giving enemies various attack patterns. Enemies can attack with AoEs, swipe their sides or pull you into their range. This makes the 2x2 grid cheese impractical. Mobility and strategizing become an integral part of your deadly dance with the hostiles inside Arx Vaporum.
The pause button gives players time to assess their situation and position. Pausing doesn’t mean you can dodge every attack. Time only stops if you don’t do anything. Moving and even changing direction will resume all movement, and you cannot evade everything forever.
Don’t Need Party To Be Cool
Unlike typical dungeon crawlers, players only control one character in Vaporum. That doesn’t reduce the game’s depth because it gives players immense freedom and a variety of tools at their disposal. At the beginning of the game, players are given a major choice of their class archetype presented by 4 types of exo-suits, which will determine the core of their build. Generally, they determine your defense, attack power, energy and HP. it’s not locked however, as players are allowed to diversify and wear any equipment they want
Your main instruments of damage dealing will be the weapons that come in many shapes and forms. One or two-handed, blade, blunt or ranged weapons. Any of these can be combined as you like. Wielding a giant hammer, a pistol with a side shield or dual swords are all equally viable. The main character’s proficiency with these weapons can also be upgraded from their respective skill trees. The progression is linear depending on what type of weapon you pick. You might decide to specialize in guns by simply upgrading the gun tree.
The highlight in my opinion are the gadgets. They are essentially magic spells that come with various different effects. Some effects are played as a straight offense, others lets you manipulate the battlefield by laying traps, creating decoys or switching positions with the enemies. Using gadgets expends your energy, which slowly regenerates or can be restored by consumables in a pinch.
The result of these permutations are highly varied builds that factor into an already engaging combat and it might be the best combat system for this genre that /I have ever played.
Solve ‘n Loot
There isn’t a wealth of new ideas presented here, but most of the puzzles are well executed. You push boxes, find hidden switches or use teleportation pads to navigate a labyrinth. It is overall a lot less reliant on Grimrock-style “find slightly different textured piece of brick for hidden buttons” that usually would end up as an annoying pixel hunt. It’s still there, but the levels still contain good number of secrets and riddles that are presented naturally.
Exploring and solving puzzles are worth pursuing because it gives you unique equipment or tools to upgrade your stats permanently. There are equal amount of unique equipment for each type of the playstyles. They are also placed with careful consideration so you don’t go on too long before getting an upgrade.
Story
Vaporum tells the story of recycled tale of hubris and arrogance. The tower conducts science experiments that is bound to fail. It did fail in a predictable way. What Vaporum did right is adding a personal angle for the character you’re playing. He found himself shipwrecked, amnesiac and the massive tower of Arx Vaporum invitingly looms in the mist in the middle of the ocean. The tower calls to him, it seems familiar. Once he reaches the tower, he will uncover the answers to his questions.
The story is just there give you a reason to move through the dungeon, but it has its moments. Players are asked to play along anyway, and it can be fun. You’re essentially an outsider detective piecing out events and the role of each character in that mess, including the character you control. At least for me, I still got AHA! moment when I figured out the plot twist halfway before the game actually tells me.
Bugs and Technical Problems
Specs: GTX 1080, Ryzen 3700x, RAM 16 GB, 1440p
I did not encounter major problems in the game. I did experience FPS drop during a certain boss that can summon minions and there were a lot of objects on the screen. with that section as exception, the game ran perfectly.
Graphics and Visuals
Arx Vaporum is defined by its practicality. The tower is deprived of decorations and aesthetics, leaving only nondescript hallways made of metals and concretes. It reinforces the culture they are living in, which worships scientific pursuit above all. Dedication towards their work above their own well-being.
The game can look boring because there aren’t much variety of tiles textures they use. There are subtle differences between each sections especially in their usage of lighting. For example there is a section of the tower that is flooded with poison. The metals hallways reflects the green glow of the toxic waste and changes the ambience of the section. Technically it’s quite impressive. The limited palette allows the developer to paint more detail than is expected from a small indie team. The textures, shaders, and lighting are on point.
Audio and Soundtrack
The game does sound pretty well. Your boots stomping on iron tiles have real weight to it. The hissing of massive steam-powered pistons, grinding steel gears and the buzz of electricity is omnipresent. The skitters of hostile mutant insects or the whirring of patrol drones haunts you thoroughly in Vaporum’s concrete walls. It’s quite a rich experience to listen to with headphones. The soundtrack is sparse and mostly you’re just accompanied by the ambience of the tower.
Conclusion
Vaporum biggest strength is its combat and exploration. It tried to work around combat exploit that exist in older dungeon crawler games, and successfully made the whole experience more engaging. The game is obviously made out of love for the genre. The game is also made to be accessible while retaining depth. Whether you’re a fan of the genre looking for a new game or just curious about dungeon crawler, it’s a title worth trying.

I admit it. I used a lot of sleazy tactics to weasel my way through Legend of Grimrock. It was utterly reprehensible. I'm ashamed of myself. For those of you who did likewise, this game is our just reward.
They've beefed up their anti-sleaze defenses quite a bit here in what I can only assume is a deliberate effort to stop scumbags like me. You can forget about pulling monsters back to a gate one by one and then opening and closing the gate to avoid damage when the doors slam shut and lock you in a small room.
Remember the good old run-around-a-2x2-square-so-they-can't-hit-you routine? It still kind of works, but it's a lot harder to pull off when you're in the aforementioned small room with two or more monsters who can do things like spit acid on the floor and drop AOE attacks. Get a little lazy and before you know it they trap you in a corner and it's over. F9.
While the punishment may be well-deserved, that doesn't make it any less of a drag. There's a general formula to this game which goes: enter room --> door closes --> fight monsters --> door opens. You can see it coming, and after a while it evokes only a sigh of resignation as each new ordeal, much the same as the last, draws near.
There's not much variety or progression to the enemies and they can absorb a ton of damage, which made the battles a real grind; and that was with a more dps-oriented character, too. Not to mention, I was playing a rifle spec because I had big plans that involved running away a lot, and it turns out that ammo can be pretty scarce until the very end. So much of the time I had to switch to some lousy melee weapon I barely knew how to use just to conserve bullets. No respec-ing, either.
Even the environments are kind of dreary and monotonous, although technically speaking it does look really good for an indie. Maybe that comes with the territory in these steampunk sort of worlds; but it doesn't seem like they explored the potential of the environment very enthusiastically. I mean, it's a big tower on the ocean, yet they never take advantage of this dramatic location. Once the doors slam shut, you could be anywhere. Would have been nice if they showed you a little more variety as you went along to liven things up.
Don't mean to come down too hard on this game. It's not so bad; and to be fair Legend of Grimrock had some of the same issues. There's a story, too, by the way. I put off mentioning it because (just between you and me) I wasn't really paying attention to the logs you find until they actually started to seem important later in the game, and at that point I wasn't going to go back and read them all to catch up. The part I did see near the end seemed ok, though.
Maybe I'm just bitter because they shut down my slimeball combat tactics. Can't they just unlock the doors and free me to be the man I was meant to be?
Come on, give me a little breathing room and four contiguous tiles and I'll take on the world!
You can find more indie game reviews at oddlittlegames.com or visit my curator page. Thanks, and enjoy!

A solid dungeon crawler in the vein of Dungeon Master and later Legend of Grimrock but with a steampunk theme. Feels polished and well executed, with good graphics and sound.
The difficulty level was just fine for normal mode. The enemies of Vaporum are likely the most challenging and creative enemies I've seen so far for this type of grid-based crawler. The normal strafe-turn-attack movement (so effective in Grimrock) is not enough here - many enemies both strafe and can attack to their sides. Some also have special area-attacks that can hit multiple squares in front or around them. Others have guns that hit you at many steps away. Each enemy thus feels interesting. Your own arsenal involves both melee weapons, guns (which uses ammo) and area-of-effect specials (that uses energy). You also have a skill tree for improving various abilities and open up more possibilities.
An interesting thing is that the game allows you to 'pause' so the world only moves when you do. This becomes more and more useful as the game goes on since it allows you to rummage in your inventory without stress etc.
There were some puzzles (but nowhere as many as in e.g. Legend of Grimlock 2). Buttons could be hidden in pretty creative places at times and there were a few death-traps that I had to try over and over a few times before I figured them out. Nothing that had me overly frustrated though; it seemed pretty logical most of the time.
A critique of the game is a penchant for 'arenas' in many places - it's not uncommon to enter a large room where the door closes behind you and you have to handle a carefully selected set of enemies. The advantage is that the designed could customize each encounter for the terrain, the drawback is that it feels a little rail-roady at times - in other games you could often back out of the room to try various tactics to draw out or snipe the enemies in your own way - here you are often stuck until you win the encounter.
But overall, probably one of the best modern crawlers since Legend of Grimrock. Recommended.

Vaporum is a great grid-based dungeon-crawler with beautiful and detailed steampunk aesthetics.
It has a deep and interesting story and the voice acting fits perfectly.
Compared to other games of this genre the game feels a lot more combat focused. The puzzles are fun but overall not very challenging (I am just used to the Legend of Grimrock kind of difficulty).
I enjoyed the part where you had to travel through a location without fighting. It was a nice change and a lot of fun luring enemies into traps.

It was okay.
nb. I played this in hard, oldschool mode.
Vaporum is a game that has great ideas and execute them relatively well, but these ideas are usually washed out by regular dungeon crawling.
What makes this game unique is the theme, and story, because otherwise bigger titles like Legend of Grimrock are superior in many ways.
For example, this game lacks the polish Grimrock displays, the numbers (damage, hp etc.) seem a little rough and it often gives either a sense of unfairness or makes some fight tedious (e.g. the gun turrets take forever to kill but are very easy to fight against, making them boring)
Speaking of game fairness, this game is very much a combat oriented dungeon crawler, it decides when and how you'll fight, oftentimes it "spawns" enemies and closes doors behind you. It can be very frustrating as the player has very little power over how to fight and I often had to reload the game because I had no clues as to how to approach some fights.
Puzzle wise, it's been hit or miss for me. Sometimes it works, but others you'll find yourself scratching your head to find what to do. Don't get me wrong, puzzles shouldn't be simple, but they should give you a good idea of what components you need to solve them, and this game sometimes fails to do that.
The music is repetitive, especially if you're stuck.
Overall, I'd say Vaporum could have been a great 8 hours game but they extended it to 10 hours+ and diluted their ideas around. 6.5/10, play it if you're a fan of the genre

Bioshock and Grimrock had a baby!