Vaporum: Lockdown - steampunk dungeon crawler prequel

[LESS T_T]

https://fatbot-games.com




https://af.gog.com/game/vaporum_lockdown?as=1649904300

Spoiler

Prequel/standalone expansion to 2017's Vaporum.

About
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 Lisa 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.

Prepare to solve many kinds of puzzles and hazards, using various interactive elements, which will test both your wits and reflexes. The overall storyline will have you piecing together a solution to the main obstacle, where the individual pieces are spread over several levels. You will learn a lot about the world and its inhabitants through voiced dialogs, phonodiaries, and written notes.

Vaporum: Lockdown is planned to release in 2020.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pres...awler_Vaporum_is_coming_out_in_early_2020.php

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 30th 2019, Bratislava, Slovakia.

Vaporum: Lockdown - Announcement Teaser: https://youtu.be/VzSjJWEtACw

Vaporum: Lockdown, a prequel to the award-winning steampunk dungeon crawler Vaporum (Vaporum Trailer), is coming out in early 2020, and will be available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game expands on everything that made the first game good, including more menacing enemy types, broadened skill trees, new gadgets, plenty of new unique items, and original puzzles and mechanics. Vaporum: Lockdown follows the story of Lisa Teller, a teleport operator & scientist, who struggles to survive the aftermath of a terrible event.

About Vaporum: Lockdown

Vaporum: Lockdown is a prequel to the award-winning steampunk dungeon crawler Vaporum (90% rating on Steam). It is a grid-based, single-player, single-character game, seen from a first-person perspective in an original steampunk setting, 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.

You will encounter even nastier 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. Brand new weapon types, each with a specific use, many new unique weapons, synergistic armor pieces, gadgets that allow you to raise your own army of underlings or to manipulate the battlefield, boosters, and more.

Prepare to solve new kinds of puzzles and hazards, using new interactive elements, which will test both your wits and reflexes. The overall storyline will have you piecing together a solution to the main obstacle, where the individual pieces are spread over several levels. You will learn a lot more about the world and its inhabitants through voiced dialogs, phonodiaries, and written notes.

Improve your exoskeleton to be ready to face the dangers that lurk around every dark corner.

VAPORUM: LOCKDOWN – MAIN FEATURES:

• Fight in real time! First-person real-time combat with deadly foes with varied abilities and behaviors.

• Stop time mode! Enable this mode at any time to cause time to only pass when you act, giving you unlimited time to reason about your next best move. Useful in both combat and puzzles!

• Be tactical. Use various attacks and read your opponents – each enemy has a different set of strengths and weaknesses.

• Fully voiced main characters. Explore the story through a fully voiced main protagonist and several other key characters, in the form of dialogs and phonodiaries.

• Tons of customization options! The gadget-based RPG system allows you to evolve your exoskeleton over time and also adapt to any situation at will.

• Absorb fumium from defeated enemies. Unlock additional circuits in your exoskeleton and gain new bonuses and skills.

• Keep your wits about you. Solve level-wide objectives and puzzles that vary in difficulty.

• Explore and loot. Look for optional passages filled with additional challenges and rewards.

• Survive the chaos that has set in after terrible events, and escape the tower on full lockdown!

• Immersive steampunk setting. Beautiful graphics, stunning sound design, and an atmosphere of constant danger lurking around every corner.

 

[Tibor]

Greetings, Codex!

Fatbot Games is happy to announce our next project, Vaporum: Lockdown, a prequel to Vaporum.

Lockdown takes place a short time before the events of Vaporum. You will play as Lisa Teller, the new protagonist, which you may have come to know from her notes found in the first game. We plan to release the new game in early 2020, and it will be available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Read more in our blogpost!

Please share this info with your friends and everyone you know! We are working hard and soon will have more to show!



Links:
Steam
Web

 

[JarlFrank]

Yet again I wish the dungeon crawler genre had been resurrected not by a Dungeon Master clone, but a Wizardry or Might and Magic clone.

All the dungeon crawlers we get are real time step dancers

 

[V_K]

Yet again I wish the dungeon crawler genre had been resurrected not by a Dungeon Master clone, but a Wizardry or Might and Magic clone.

All the dungeon crawlers we get are real time step dancers

You can turn autopause on in this one, making it effectively turn-based.
It's also not technically true anymore - we had MMXL, Grimoire, Sword&Sorcery: Underworld, Operencia, 7 Mages, BT4... It's just that none of them was as high-profile as Grimrock - but neither actually were any of Grimrock clones.

 

[luj1]

Grimrock clone, meh

 

[JarlFrank]

autopause
effectively turn-based

I get what you mean.

But every time someone claims that autopause can turn RTwP into turn based just because it pauses automatically, I die a little inside.

 

[V_K]

But every time someone claims that autopause can turn RTwP into turn based just because it pauses automatically, I die a little inside.

I would never say that about isometric party-based games, but in blobbers it kinda does since it fully takes player reaction and reflexes out of the equation.

 

[DemonKing]

I'm in - I play most blobbers and the original Vaporum had pretty good production values compared to most of the post-Grimrock releases.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I'm in too. The first Vaporum was a lot of fun, I like the real-time combat. This one should be good.

 

[LESS T_T]

They've been said they're considering a party-based, turn-based dungeon crawler after this prequel.

Well Tibor are you guys still considering that, or is it still too early to say that?

 

[the mole]

Female protagonist where is the rpg codex shitstorm

"Unique time stop mode"

 

[Tibor]

They've been said they're considering a party-based, turn-based dungeon crawler after this prequel.

Well Tibor are you guys still considering that, or is it still too early to say that?

Hi!

Well, we do have a design concept for a turn and party-based gridder ready. The thing is - we have to consider what the best step is for us as a studio and a business. We might stay in the genre of RPG crawlers, but it is hard these days with a niche game like that.

Our business is built upon the motivation and joy from working on games we feel are valuable, rather than just profitable. Every member in our team has had many offers for better paid positions (in gamedev), but has decided to stay (to this day :slight_smile: ). Let's see what the future holds for us. We obviously need to sustain our business with sales, so I am not saying we'll never make a different game than a gridder/crawler, but we'll always strive to stay focused on bringing games that resonate with players more engaged and active in the genre, rather than the more mainstream players who are not particularly picky.

As I have said, a turn-based crawler with a party is one of the concepts we are working on in pre production - but we have multiple different directions we might pursue.

Sorry for not being able to give you a more straight answer right now.

Cheers!

 

[Infinitron]

Oooh: https://fatbot-games.com/2019/11/29/level-design-contest-2019/

Level Design Contest 2019

As you know from our annoucement, we’re working on Vaporum: Lockdown (a prequel to Vaporum), due to release in 2020. The community has received Vaporum very well, but has also given us a lot of suggestions on how to improve the game, or even add original situations and gameplay elements. Based on that, we decided to call upon you, Vaporum and dungeon crawler fans, to join forces in the creative process in making Vaporum: Lockdown!

We’re announcing the Lockdown Level Design Contest!

The goal:

• Design a single, self-contained level for Vaporum: Lockdown.
• Maximum size: 20×20 squares.

Reward for the winner:

• A physical Vaporum Signature Edition for Nintendo Switch, signed by Vaporum’s devs (if the author wishes so).
• A free Vaporum: Lockdown key for any platform.
• An exceptionally well-made design may make it into the final game. If it does:
  • The author will be credited in the game’s Credits screen (by their real name, nickname, or anonymously).
  • Backstory lore using the author’s (nick)name and story is also possible.

Read more here!

Also follow our contest channels:

• Fatbot Discord Server – Contest Channel
• Contest coordinator e-mail: jozef.vanco@fatbot-games.com
• Constantly updated contest FAQ

One of the great designing tools that might help you, and which we used throughout the development of Vaporum, is Grid Cartographer, currently at 40% off on Steam!

We can’t wait to see what kind of ingenious ideas the community harbors, and to lay our hands on your submissions! So, let your creative juices flow and, above all, have fun!

P. S.: By the way, if you don’t already own it, now is a great time to get Vaporum at 50% off on Steam!

 

[Sinatar]

So they get the right to use your level in their game and all you get is a product key?

Fucking lol.

 

[Tibor]

So they get the right to use your level in their game and all you get is a product key?

Fucking lol.

Hi, thanks for the reaction ...

To make things more clear, the expected maximum size of the small competition level design is 20x20 squares. The average square size of ONE level in Vaporum: Lockdown is approx. 7x that.

If we decide to use one of the designs in our game - the author will be fully credited in the game, will recieve a collectors edition of Vaporum (our previous game), and a product key for our next game Vaporum: Lockdown.

The design by itself is just one part of the final production. There is a lot of other work needed to be done for it to be in the game - obviously.

We certainly are not in need for outside designers - but we find that it's a nice opportunity for the community to be involved. It's the least we can do, since our game does not have a native level editor.

Cheers!

 

[Infinitron]

https://fatbot-games.com/2019/12/18/new-area-new-enemy-new-screenshots/

New area, new enemy, new screenshots!

Hey there, fellow crawlers!

Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you! So in these pre-Christmas days, we would like to give you a small present, a glimpse into an area you will get to explore in Vaporum: Lockdown.

We know we’re a little quiet, but that’s because we are tirelessly working on the prequel. More specifically, building individual levels, iterating on puzzles, and tuning combat zones for the best possible fun experience. Take a look at one of the levels (and their inhabitants) that was supposed to serve the whole tower with food, the Hydroponics Lab.

One of the very first endeavors of the Arx should be to establish permanent food independence. Based on the Supreme Bureau’s Security Regulation for Scientific Research in Long-Term Isolation, commissary Rowan Rogers (#241191) has issued an order to build a hydroponic bay in one of the first finished parts of the tower. Representatives of the Research Board hope that the installation will not only secure basic food supply for the scientists, but also allow to observe and research the interaction between the new substance and known flora.

Memo – Scientific Research Board (21. 4. 116 SBR)

 

[Infinitron]

Lore updates from the past 14 months:

Lore of Vaporum #1

The world of Vaporum is not only comprised of the mysterious tower somewhere in the middle of an ocean. The Arx Vaporum (the Tower) is just one part of a larger world, and various bits and hints on this world lie hidden in the tower’s depths, in the form of readable notes and audio phonodiaries, waiting to be found by the players.

In an unexplained way, we just received a scrap book filled with snippets of newspapers from that world. Maybe a teleportation system malfunction…?! There’s no explanation of that in the snippets. However, thanks to them, we can take a peek into this world. A world ruled by a strictly bureaucratic, science-powered government of the Supreme Bureau. The oldest snippet comes from almost 120 years before the events of Vaporum, from the time when the Supreme Bureau just assumed power.

Lore of Vaporum #2

Today, we bring you another piece from the world Vaporum takes place in. It’s about how the Supreme Bureau strengthened its position five years after usurping power over the Great Island Union.

Lore of Vaporum #3

Hey, guys!

We picked another bit of lore from the world of Vaporum, a piece of newspapers that dates 95 years after the last entry. In the article, the Supreme Bureau celebrates a hundred years of existence and iron rule over most of the known world.

Lore of Vaporum #4 – The Island Union Declares War!

Hello there!

We have another snippet of history from the world of Vaporum.

Enjoy!

 

[Infinitron]

Results of the level design contest: https://fatbot-games.com/2020/02/10/level-design-contest-results-are-in/

Level Design Contest results are in!

Hey there, everyone!

By the end of last year, we announced a level design contest, giving you guys a chance for your ideas to get into our upcoming game Vaporum: Lockdown, a prequel to Vaporum.

The author of the winning submission is Lukáš Kušnier. Congratulations!

From all the submissions we’ve received, his design clearly stands out, in both visual & textual presentation and the core idea it revolves around. The clever combination of existing mechanics and interactive elements makes it an ideal candidate as a part of our special level in Lockdown. You will find a special floor filled with the toughest puzzles and unique rewards. All these will be purely optional, so if you don’t feel like it, you can skip them altogether.

Lukáš will:

• Have his puzzle included in Vaporum: Lockdown.
• Be credited in Vaporum: Lockdown.
• Receive a signed Vaporum Signature Edition for the Nintendo Switch.
• Receive a key for Vaporum: Lockdown for the platform of his choice.

We are very happy to be able to include at least some of the community’s ideas directly into our upcoming game! We’re also happy to continually receive support and feedback from you guys.

Thank you!

 

[Infinitron]

https://fatbot-games.com/2020/02/13/greetings-from-the-dark-corridors-of-vaporum-lockdown/

Greetings from the dark corridors of Vaporum: Lockdown

Hey guys!
Here are some new visuals from the new levels in Vaporum: Lockdown. Gaze upon the dark technical corridors of Arx Vaporum and don’t forget to wishlist it on Steam now!

 

[Infinitron]

https://fatbot-games.com/2020/02/20/another-batch-of-new-screenshots/

Another batch of new screenshots!

Visit the damp pits and gloomy tunnels of the sewage system of the Arx Vaporum in a new batch of screenshots from Vaporum: Lockdown.

 

[Infinitron]

Looks like this is a weekly thing: https://fatbot-games.com/2020/02/27/explore-the-ominous-hallways-of-arx-vaporum/

Explore the ominous hallways of Arx Vaporum!

 

[Infinitron]

https://fatbot-games.com/2020/03/16/vaporum-lockdown-postponed-to-q2-2020/

Vaporum: Lockdown postponed to Q2 2020

First of all, we’d like to thank you all for your continuous support! We really appreciate every bit of it!

The first reason for postponing the release is quite typical for gamedev. Even though we originally planned to make something smaller, we think that you, our community, deserve a little more than just a short “level pack”. The project has grown into a fully fledged, standalone game that expands on everything that made Vaporum good, and also brings a lot of new, fresh ideas. Since we’re a small team of enthusiasts, the desire to enrich and “fatten” the experience has won over releasing it too early without a lot of “meat”. On the other hand, of course, such a decision costs time.

You can be certain of one thing though — we will use all this added time to make sure the game is as fun and enjoyable to play as we can make it!

The second, more sinister reason is obvious, currently affecting the lives of all people around the world. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, causing an infectious disease, has already hit our country as well. Since Friday 13, our game studio has been on “lockdown”. Yes, we’re well aware of the irony in the game’s name and the date, and we also feel quite cringy about what takes place in the planned storyline of Vaporum: Lockdown and what is taking place in the world right now. It’s quite eerie.

By lockdown, we mean that all team members now work from home. This is quite ineffective and slow compared to being together in the studio and being able to discuss things live, face to face.

We also want to express a great deal of respect and gratitude to people who make extra selfless effort to help the infected and prevent the spread of the disease, every day. We’d also like to appeal to you to be responsible and follow the directions of your local health organizations.

Don’t forget to wishlist Vaporum: Lockdown and share the information we post. That’s the best you can do to help us. Thank you for your support!

On behalf of the whole team: Tibor Repta (Co-founder) & Matej Zajačik (Co-founder)

 

[Infinitron]

https://fatbot-games.com/2020/03/23...-snippet-from-the-history-of-the-arx-vaporum/

Check out a small story snippet from the history of the Arx Vaporum

Check out our new short webcomic! A small story snippet from the history of the Arx Vaporum, its universe and protagonists! Be sure to leave some feedback and don’t forget to wishlist the game!

Spoiler

 

[LESS T_T]

Now it's an unfortunate subtitle.