Review - Vaporum
Waves crash against a small mound of rock, alone in the dark ocean. With no memory of your past, you enter a strange spire. Vaporum is a dungeon crawler that was developed by Fatbot Games where you explore a steampunk citadel to discover your past. It follows the formula of games like Legend of Grimrock with some significant deviations. While it is not revolutionary in any way, Vaporum does a good job of filling an otherwise fairly scant genre.
The gameplay is that of a real-time dungeon crawler, like the aforementioned Legend of Grimrock. The player controls a character with a variety of stats and equipment with which you solve puzzles and fight enemies. Movement and combat are both tile based with the player and any other entity occupying a single tile. The basic elements of Vaporum’s gameplay are nothing particularly new. If you’ve played anything remotely similar then you’ll be familiar with the basics.
However, there are some deviations from the basic formula. For one, the player controls a single character rather than the standard party system. This means that the player has to be more intentional about choosing one upgrade path throughout the course of a play-through. In addition, the single character increases the replay-ability of Vaporum a bit as you can choose quite varied play-styles across different playthroughs. The other deviation focuses more on spell craft. In other titles, namely Legend of Grimrock, there is a complex system for casting spells. In Vaporum, all spells are cast via a single click. That’s not a massive difference, but it’s worth mentioning for anyone who was a fan of Grimrock.
As with the other examples of this genre, Vaporum has two main elements: combat and puzzles. The combat is nothing special. It is divided between melee, firearms, and spell casting. Every attack has a cooldown after the fact. The player dodges in and out of battle, getting quick hits in while avoiding enemies. Basically, Vaporum doesn’t add anything particularly new to the dungeon crawler’s combat system, but what combat there is is well polished. In terms of puzzles, Vaporum is a bit lacking. There are a lot of puzzles, but they tend to be simple and reflex based rather than thinking puzzles. In comparison to Grimrock (which I continue to mention because it is a very prominent game of the same genre) and especially Grimrock II, the puzzles leave a bit to be desired.
What Vaporum really tries to bring to the table is a more robust narrative. A fairly standard mix of audio and text logs tell the history of the tower that the player is exploring along with a bit of dialogue from the player character. The story is not terribly complex or engaging and it is almost entirely disjointed from the actual gameplay save for a few hints regarding secret areas. There is definitely more story in Vaporum then other titles in this genre, but it is clear that the gameplay is the star with the story being more of an afterthought.
It’s also probably worth mentioning that it is steampunk. For some, that is enough to peak their interests. I’m not any more inclined towards that aesthetic than any other. However, it is nice to see a dungeon crawler move away from being exclusively fantasy. It does have to be admitted that, in terms of gameplay, Vaporum doesn’t specifically reflect the steampunk genre. All of the elements are just re-skinned to feel steampunk while the same sword, mace, bow, etc. combo is maintained. Regardless of that, the change in environments is still a nice deviation.
The biggest flaw of Vaporum is really being so standard. Outside of the overly simple puzzles, there aren’t any real trip ups in the game, but the reason that that is the case is that they stayed so solidly within the tried and true methods. It’s nice to have polished pieces, but innovation is a must. What narrative innovation occurred was minimal at best. Audio and text log storytelling is a staple element in gaming even if it isn’t prominent in this genre. Something new and defining would have made Vaporum more than just another dungeon crawler, but it stayed to the tried and true.
Overall, Vaporum is a standard dungeon crawler along the lines of Legend of Grimrock. It’s combat is well polished while the puzzles tend to be simpler and more active then they are mental. The general polish of the game seems to come from the fact that Vaporum does not bring any serious innovation to the genre. That being said, the change in setting from the normal fantasy to steampunk was nice, if not a bit superficial in regards to gameplay. There is more story to Vaporum than other games of this genre, but that element remains as flavor for the gameplay rather than a robust part of the game. If you have a hankering for more dungeon crawling, than Vaporum will be your cup of tea. It faithfully follows in the footsteps of Grimrock.
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