The 3D steampunk dungeon crawler 'Vaporum' just had a huge performance update

Sweet improvements.

I just started playing this last night, pretty sweet game, felt like playing a dungeon crawl, and with steampunk, it looks pretty sweet.

Was playing it with my Steam Controller through big picture mode and it worked fine.

I finished Vaporum some time ago. I really loved it, and I'm looking very much forward to the prequel they are developing right now (which will also have Linux support by the way).

https://twitter.com/VaporumGame/status/1080793529805361152

I'd probably love to love this game, but the real time killed my will. I disliked the Grimrocks for the same reason. For me, this kind of games (RPG grid based crawlers) "must" be turn based. The last one to actually pleased me was Starcrawlers, who did many things "well" (but failed to provide a "less combat, more xp" option).

Linux build on Gog is still at patch #12, meanwhile Windows is at patch #14. Let's wait...

I'd probably love to love this game, but the real time killed my will. I disliked the Grimrocks for the same reason. For me, this kind of games (RPG grid based crawlers) "must" be turn based. The last one to actually pleased me was Starcrawlers, who did many things "well" (but failed to provide a "less combat, more xp" option).

Maybe you should try Fall of the Dungeon Guardians. Great game, lovely visuals, really tactical and difficult fights but with a pause-at-any-time mechanic. I think you can even set it up to a full pause-after-each-round if you like. I think... been a while I played.

Well I might have to get this now as the performance problems where a bit of a put off for me given how low end my machine is. I guess it's going to by bought here soon.

Maybe you should try Fall of the Dungeon Guardians. Great game, lovely visuals, really tactical and difficult fights but with a pause-at-any-time mechanic. I think you can even set it up to a full pause-after-each-round if you like. I think... been a while I played.

Yep, i liked that one. I helped testing it, and suggested the near-turn-based option, as well as the less combats more XP approach, to avoid fighting too many meaningless enemies, and boredom.

I'd probably love to love this game, but the real time killed my will. I disliked the Grimrocks for the same reason. For me, this kind of games (RPG grid based crawlers) "must" be turn based. The last one to actually pleased me was Starcrawlers, who did many things "well" (but failed to provide a "less combat, more xp" option).

Funny, the realtime aspect is something I really enjoy! I think it enriches gameplay with the possibility to outmaneuver your enemies or lure them to dangerous places like trap doors or steam vents, etc..

Linux build on Gog is still at patch #12, meanwhile Windows is at patch #14. Let's wait...

Update on GOG is out now :-)

I'd probably love to love this game, but the real time killed my will. I disliked the Grimrocks for the same reason. For me, this kind of games (RPG grid based crawlers) "must" be turn based. The last one to actually pleased me was Starcrawlers, who did many things "well" (but failed to provide a "less combat, more xp" option).

Funny, the realtime aspect is something I really enjoy! I think it enriches gameplay with the possibility to outmaneuver your enemies or lure them to dangerous places like trap doors or steam vents, etc..

I also do not enjoy these games that much if they are real-time.
I do find it more acceptable if the game just has one character, though. So I'll probably give this game a go.

If it is real-time and you have a whole party (like Grimrock), then combat just devolves into clicking everyone's main attack as fast as you can while you play Dance Dance Revolution in a fantasy dress. Because first person real-time with so many "moving" parts just doesn't allow for any real strategical thinking (like careful spell selection, etc.) and is thus extremely easy (honestly, combat in Grimrock is laughably easy). That's the exact opposite of tactical combat and strategy, it becomes an arcade game.
Or take something like Might & Magic. I love that game, but the combat is just "equip everyone with bows and become a living machine gun" for 80% of the game, and the rest is mostly spell buffing.
But with only one character, even real-time usually leaves you with enough time to do some proper tactical thinking, and as the developers know that, the challenge is also higher and requires you to actually do that. Well... in the optimal case, don't know if that is true for this game.

Just compared the new version with the old one, the main menu went from 81 to 95 fps at the same settings. That's one hell of an improvement, the other areas are also running faster 10~ fps+. I haven't finished this game yet but still enjoying it so far, easily a highly recommended title.

These devs are awesome.


Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 20 February 2019 at 5:38 pm UTC

I'd probably love to love this game, but the real time killed my will. I disliked the Grimrocks for the same reason. For me, this kind of games (RPG grid based crawlers) "must" be turn based. The last one to actually pleased me was Starcrawlers, who did many things "well" (but failed to provide a "less combat, more xp" option).

Funny, the realtime aspect is something I really enjoy! I think it enriches gameplay with the possibility to outmaneuver your enemies or lure them to dangerous places like trap doors or steam vents, etc..

I also do not enjoy these games that much if they are real-time.
I do find it more acceptable if the game just has one character, though. So I'll probably give this game a go.

If it is real-time and you have a whole party (like Grimrock), then combat just devolves into clicking everyone's main attack as fast as you can while you play Dance Dance Revolution in a fantasy dress. Because first person real-time with so many "moving" parts just doesn't allow for any real strategical thinking (like careful spell selection, etc.) and is thus extremely easy (honestly, combat in Grimrock is laughably easy). That's the exact opposite of tactical combat and strategy, it becomes an arcade game.
Or take something like Might & Magic. I love that game, but the combat is just "equip everyone with bows and become a living machine gun" for 80% of the game, and the rest is mostly spell buffing.
But with only one character, even real-time usually leaves you with enough time to do some proper tactical thinking, and as the developers know that, the challenge is also higher and requires you to actually do that. Well... in the optimal case, don't know if that is true for this game.

These are all very much Dungeon Master clones, and Dungeon Master was party based and real time. It literally created a new Genre of games. A lot of people missed this Genre, so hence there are now quite a few new ones around. Too bad Legends of Grimrock 2 wasn't released for Linux.

Hesitating... Should I try to complete Dungeon Master on my Amiga (MiSTer FPGA) or this one or the former then the latter ?

Ha, so I actually started playing Dungeon Master on my Amiga (A4000 w/68060) quite some time ago, I need to finish it off (re-installed the 3.1.4 over the weekend, now just need to get WHDload set up).

While I beat DM on my Atari ST back in the day, I never did complete Chaos Strikes Back. So my plan is to complete DM again, and then import my characters into Chaos Strikes Back.

Hesitating... Should I try to complete Dungeon Master on my Amiga (MiSTer FPGA) or this one or the former then the latter ?

Ha, so I actually started playing Dungeon Master on my Amiga (A4000 w/68060) quite some time ago, I need to finish it off (re-installed the 3.1.4 over the weekend, now just need to get WHDload set up).

While I beat DM on my Atari ST back in the day, I never did complete Chaos Strikes Back. So my plan is to complete DM again, and then import my characters into Chaos Strikes Back.

I loved Dungeon Master. I completed it. Completed it again. Completed it with 3 characters. Completed with 2 characters (oh my, they become godlike by the end) then finally gave up while trying to beat it with one character. The spell cooldowns were too difficult to manage in certain fights and you just don't put out enough sword damage as a single character.

Bloodwych was another favourite - I played that split-screen with a friend on his Atari ST. Two, four-character parties rocking around a massive dungeon. Awesome.

Finally, if you like this genre and have three (very) close friends, the Amiga version of Hired Guns was sublime because you each played one character in a party of four, quad-screen. Two characters played on mouse (the Amiga could handle two mice plugged in) and two on keyboard. Amazing. Great music too!

Hesitating... Should I try to complete Dungeon Master on my Amiga (MiSTer FPGA) or this one or the former then the latter ?

Ha, so I actually started playing Dungeon Master on my Amiga (A4000 w/68060) quite some time ago, I need to finish it off (re-installed the 3.1.4 over the weekend, now just need to get WHDload set up).

While I beat DM on my Atari ST back in the day, I never did complete Chaos Strikes Back. So my plan is to complete DM again, and then import my characters into Chaos Strikes Back.

I loved Dungeon Master. I completed it. Completed it again. Completed it with 3 characters. Completed with 2 characters (oh my, they become godlike by the end) then finally gave up while trying to beat it with one character. The spell cooldowns were too difficult to manage in certain fights and you just don't put out enough sword damage as a single character.

Bloodwych was another favourite - I played that split-screen with a friend on his Atari ST. Two, four-character parties rocking around a massive dungeon. Awesome.

Finally, if you like this genre and have three (very) close friends, the Amiga version of Hired Guns was sublime because you each played one character in a party of four, quad-screen. Two characters played on mouse (the Amiga could handle two mice plugged in) and two on keyboard. Amazing. Great music too!

Ha, that's some nuts to complete it with only two characters!

Hesitating... Should I try to complete Dungeon Master on my Amiga (MiSTer FPGA) or this one or the former then the latter ?

Ha, so I actually started playing Dungeon Master on my Amiga (A4000 w/68060) quite some time ago, I need to finish it off (re-installed the 3.1.4 over the weekend, now just need to get WHDload set up).

While I beat DM on my Atari ST back in the day, I never did complete Chaos Strikes Back. So my plan is to complete DM again, and then import my characters into Chaos Strikes Back.

I loved Dungeon Master. I completed it. Completed it again. Completed it with 3 characters. Completed with 2 characters (oh my, they become godlike by the end) then finally gave up while trying to beat it with one character. The spell cooldowns were too difficult to manage in certain fights and you just don't put out enough sword damage as a single character.

Bloodwych was another favourite - I played that split-screen with a friend on his Atari ST. Two, four-character parties rocking around a massive dungeon. Awesome.

Finally, if you like this genre and have three (very) close friends, the Amiga version of Hired Guns was sublime because you each played one character in a party of four, quad-screen. Two characters played on mouse (the Amiga could handle two mice plugged in) and two on keyboard. Amazing. Great music too!

Aww great! Now theres the idea to play Dungeonmaster back again, because of you both! ;-)

Hesitating... Should I try to complete Dungeon Master on my Amiga (MiSTer FPGA) or this one or the former then the latter ?

Ha, so I actually started playing Dungeon Master on my Amiga (A4000 w/68060) quite some time ago, I need to finish it off (re-installed the 3.1.4 over the weekend, now just need to get WHDload set up).

While I beat DM on my Atari ST back in the day, I never did complete Chaos Strikes Back. So my plan is to complete DM again, and then import my characters into Chaos Strikes Back.

I loved Dungeon Master. I completed it. Completed it again. Completed it with 3 characters. Completed with 2 characters (oh my, they become godlike by the end) then finally gave up while trying to beat it with one character. The spell cooldowns were too difficult to manage in certain fights and you just don't put out enough sword damage as a single character.

Bloodwych was another favourite - I played that split-screen with a friend on his Atari ST. Two, four-character parties rocking around a massive dungeon. Awesome.

Finally, if you like this genre and have three (very) close friends, the Amiga version of Hired Guns was sublime because you each played one character in a party of four, quad-screen. Two characters played on mouse (the Amiga could handle two mice plugged in) and two on keyboard. Amazing. Great music too!

Aww great! Now theres the idea to play Dungeonmaster back again, because of you both! ;-)

Do it! Truly a classic! It's amazing that FTL never ported Sundog to anything. So you still have to play it on the ST. That's another fantastic game I'd love to get back to to play.

Hesitating... Should I try to complete Dungeon Master on my Amiga (MiSTer FPGA) or this one or the former then the latter ?

Ha, so I actually started playing Dungeon Master on my Amiga (A4000 w/68060) quite some time ago, I need to finish it off (re-installed the 3.1.4 over the weekend, now just need to get WHDload set up).

While I beat DM on my Atari ST back in the day, I never did complete Chaos Strikes Back. So my plan is to complete DM again, and then import my characters into Chaos Strikes Back.

I loved Dungeon Master. I completed it. Completed it again. Completed it with 3 characters. Completed with 2 characters (oh my, they become godlike by the end) then finally gave up while trying to beat it with one character. The spell cooldowns were too difficult to manage in certain fights and you just don't put out enough sword damage as a single character.

Bloodwych was another favourite - I played that split-screen with a friend on his Atari ST. Two, four-character parties rocking around a massive dungeon. Awesome.

Finally, if you like this genre and have three (very) close friends, the Amiga version of Hired Guns was sublime because you each played one character in a party of four, quad-screen. Two characters played on mouse (the Amiga could handle two mice plugged in) and two on keyboard. Amazing. Great music too!

Aww great! Now theres the idea to play Dungeonmaster back again, because of you both! ;-)

Do it! Truly a classic! It's amazing that FTL never ported Sundog to anything. So you still have to play it on the ST. That's another fantastic game I'd love to get back to to play.

I didn't even know that one! Never had an Atari ST. Looks interesting!