Vaporum: Lockdown is a rather gorgeous steampunk dungeon crawler from Fatbot Games, which serves as a prequel to the original and it's now supported on Linux.
In this latest release you follow the story of Ellie Teller, a scientist who is a part of a mysterious research project in the middle of an ocean. After disastrous events, she struggles to survive and escape the tower of Arx Vaporum. While it's a prequel, the developer noted that it "expands on everything that made the original game good".
Direct Link
Feature Highlight:
- Old-school grid-based dungeon crawler with modern audiovisuals and controls.
- First-person real-time combat with deadly foes with varied abilities and behaviors.
- Stop time mode where time only passes when you act, giving you unlimited time to reason about your next best move.
- Intriguing story following a fully voiced female protagonist.
- Unique gadget-based RPG system with tons of customization, tons of loot, and tons of synergies to find.
- Mind-bending puzzles and hazards.
- Immersive steampunk setting.
- Full controller support.
- Localized in 8 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Polish, Japanese, and Chinese.
Their PR team already sent over a key a while ago, and checking on the Linux release today everything appears to work just fine. Even when turning up the Supersampling Scale to "1.5x", the performance seemed to be great so it looks like they did another great job on their Linux version.
Pictured - Vaporum: Lockdown on Linux with "1.5x Supersampling", performance check with MangoHud.
We had a short wait of a month to get the actual Linux version but it looks like it was worth it. I'll be taking a proper look at it when time allows, as I very much enjoyed the original Vaporum.
Available for Linux now from Humble Store and Steam. It seems GOG do not yet have a Linux build for it.
Can confirm that it runs great over here, and I've been having fun with it, though I'm still very early on. (shapez.io seems to have taken over most of my gaming time -- should be able to get back to Vaporum once I get my automated shape-builder up and running though)
QuoteFirst-person real-time combat
I really can’t truelly enjoy real time GRID BASE crawler, it makes every single combat awkward, and traps boring : find the rhythm, die until you do, go to next. I dislike "dancing combat", a lot.
That said, the background is nice, effects, sounds... General gameplay is fine too. Just this real time, quite killing the joy out of me. I’ll push forward a little more and see if i managed to set my mind to the pace, as other aspects of the game "fit" with my tastes.
I once remember being stuck with a GT1030 playing the first Vaporum, it performed admirably for a Unity+OpenGL game. I'm expecting no less from this one.
Quoting: TcheyI played a little as a got a key,Features mentions a stop time mode, maybe you could try that.
QuoteFirst-person real-time combat
I really can’t truelly enjoy real time GRID BASE crawler, it makes every single combat awkward, and traps boring : find the rhythm, die until you do, go to next. I dislike "dancing combat", a lot.
That said, the background is nice, effects, sounds... General gameplay is fine too. Just this real time, quite killing the joy out of me. I’ll push forward a little more and see if i managed to set my mind to the pace, as other aspects of the game "fit" with my tastes.
Quoting: TcheyI played a little as a got a key,
QuoteFirst-person real-time combat
I really can’t truelly enjoy real time GRID BASE crawler, it makes every single combat awkward, and traps boring : find the rhythm, die until you do, go to next. I dislike "dancing combat", a lot.
That said, the background is nice, effects, sounds... General gameplay is fine too. Just this real time, quite killing the joy out of me. I’ll push forward a little more and see if i managed to set my mind to the pace, as other aspects of the game "fit" with my tastes.
Conversely, I quite like it. Would recommend you stay away from "Crypt of the Necrodancer" which uses rhythm and a grid-based movement mechanic, and is one of my favourite games.
See more from me