Vaporum: Lockdown Released

If you’re up for some real-time steampunk dungeon crawling and you wouldn’t mind revisiting the world Fatbot Games created for Vaporum, you should direct your attention to Vaporum: Lockdown – a prequel to that story. You can purchase the new game on Steam or GOG for $17.99 or your regional equivalent.

Here’s the official launch trailer:

And the game’s description:

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 Ellie 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.

There’s also this Steam announcement that shares some additional information about this project:

For a tiny indie team such as ours, it’s a great privilege to be able to release our second game. We’re super grateful for all of you, the fans who supported us throughout the development of this game. We hope you will enjoy this labor of sweat & tears, but also much love!

What started as an idea for a datadisk that would bring a few new levels and maybe 1 or 2 new minor features, has grown into a fully fledged standalone game that is as big as the original game, if not bigger.

Lockdown brings many improvements on almost everything that made Vaporum good, plus a host of new features and quality of life upgrades.

Just to name a few:

• New storyline following a female protagonist, Ellie Teller.
• Brand new levels.
• New enemy types with unconvential attack patterns that will challenge your wits & reflexes.
• New weapon & armor types for even more build options.
• Lots of synergies to find. We created many new unique weapons & armor pieces and a few new circuits, all with synergy-building in mind.
• A host of new puzzles and a special optional level with extra-tough puzzles to challenge your brainpower.
• More voice-overs and a deeper look into the lore and story of the world of Vaporum.
• Much streamlined controls (including much improved controller support).

Even though the game takes place in the same tower, the storyline is completely new. Follow a new protagonist and find out what happened before the events in Vaporum. Ellie Teller, a teleporter scientist, must face her own past and find a way to escape the place.

As a side note, we came up with the final name of the game mere weeks before the global pandemic broke out. It also hit us hard, where we had to work from home for several weeks, so you can say that Lockdown was being made during a lockdown. 🙂

Thankfully, none of us got infected. We would also like to thank all the people on the frontline who have been working to keep us safe!

Share, comment, and enjoy the game!