On behalf of the whole team, let me wish you all good health and stability in this unstable and dangerous time. We highly appreciate the effort and sacrifice of the people fighting the virus, and we also feel for those whose health and/or living have been compromised by the pandemic.
The situation in the last few months has been very serious, including in our own country which is in the top 10 most deaths per capita in the world among countries with a population of over a million people, and so we are very grateful that no one in the team nor any close relative of ours has fallen ill. Thanks to that, we could work more or less undisturbed and release our second game in September of last year (2020).
Our Second Game is Out!
Vaporum: Lockdown, released on September 15, 2020 on Steam, GOG, and Humble (Windows, Mac, Linux), is the second game of our small indie studio. Much like the first Vaporum, Lockdown is also enjoying positive reception in the community. We have received a great response in the form of forum feedback, reviews, and also direct personal correspondence. We are very humbled and thankful for all that!
Matej and I, trying to come up with cool RPG mechanics.
Both games are a labor of love and so we really appreciate any kind of feedback — be it praise or constructive critique. We have learned a lot in making both games, and apart from being able to make ends meet doing what you love, the experience itself is the most valuable thing we have gained.
Lockdown also released on Switch on March 22, 2021, and we are happy to say that the port has turned out well! Our decision to port the game ourselves proved to be correct. We had to overcome heaps of issues in the obstacle-ridden publishing process of Nintendo, but it paid off!
When designing levels for Vaporum: Lockdown, we built upon what we had learned in Vaporum, using the best parts and avoiding the mistakes. At least that was the plan.
We had full control over every aspect of the port the whole time and were able to pack in more quality than before (when previously using a 3rd party to do the job). Apart from the obvious font size increase, there are plenty of quality-of-life improvements in the port, most notably a heavily streamlined control scheme. The game is a breeze to play on Switch now, and we all enjoy it even more than on PC, which is a big claim for us “PC dinosaurs”. (Well, one member still prefers playing on PC, but he's a “PC protomolecule”, so that doesn't really count.)
We were able to improve the performance significantly, which allowed us to get more high-end effects & visuals into the port for those eye-candy treats.
We are thankful for any feedback you give us on Vaporum: Lockdown, be it the desktop or the Switch version. Whether it's a praise-talk or an earful, be sure to give it to us on any of our social channels or e-mail. We know all too well it sounds like cliche, but those of you who have had direct contact with us know that we actually do take your feedback into account.
An End of an Era…
"The Age of Vaporum", as I like to call it, was a time filled with hardship and trials, but also of some success. You could call the founding of the studio itself a success, which would not have been possible without our investors, today close friends, Richard and Oto, who never doubted the abilities of the team. The way we got to know each other is pretty curious and I tend to mention it in every interview about the studio.
Our game was even played at the North Pole! Mateusz Mandat, our friend stationed at the tip of the world, sent this unique photo to us.
Although the journey was often hard and tricky, we always treated all the slip-ups and failures with introspection, even though sometimes we had no control over the situation. Today, we see ourselves at the start line, naive dreamers who, on the one hand, had some skill, willing to learn and adapt, and on the other hand, had a lot of luck above all. Thanks to this luck, our failures didn't cost us our heads, and we are still here.
Game dev is demanding, especially indie game dev. We were always hard at work, and it drained us quite a lot – especially during holidays.
We set out on this indie-dev adventure thinking we knew what we were doing, but there was soooo much still to learn. Since all the ups and downs and experiences are so numerous, we might rather share them in a separate series of blog posts someday.
What's Next for Fatbot Games?
Now, we have to consider our future with sober eyes. Sure, we could just keep making dungeon crawlers for the small group of hardcore fans of the genre, and port the games to all the platforms, but unfortunately, that is not sustainable. Our beloved DC genre is too niche and we would be too reliant on the “buying discipline” of the fans, which would still not ensure paying for the costs of the production — trust me, we learned our lesson with both games on this.
The production of Vaporum, with all the goals we had set for it, was a Herculean feat. The number of things that interact and affect each other in a game like that is simply too large to tackle in such a small team without cutting a lot of edges and thus lowering the final quality.
This is what indie gamedev is to us. No fancy offices or buffet three times a day; it's just hard work, but in a team we wouldn't trade for anything!
Still, to fans it might seem that despite the miniscule team, the result was pretty good in the end. Maybe, but at what cost… Vaporum cost us a lot of overtime, mainly for level makers and level designers. Every part of the game was more demanding than our team was able to handle in an optimal and timely fashion. We went into an oxygen debt, not only in the amount of overtime, but also in the extra resources that it took. And of course, every debt has to be paid off. But we did not. Was it not for Richard and Oto, our more than fair and amiable investors, we would not be here today.
It was high time to change the course. We dusted off an old idea that had lingered around since the early days. The idea crystallized into a concrete concept in 2019. In the form of a video and pitch deck, we confirmed the viability of the project by pitching it to various parties at various events. Since the feedback was 100% positive, it was pretty clear what the next major project of our studio was going to be.
Right after releasing Lockdown in September, while still making patches for it and doing post-release PR, we started working on the prototype. Along actively porting Lockdown to Switch, we were able to create a final prototype in early March, and then we put it to the test — the focus-test.
These days are all about important decisions. In what form will we release the game, how will we finance it, and when is the best time to officially announce it… All this amid working on the remaining ports of Lockdown (PS4 & 5 and Xbox) and shifting our full production to the new game.
It's a very strange time. And very exciting! We can't wait to announce the game to the public and see the reaction from you, our fans! We will appreciate any kind of support, sharing, commenting, or even just liking the post.
As a small hint, the name of the protagonist of our upcoming project is hinted at in the super secret room in Vaporum: Lockdown. Can you find it? 🙂
Thank you!
Tibor Repta
TeamLead@FatbotGames
Vaporum: Lockdown out NOW!
Vaporum: Lockdown, prequel to critically acclaimed Vaporum, is out now!
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!
Feature Preview: Supreme Puzzles Floor
Hey, fellow dungeoneers!
I hope you’re healthy and safe, following the instructions to protect yourself and the others in these troubled times. A big shout-out to everyone who’s fighting the disease or helping to overcome the whole situation!
Each member of our little studio works from home now, and despite it being a lot less effective and slower, we still tirelessly work for Vaporum: Lockdown to be the title that you’ll love. Today, I’d like to talk about how we want to tackle the difficulty and categorization of puzzles, based on your feedback from the original game.
Some of you welcomed the hardcore challenge of the tougher puzzles, but the rest mostly preferred and enjoyed the other mechanics so typical for the genre, not so much puzzles. It’s a big challenge to please both crowds without making it all just “meh”, while still keeping the game balanced and consistent.
Thanks to some new puzzle-making mechanics we added to Lockdown, we came up with quite some elaborate, tough, and varied puzzles over time. We sorted these puzzles according to the feedback gathered in a few rounds of internal playtesting, giving us a good idea on the order in which they should appear in the game, graduating in difficulty.
(A partial view of our puzzle prototyping scene. Puzzles … Puzzles everywhere!)
But, a few questions popped up right here. What would be the difficulty ceiling for the puzzles? How many should we put in the whole game? If hard optional puzzles provide hefty rewards for beating them, how do we prevent casual players feeling left out and weaker for skipping them? And at the same time, how do we keep it challenging and rewarding enough for the so-called “puzzle heads :)” among you?
We came up with a solution. Enter the Supreme Puzzles Floor! The toughest, most hardcore puzzles will reside in a special, separate floor in the tower, having a bit of lore tied to them to make it interesting. Each puzzle will be locked by a special key. You will need to find these keys, scattered across the game (mostly in secrets), to gain access to the supreme puzzles.
(An excerpt from the floors cross section map that is being implemented in the game.)
Although we decided to make all these puzzles 100% optional, there still was a problem. How would these tough puzzles reward players who make the effort to crack them? Maybe put in some of the best unique items? But if we do that, will it be fair to casual players who will likely not even want to touch the supreme floor at all? Because that’s a sure-fire way to force them to tackle the puzzles anyway; it’s something that they really don’t want to do, but probably will — out of “fear of missing out”! And that was against our original intention.
After some thought, we came up with a solution. We will not separate players by rewarding them with different loot, but by rewarding them with achievements / trophies!
Casual players don’t usually hunt for every single last achievement; they’re much more interested in exploration, progress, and story. So they should not feel like they’re missing out on anything essential. On the other hand, people who crave to achieve everything the game has to offer also tend to put in a lot more effort, achievements themselves being the reward. We believe beating these demanding puzzles and getting achievements for them will be adequate in itself.
As some of you might know, we held a Level Design Contest some months ago. The goal was to create an independent level of up to 20×20 tiles in size. The winning design, made by Lukas Kusnier, is actually a rather large & tough puzzle, and so we decided to include it in the Supreme Puzzle Floor.
We hope we will please both camps this way, giving you hard puzzles to beat, if you’re up to the challenge, but without making it too tedious for those who don’t necessarily enjoy them.
We’d love to hear your thoughts! Is there something we haven’t quite thought of? Do you have ideas on how to make it better? Feel free to comment here on social media or drop us an e-mail at support@fatbot-games.com!
Thank you!
– Tibor
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 Vaporum: Lockdown on Steam!
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)
Explore the ominous hallways of Arx Vaporum!
Wishlist Vaporum: Lockdown on Steam
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1161880
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.
Greetings from the dark corridors of Vaporum: Lockdown
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!
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.
We have a small Christmas present for you, 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.
