First, link:
Homepage. Straight to the
download page.
Second, blurb:
Vapors of Insanity is a roguelike game set on a paradise island of Fortarica, where the common Humans, mighty Dwarves and Orcs, insect-like Melissans and Formicans, and many more people lived in peace and harmony... until now. One day, you wake up, and see magical fog everywhere around you, and every man and beast around seems to become a mindless machine, wanting only to kill you! The only way to find the source of the problem is to fight the crazy beasts, hoping that you will find a way to remove the vapors, and the beasts will be sane again... Will you be able to win?
Vapors of Insanity features:
A big three-dimensional world, consisting of a big variety of outdoor, building, and underground locations.
You can play both in hex and orthogonal mode.
An original spell system, where you can build complicated spells using simpler spells as components.
Also original skill/experience and fighting systems.
Many hopefully interesting magical gadgets that can be found.
A variety of creatures and items to find: about 150 types of items, 150 species of monsters and plants, 150 materials (including potions), 150 types of magical runes, 80 skills and spells; some of them are parametrized. These include both the standard high fantasy stuff and more original ideas.
Graphics that are supposed to not only have the advantages of a graphical display (better aesthetics, accessibility for new players), but also the roguelikes' classical ASCII display (clarity, allowing one to use imagination, simplicity of creation of new monsters and items). An ASCII mode is also provided for SSH access, and other hardcore ASCII fans.
Third, why the hell you should care: My last character melted three people and a number of miscellaneous animals via spewing out a massive spray of acid that covered my entire field of vision, before dying to a kobold, giant mutated eye, and a pair of giant lizards -- the massive amount of acid I covered them in melts slow
My
current character is wandering around the countryside viciously murdering everything he comes across with a dagger-inflicted spell that covers my foes in flashfrozen
liquid air, then using his artificer trained skill in
creating golems to reanimate the corpses as zombies, spreading a slowly growing swarm of undead minions before, behind, and around him.
Short version: Incredibly versatile and awesome magic system that lets you freely mix and match component spells into whatever strikes your fancy, elemental interaction (water+frost=snow, which is frost but longer lasting and more damaging, lightning does more damage to creatures covered in water, etc.), detailed (or at least complicated, ha) crafting system including weapon, armor, and potion creation, golem creation, and a number of other things I haven't personally seen yet, and a pretty well fleshed out skill system for an alpha.
Lastly,
the warning. As a DF player to other DF players, the UI for this thing is DF level horrible, or at least horribly clunky. Using a skill is going to take
at least four keypresses, possibly more. Example, casting a spell -- the quick and easy way, with a simple spell -- 'f z <number> enter enter'. Melee attacking is the only thing that happens in one button press, and that's only if you're attacking something directly in front of you -- attacking to the sides takes (at least) three (a 1 enter). There's facing and it takes a (small) bit of time to change your direction, so that can be pretty important in a particularly pitched battle.
First thing that I recommend: Before starting the game, go into vapors.ini and change 'hex' to 'oct'; this'll change the view to a standard grid, which is a bit easier to look at, imo. One you start the game, press 'n enter g 2 enter' (otherwise known as starting a new game and firing up the tutorial), then hit enter and
go through the tutorial. It helps tremendously in figuring what the blue hell you need to do to get from point A to point B and spew out a zombie horde. The tutorial also gives a pretty good idea of whether you're going to be able to stomach the game or not, hopefully saving y'some time if your reaction's negative..
Finally, it's an alpha -- very feature filled for one, but an alpha nonetheless, so various problems may or may not arise.
Anyway, check this thing out, see what neat crap you can do, then come back and discuss. This seems to be something that's right up a DF player's alley.