Great game! Alternate Endings?

[RolyPoly]

So I managed to finish the game. Fatbot Games, thank you guys for this wonderful experience.

I gotta say, the ending was pretty cool!
One thing that came to my mind was that maybe it's possible to get an alternative ending?
I don't want to know how, just whether it's possible or not :D

[.smx.]

Hi Ben! Thank you and congratulations to beating the game! :)

We are glad you have enjoyed it :)

Regarding the alternate endings ... hmmm ... well ... there have been some ideas during the development, but due to lack of time and manpower (it was just 4 of us) we didn't go this way.

Please spread the word anywhere you can, we have great reviews but somehow lack press coverage inspite of the efforts on our side and on the side of the PR company. :(

Thanks again!

[JaseMourne]

Hey Ben! Do you have a specific ending on your mind? Would love to hear your ideas on this!

[RolyPoly]

Yeah, I totally understand the manpower thing - it's impressive what you did with four people anyway!
Without spoiling too much, the ending could be considered the bad ending, since it doesn't end well for our character.
I had two hunches how I could achieve a better ending:
First, by saving Sophies golem (it died in the fight after I activated it)
Second, by letting Lora live after her plead for mercy when her life bar was almost empty (I had several AOE-gadgets going at that time, so she died from their damage)

Also, I thought that maybe finding all secrets would influence the ending.

As for the ending itself, for me it would actually be enough if only the last part where she makes our hero her Fumium ♥♥♥♥♥ :D were slightly different. It doesn't necesserily have to be a "good" ending - maybe she can keep her dad as equal, or stay behind in her tower as new ruler, or give us her teddy as souvenir... something minor like that. I'd think most of it could be done with the graphics already existing, but you'd probably need new voice lines.
Anyway, since I'm the only one to bring this up, I wouldn't spend too much time thinking about different endings if I were you :D

As for the press coverage:
I know how hard it can be (from my own experience, having a small Indie game company like yourself).
If you don't mind, I'd like to give you my thoughts, maybe they can help:

My guess would be that, after the quiet release, your best guess would be to prepare for shaping the game up to be a long seller.

I guess Vaporum's problem with press is that it lacks the "modernized genre comeback" story of the first Grimrock game - this is something that's always interesting to read, even if one is not a fan of the genre itself.
Saying that, I just found reviews on Rock Paper Shotgun and other major game sites, so maybe it doesn't look so bleak after all?
For Kotaku or Polygon, probably you'd have to find a nice enough hook - "The Bioshock RPG" or "The Legend of Steampunk Grimrock" or something like that would spring to mind, so they have a nice, interesting headline that promises to catch a lot of attention for their venues and thus, for you.

Another problem I saw was that, from what I heard and experienced, many of the hardcore crawler fans didn't all know about Vaporum's release - which is an absolute shame, since it's one of the best (for me, the best) crawlers in recent time.
Maybe we all got used to companies generating so much hype during development that we don't bother to look up new games ourselves :D
Still, it's always nice to experience the development of a game and to build the excitement.
Maybe we could get that hype during the development of an addon of some kind? I'd always appreciate "more of the same" if I like the game.

To be honest, outside of the one Facebook group, I don't know where the hardcore fans gather (I'm usually not that much into communicating about playing games on the internet).
My idea would be to simply contact the guys at Almost Human and ask them for help, since their marketing campaign for Grimrock was very effective (Well, probably you've already done that).

So, all in all, I also don't know exactly how to spread to word effectively -_-
But I'll do my best to recommend it to everybody I know that likes crawlers.

I don't know if the success of Grimrock can be replicated, but Vaporum certainly deserves more sales than it has now (at least from what I can see on Steamspy)!

[Zivi]

This game is really fun, but it could use alternate happier endings. And maybe a newgame+
While playing this game i really hoped i could save this guys Family and got suckerpunched in the end. The Story is mostly open and most of the questions didnt get answered. I hope you guys will expand this game in the near future.

[JaseMourne]

Hey z_i_v_i!

Thank you for your input!

> This game is really fun, but it could use alternate happier endings.

Interesting idea! What would trigger those alternate endings? The way you beat the boss or some other event?

> I hope you guys will expand this game in the near future.

We would like to, too! ;)

[mickthemage]

Originally posted by z_i_v_i:

This game is really fun, but it could use alternate happier endings. And maybe a newgame+
While playing this game i really hoped i could save this guys Family and got suckerpunched in the end. The Story is mostly open and most of the questions didnt get answered. I hope you guys will expand this game in the near future.

Well, it always could be worse. Marcus could be dead and be a fumium projection created by Sophie. ;- ) Who knows what secrets fumium holds... All things considered, it was probably the better ending. :-)

[Zivi]

First, one would need to find out what fumium really is and how it is connected to the daughter. If you find a way to save the wife you could find out together how to save the daughter.
Like the story is now its nowhere near finished.
Something i didnt like was, that the mainchar doesnt really search for answers and just keeps running through the mace and makes it up as it goes. Sure in Bioshock 1 this was really nice "would you kindly" but here this wouldnt work because there is absolutly no contact with anybody. The fumium clone thing would make sense but only to a certain degree. Why does the clone have the memories of the real one or why does he look normal. After a lot of Bioware Casey Hudson "Deus Ex Machina Endings" i wouldnt make this one to crazy.
Because i really like the setting of the story and i was really getting into saving the Family i was really disappointed that nothing i did mattered in the end. I also absolutly hate kids being the evil ones. That doesnt work for me :) A timeloop with memoryloss that can over time be lessend would be fun and really bump up replayability. You could give the Exoriggs (i think they were called that) skills, that can open up different path in the game. Also i would add more riggs with time if you achieve different things. In the end you should be able to get a really good rig with the cumulated environment skills i was talking earlier about to get the best ending. Hope this helps in any way :)

[mickthemage]

The thing is - or as I understand it right now - they were working with something they don't fully understand. They knew how to utilize fumium in many ways, but they hardly knew its true nature. The question then is - was there really chance to save someone? Lora? Was she beyond redemption? And the most important question - was Sophie really the evil one? :-)

[Ananke Steel]

Loved the game, great work! Especially monster strafing and attacking from distance made for pretty crazy fighting. About alternate ending some ideas:
- Getting the robot to survive could open the last elevator without giving back the teddy bear which could weaken Sophie
- Finding all lore could unlock a different teleport pattern, giving access to the core itself letting Marcus shut everything down (ev. a big Fumium boss thing instead)

Best to you all and kudos for a fun game!

[.smx.]

Originally posted by Ananke Steel:

Loved the game, great work! Especially monster strafing and attacking from distance made for pretty crazy fighting. About alternate ending some ideas:
- Getting the robot to survive could open the last elevator without giving back the teddy bear which could weaken Sophie
- Finding all lore could unlock a different teleport pattern, giving access to the core itself letting Marcus shut everything down (ev. a big Fumium boss thing instead)

Best to you all and kudos for a fun game!

Wow, thank you for the ideas Ananke! :)

I especially appreciate your knowledge about the story. One can see you took your time to read all notes ;).

Cheers!

[Bsquare]

Thanks for this very interesting game. You did very well the 4 of U.
In the meantime, is there any other ending?

[.smx.]

Originally posted by Bsquare:

Thanks for this very interesting game. You did very well the 4 of U.
In the meantime, is there any other ending?

Hey! Thanks! We're glad you liked our game, make sure to check out our next game coming out in a couple of weeks - Vaporum: Lockdown. There will be an official release date announcement today.

Unfortunately, there are no alternate endings in Vaporum. We'd love to do them, the game and the story is well suited for it, but our team grew just to 5 people and it's still a too expensive endeavour for us in such a small team and a small budget.

Stay tuned! :)

Cheers!

[PhamTrinli]

Here is my suggestion for an alternate ending (good ending)

Conditions:
Do not damage Sophie's golem during that fight.
Make recovering the Sophie's bear optional to progressing in the game. Must recover Sophie's bear.
Use the fully charged abrogator on Lora in the 3rd phase to finish her instead of killing her (destroys her connection to the fumium and her pyschic powers)

Result:
In the ending cutscene, you and Lora, together, convince Sophie to give up the use of fumium and leave the tower and settle on a remote island (mentioned earlier in a phonograph) and live happily ever after

[.smx.]

Originally posted by PhamTrinli:

Here is my suggestion for an alternate ending (good ending)

Conditions:
Do not damage Sophie's golem during that fight.
Make recovering the Sophie's bear optional to progressing in the game. Must recover Sophie's bear.
Use the fully charged abrogator on Lora in the 3rd phase to finish her instead of killing her (destroys her connection to the fumium and her pyschic powers)

Result:
In the ending cutscene, you and Lora, together, convince Sophie to give up the use of fumium and leave the tower and settle on a remote island (mentioned earlier in a phonograph) and live happily ever after

Interesting ideas :).

[mike13589]

Just played it in one sitting. It's an incredible game. The alternate ending idea is a welcome one. An ending where you break Lora or at least Sofie free from the influence of the fumium. Maybe Sofie retains her powers but doesn't lose herself completely. Maybe Lora has a moment of lucidity and has a moment with Sofie before she passes, leaving Sofie to live on without explicitly indicating if she's going to go crazy too. Just sort of let it hang in the air. That said, reading that only four people made this game is blowing my mind. Well done!