A couple of minutes into The Vaults, and I’m already impressed with what I’ve seen. The sound, visuals, and interface are closer to that of a commercial game than the single-authored works you tend to see in IFComp. Yet it does appear to be written by a single author! The scope of the game seems vast as well: It looks like a full-scale deck-based RPG, complete with ability tracks and experience, three game modes, trading, crafting, and more. While The Vaults does remind me a little of last year’s Tragic, I still wasn’t expecting to see a game like this in IFComp.
Yet I quickly found The Vaults difficult to play. The game gives you lots of instructions, but it mostly does so at the very beginning. There was too much information for me to keep track of, with the result that when I started my first battle I had little idea what I was doing. After a good bit of trial and error, though, I did manage to win that one. I played a few more battles as well, slowly learning what some of the symbols mean and how they affect combat. But it was not easy going. I would have been helped greatly if there were text mouseovers during battle for all of the symbols in the interface, explaining what those symbols mean. There were also a surprising number of spelling and punctuation errors for a game that is less text-heavy than a typical IFComp game.
I might have had the patience to play The Vaults further, maybe even through to the end, if I weren’t in the middle of IFComp. I like RPGs, a great deal of thought and work went into this one, and I suspect that if I could grasp all the mechanics I might really enjoy it. But the combination of dozens of other games still to play in IFComp plus having to teach myself much of the The Vault‘s gameplay by trial and error were just too much for me at this point.
Still, I’m impressed with The Vault‘s production values and scope. With some better in-game instructions, I can see plenty of RPG fans enjoying this one.
An Exercise for the Reader 