Vellum is an upcoming magic-themed action-roguelite that has already managed to garner a lot of attention, including some from yours truly.
Following on from the previous round of coverage, when Vellum’s Early Access release date was revealed, the developers at Alvios Games were kind enough to talk to me about their game and answer a few of my questions.
I’m obviously biased, but I think the interview worked out really well, and I’ll be publishing the full version of it tomorrow. In the meantime, however, I’d like to warm you up with a couple of interesting tidbits that one of the game’s lead developers, Jonathan Schenker, shared about the titles that have informed the studio’s design philosophy.
Vellum’s Inspirations
“We’re big fans of the roguelike genre, and our learnings from many different games went into the current feature-set of Vellum,” Schenker told Rogueliker.
“We’re really into Hades and Gunfire Reborn (and Ziggurat and Crab Champions and Risk of Rain 2 and Ember Knights and…) which have influenced our approach regarding many of the roguelike staples (upgrades, map design, meta-progression, ability ideas, etc.).”
Now for the surprising bit, as Schenker revealed two amazing games from yesteryear that have had a profound impact on the pacing of the multiplayer (including one from my all-time favourite franchise: Halo).
“We’ve also been heavily inspired by some non-roguelike games, particularly for the cooperative multiplayer aspects of the game – Halo 3: ODST Firefight and Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer were big inspirations for the combat pacing, and feel of enemy aggression in a cooperative setting.”
For the uninitiated, the co-op waved-based Firefight mode was first introduced to the Halo series in ODST all the way back in 2009, and it was so good it went on to feature prominently in subsequent games.
Meanwhile, Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode was included in the final chapter of the original series. It allowed players to influence their overall campaign readiness. It was a bit buggy, that much I remember, but I also recall that it was a lot of fun.
Slay it, don’t spray it
Later on in the interview, as part of an answer to a follow-up question, we also talked about the challenges of balancing a game like Vellum. It was then that another big name in the roguelite space came up as a reference.
“The devs of Slay the Spire gave an awesome GDC talk a few years ago about the balancing and tooling strategies they use. We have set up a lot of similar infrastructure,” Schenker explained.
Given how well the challenge has been balanced in Mega Crit’s deckbuilder, this bodes well for Vellum’s long term replayability.
Given that their references are nearly all favourites of mine – even the decade-old sci-fi shooters – I’m even more excited about Early Access and getting my hands on Vellum, which is due on March 28th. If you can’t wait that long, head over to Steam and download the demo!
