User:Haleth/Vambrace: Cold Soul

Vambrace: Cold Soul is a 2019 roguelike dungeon crawler role-playing video game developed by Devespresso Games. It was released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and multiple PC platforms including Windows. Set in a dark fantasy world, the game follows Evelia Lyric as she leads a series of expeditions to traverse the haunted lost city of Icenaire, which is covered under a deep layer of ice, in order to solve the mystery behind the magical vambrace she wields. From Dalearch, the last safe region within Icenaire, players may craft items, compose parties of adventurers for an expedition that traverses the city's haunted ruins and prepare Lyric for an eventual confrontation against a powerful adversary known as the Shade King.

Vambrace: Cold Soul bears many similarities to the 2016 video game Darkest Dungeon, particularly with its mix of real-time movement and turn-based combat, the player's management of a group of procedurally-generated characters who accompany Lyric, as well as gameplay mechanics which represent the toll it takes on party members with further exploration and combat. The game's art style is developed by Lead Artist Minho Kim and is similar in visual aesthetic to The Coma, a previous project developed by Devespresso Games.

Vambrace: Cold Soul drew mixed reviews from video game publications following its release. Praised focused on the game's artwork and engaging setting, while criticism highlighted its design decisions and unbalanced difficulty.

Gameplay
Vambrace: Cold Soul is a role-playing game where players assume the role of protagonist Evelia Lyric, who is determined to explore the frozen city of Icenaire and traverse its haunted streets with a band of procedurally generated heroes and adventurers. Players start at the Dalearch, a section of the city which is unaffected by the undead, which serves as a hub area for players to manage their roster of heroes as well as inventory of items. Players may travel around Dalearch's districts and converse with its various residents in a similar manner as a visual novel.

The core gameplay loop of Vambrace involves leading an expedition of adventurers from Dalearch into other regions of the city. Each region has various sectors that could be navigated with a map, and each room in a sector has a single procedurally generated encounter: it may end up being a combat encounter with enemies, a treasure room, or a camp where the player's party can rest. Each sector contain eight to ten rooms, though a path to the exit is generally only five rooms. Players must complete five sectors to reach the boss encounter of any region. Players can take more straight-forward routes through these sub-zones, or in the alternative, wander in the hopes of encountering more loot and treasure.

An important element of Vambrace: Cold Soul is its Health and Vigor system. Allowing a party member to deplete either may eventually lead to their death. A timer meter called a Geistometer runs while the player party is traversing a dungeon, slowly counting upwards in Terror until it is full, at which point the party is constantly beset by hostile encounters with undead Shades. Opportunities for healing and recovery are rare as the party can only heal outside of combat in specific camps, which is available in once instance per sector, unless a party member is a healer or if the player uses healing items. The rate of recovery for Health and Vigor while resting is randomly generated, based on Overwatch statistic of the character chosen by the player to guard the camp. Combat encounters play out in a turn-based manner. Enemy attacks drain Health or Vigor, and certain spells impart negative status effects like Terrified, Befuddled, or Sleepy that hampers the party's chances of survival. Retreating from the expedition is a viable strategy for players to preserve their resources and party members in the face of a potentially disastrous comba encounter. However, players will lose all accumulated progress on the expedition as a consequence and retains only the resources that they found along the way.

Players select up to three mercenaries, pulled at random from a pool comprised of five different races and 10 classes with distinct names and appearances, to accompany Lyric as they explore a series of procedurally-generated dungeons. Party members may be recruited from the Hunter's Camp, or during random encounters in the regions of Icenaire. At the beginning of the game, the pool that payers can choose from is limited in selection, and which subsequently expands as players complete chapters. With the exception of Lyric, who gradually improves from being one of the weakest members of the squad and improves the pool of potential characters at the Hunters Camp as a result, party members do not level up. Players may improve the statistics of existing party members by equipping new relics or crafted gear using material collected from slain foes on expeditions. Players may move a specific character's position in the party by selecting the character and then selecting the position they should be moving toward.

Plot
The game begins with a monologue narrated by Evelia Lyric, a woman who inherits a magical vambrace of unknown origin from her late father as well as an encrypted journal which claims that the vambrace is the key to entering the cursed city of Icenaire in the Dwarven realm of Dokkheim. Guided by her father's notes, Lyric leaves her home of Edena and travels to Icenaire on the impression that the vambrace is the key to bypass a thick icy barrier surrounding the city, which is preventing every other individual from entering or leaving it. The barrier is said to be created by a malevolent entity known as the Shade King, who commands a legion of undead wraiths that roam Icenaire's deserted streets and attack any living being they encounter.

Lyric is trapped deep in snow shortly after her arrival and loses consciousness, but is saved by a scavenging party before she freezes to death. Astonished at their discovery of the first outsider to have arrived in years, Lyric is taken to Dalearch, an underground settlement which is only safe space in Icenaire. Teetering on the verge of civil unrest, it is home to several competing factions who vie for control of the district: the Guardians, the Sylvani, and the North Venture Company. Following her awakening, Lyric discovers that she can break down the icy barriers that keep the people captive with the power of the vambrace she wields. Recruiting a group of like-minded adventurers, Lyric explores Icenaire's icy streets and progress further into the labyrinthine city, with the goal of unraveling the mystery of her father’s writings and defeat ​the Shade King.

Development
It was also a great challenge to make Vambrace will just a crew of four. Devespresso CEO Minho Kim is the Lead Artist of Vambrace. He did all of the art, animations, illustrations, and more. Riven compares creating games to synchronized swimming: everyone has their own role, and in the end it has to come together and create an enjoyable experience.. Early on during the pre-production of Vambrace, the team ended up in a phase of development Hell. To clear their heads, Riven and the rest of Devespresso made a remaster of a previous game—that remaster ended up being The Coma: Recut. With newfound vigor, Devespresso wanted to dive back into the world of Vambrace. One of their first prototypes wasn't through code, but actually a mock-up tabletop game. Riven and his colleague Minho Kim were big fans of tabletops, so it was a fitting choice.

"The basic philosophy was," said Riven, "if we can't play this as a tabletop and enjoy it, then why would we start writing code for it?" He explained that the trial and error process of prototyping code would be more difficult than testing the mechanics in tabletop form. After playing many rounds of pen-and-paper Vambrace in a South Korean café, they were confident enough to transition over to code. Riven describes Vambrace's development in two phases. One very early build during the first six months, the team had put a lot of work into the game, having built levels in Unity and using character sprite sheets. "The very early version of the game we didn't have the encounters very well-planned out," said Riven, "and the fact that we were using sprite sheets made it a lot more difficult to incorporate the scope of the characters that we wanted in the game."

Scrapping sprite sheets and transitioning the game over to spine animation, along with other large changes. This allowed for faster and more efficient animation. FTL: Faster than Light was a game Riven enjoyed, and he wanted to incorporate gameplay elements of it into Vambrace. I looked at games like FTL: Faster Than Light for a lot of inspiration. I sank way more hours than I had any business into playing that game - I really loved it. And, what came to mind for me was "How do I take this experience and turn this into a dungeon crawler with like four characters in my party?" And I really liked the aspect of FTL where you're visiting nodes and you're having these, kind of little adventures or encounters, and stuff like that. Gameplay also stemmed from a tabletop game called Betrayal at House on the Hill. The premise of this is leading a group of adventurers from one point to the next, having unique encounters along the way. One difference is that Vambrace is less stat-driven and more heavy on strategic gameplay decisions and the type of equipment you outfit your party with.

Other inspirations are clear more through the aesthetics. The Gothic horror vibe is influenced by Castlevania. Meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls' strong lore and immersion is evident in Vambrace as well. Players might also notice at a first glance that Vambrace looks a bit like Darkest Dungeon. Tristan says that this is an understandable reaction, but assures players that Vambrace is its own game. "...aside from the aesthetics of, let's say a side-scrolling game," said Riven, "four characters, navigating through a dungeon, that's kind of where the similarities of those games end."

Make no mistake, Vambrace is a difficult game. It features roguelike elements such as permadeath, which proved to be a challenge to develop for Devespresso. The question was, how could they create an epic storyline with roguelike mechanics? Riven says that one of the tenants of roguelikes are that once you die, that's the end. What Devespresso came up with was a game that spans across seven different chapters. Within each chapter is a self-contained expedition in the city of Icenaire. "Once you have set up your party and outfitted them with the proper equipment," said Riven, "you set out on the expedition, and the expedition is where the roguelike and punishing gameplay kind of comes into the fold."

"So, when I assemble my party I set out on an expedition," said Riven, "either one, I will complete my mission and defeat the boss and then return home victorious. Or two, my entire party is going to get decimated. In which case, I lose all of my items and then I have to start the expedition all the way back over from the beginning - which is no good." Devepresso wanted players to become immersed in the story. While Icenaire is for combat, the underground city is for the plot to move forward. "We wanted a world where you could just focus on that story and take a break from the dungeon-crawling aspect of the game. this safe haven is a place to prepare for expeditions. "The kinds of equipment that you can build are not typically things that you can just buy from the merchants," said Riven. "And since characters don't level up - they don't collect experience points, they don't upgrade naturally through combat progression or anything like that - the way that you improve your characters is by outfitting them with better equipment."

Kim was primarily inspired by media such as illustrated tale books when he started drawing to visualize his own original stories. Other sources of inspiration included game arts and media that left a deep impression on him. According to Kim, much of the game's artistic effort was done by his hand and these sketches were incorporated directly into the game’s main art. He struggled for a time to finalize his artistic vision of the game, but reached a breakthrough once he finished the final portrait illustration of the game's protagonist Evelia Lyric. For the game's art style, Kim aimed for a more polished look in contrast to Devespresso's previous game, The Coma: Cutting Class. Minho's team completed work on a remastered edition of The Coma titled The Coma: Recut prior to the release of Vambrace; Kim noted that though it was well received by Steam reviewers, Vambrace served as an opportunity for his team to prove themselves. Although the visual style for Vambrace has not evolved much from The Coma once development officially began, he was able to pin down visuals that mixed his original illustrative style and games he previously worked on. Kim claimed that the body of art work he single-handedly produced for Vambrace was "overwhelming" and about equal to the amount produced by an art team between one to two years.

Conceptual work for the art of Vambrace began in 2016. Ultimately, the process in capturing the world and concept of Vambrace was 15 years in the making. The first iteration began when Minho was young, but it wasn't until writer and designer create the engaging, life-or-death gameplay of Vambrace: Cold Soul. According to Minho, Riven "built a new foundation of lore" with all the races, cultures and nations included in the final product. "He used a bottom-up approach to world building," said Minho, "to ensure everything fit together in a cohesive manner. All the art was affected by it, and it was a pleasure to be familiar with all sides of the creative process." Another reason to have this large, overhead view was to give players a strong visualization of the damage and scale of the curse placed upon Icenaire. Minho discussed every detail of this world with the team, to the extent that he would dream of Vambrace's cursed landscape and dark underground.

However, Vambrace's style changes to a notable, side-scrolling adventure during combat, dialogue, and some instances of exploration. This was "one of the foundational concept pillars of the game from the beginning," according to Minho. "The work was smooth, from a design approach, since all the following designs came from that frame of reference." Minho made sure to vary the look of the city of Icenaire. While it's a ruined city covered in ice and snow, it is still a city with different quarters and the like. The most difficult work with the city was working with the weather effects; everything could have just been white and frozen. However, this is an unnatural curse and the Icenaire did not look that way in the past. This means the ruins of the city had to look varied. I approached it from that angle and I think each of the city’s quarters comes to life in their own ways.

The setting of Vambrace is in two primary areas: above ground and below. The city of Icenaire sits on the cold surface, haunted by evil foes. The only solace from the terrors above is in the underground city of Dalearch. Wherever you are in the game, you'll notice a change in perspective, and thus the visuals accommodate that change. When you're moving from building to building Dalearch and sometimes on the surface, Vambrace takes a bird's eye view. The decision to do this was capture the world's sense of scale. "That was mainly inspired by legendary JRPGs from our past - games like FF6 and Chrono Trigger - and it happened naturally," said Minho. "Tristan [Vambrace's writer and designer] was an especially strong proponent for this and loved the final outcome."

The possibility of romance was discussed among the developers at one point. In a narrative-driven game with a long, fleshed-out story, branching dialogue options and multiple endings, a sacrifice had to be made. "We thought if we we're going to do [romance] justice," said Riven, "we need to do it right, and that means really devoting some time to making the dialogue and the way that these relationships unfold legit and interesting, not just a tacked on feature, so that ended up falling by the wayside." "The kinds of equipment that you can build are not typically things that you can just buy from the merchants," said Riven. "And since characters don't level up - they don't collect experience points, they don't upgrade naturally through combat progression or anything like that - the way that you improve your characters is by outfitting them with better equipment."

Release

 * https://techraptor.net/gaming/guides/delving-deep-into-gameplay-design-of-vambrace-cold-soul
 * https://techraptor.net/gaming/guides/how-devespresso-games-crafted-brand-new-world-in-vambrace-cold-soul
 * https://rpgamer.com/game/vambrace-cold-soul/
 * https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/06/check_out_upcoming_switch_rpg_vambrace_cold_soul_with_this_three-part_video_series
 * https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/02/vambrace_cold_soul_brings_roguelike_fantasy_to_switch_this_summer
 * https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/08/rpg_vambrace_cold_soul_scores_switch_release_date_and_major_gameplay_improvements
 * https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/05/learn_all_about_vambrace_cold_souls_rpg_adventure_with_this_new_story_trailer

Reception
Vambrace: Cold Soul received mixed or average reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.

This lowers the initial attachment to party members. They might look and sound unique, but you'll eventually drop them for something better, so it doesn't matter. So, leveling is almost non-existent, your party pulls are completely random, and healing is difficult at best and completely random at worst. This means farming is the only way forward, but again, Terror is consistent and can't be lowered. If there's a part of Vambrace that succeeds wonderfully, it's this narrative and aesthetic layer.

The streets beyond Dalearch feel forgotten, and the zones show the former touches of life and the other adventurers who have died there. The writing isn't entirely top-shelf, but I found myself actually interested in the story of Vambrace in-between the relentless death and dungeon diving.