Vagrus: The Riven Realms – Project Update and Sale

The latest project update for Lost Pilgrims Studio’s turn-based post-apocalyptic fantasy RPG Vagrus: The Riven Realms delves into the realm of console ports, controller support, and accessibility features. And afterwards, we’re also nudged towards voting for the game in the Steam Awards and purchasing it during the Autumn Sale.

Here’s more on the console and accessibility angle:

Hello all,

This week we’re proud to reveal a little more about what our best and brightest pilgrims have been working on here at Lost Pilgrims Studio. The first major change is something we foreshadowed in a Steam post a while back – porting. We will also be covering the integration of controller support across platforms later in this post, so read on if you’d like to know more about that.

For now, back to porting. Included under that heading is the optimization of Vagrus for all mobile devices, tablets, and, of course, the recently released Steam Deck. Naturally, the main goal of these projects has been to bring the game to a larger audience; an audience that can play on the move, which certainly suits turn-based games such as our own. So, without further ado, let’s examine what we’ve been able to achieve so far, starting as so many players do with Agos – the enigmatic vagabond who introduces players to the Pilgrims of the Wasteland scenario.

Another key aspect it has allowed us to address is accessibility. Players have, at times, expressed concerns about the font size in Vagrus, and with us focusing on porting, we have also been able to implement a zoom feature for the PC client. We are still in the process of fine-tuning and fully integrating the feature, but we are confident that in doing so we will improve user experiences across the board.

As you can see above, we’ve optimized the formatting of the text to be legible on handheld devices. But what about in-game? Is it possible to read all the wonderful prose that players have come to expect from the Riven Realms? Absolutely! Just double-tap to zoom in, as shown below.

For the sake of following up, we’ve also included another screenshot of a closer view – after the player has used the double-tap feature, of course! Check it out below.

Luckily, that’s not all. Because we want to make sure that players’ user experience does not suffer even slightly while using a small screen, players will also be able to scroll or swipe to navigate the UI, as captured below with the journal.

And since we’ve set a precedent of following up, here’s the subsequent result of the player swiping left…

Multi-platform Controller Support

We are working on full controller support for standard controllers and gamepad layouts including PCs, mobile devices, and – at some point – we hope we can get things working on hand-held and desktop console ports as well.

It is important to note that all this is still very much work-in-progress, most of what you are about to see and read is subject to change, and the implementation is quite time-intensive, so please bear with us. That said, PC players are likely to be the first ones to enjoy controller support.

We have created a modern navigation system on UI and for all functions from scratch, specifically for controllers. In other words, it isn’t simply the existing cursor-based system repurposed for controllers.

Direct buttons will be assigned for specific functions to make things easier.

Selecting and switching between UI elements during gameplay will also be comfortable.

What about analog stick use? We’ve come up with a radial menu to best tackle that issue.

We are also working on an easy drag & drop system to be implemented at various points of gameplay.

We are simplifying Perk selection and trading functions in settlements, too.

Though they are deep in the pipeline currently, we hope that when released these changes will help improve player experiences across all platforms. In the coming months, we will be able to share more and more of what we’ve been working on and intend to release.

Vagrus is also currently taking part in Steam’s Autumn Sale, so if you or a friend is looking to pick the game up for a discount, the time is now, pilgrims!

As always, stay safe – stay tuned – and conquer the wasteland!

The Lost Pilgrims Team