Vellum
Worth it · Roguelike · 2025
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $19.99.
- Length
- 8.2h
- Value
- $2.44/hr
- Reviews
- 90% positive
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, GTX 960 / R9 280, 4 GB of storage. Windows only.
Write on! Defend the books in Vellum, a co-op, literary roguelike! Harness class-defining colors, master an inspired spellbook, and influence the growth of your enemy! As a group or solo, you'll craft plot-twisting builds to rewrite the rules in Ink!
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
It has never been cheaper than $9.99. That was June 2026. 27 discounts in the 3 years on record. They run about 30 percent off, roughly 6 weeks apart.
On value it sits in the top 27 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 81 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 76 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Risk of Rain 2 ($24.99, scores 88) beats it on value, while it beats What the Fog ($4.99, scores 37).
This site sampled 434 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 16 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written March 2024 to September 2026. That is more refunded reviewers than 7 in 10 paid games this site has sampled to the same depth, and among the 698 games in its genre sampled this deeply, 71 have a larger share. Inside the two-hour refund window, 60 percent of the 162 reviews written there were positive, against 90 percent overall, and those are 13 percent of everything written about it.
HowLongToBeat players log 8.2 hours as a typical playtime, and completionists log 40, 4.9 times as much.
The drop-off
91% start to 3% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
12 players online when we last checked, on Sep 29, 08:49 UTC.
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
An absolute gem no one seems to know about. Vellum is a roguelike shooter that's beautifully designed, has a distinct style, is remarkably well optimized, and is fun and challenging besides. Just an excellent game. Gameplay in Vellum is choosing an ink from a large selection, each of which has a specific style of combat attached to it: critical striking, AOE leeching, applying DOTs, and many more. Then you select a...
What a charming game! Its so witty and in depth with its word play story and I love the roguelike and all the cosmetics elements as well. Definitely a charmer and highly recommended.
2.5 hrs in isn't the longest time to play a game. The ideas are sound and the versatility seemed promising. But simply Shift+Tab to check the time in the Steam overlay has caused my game to hard crash my laptop once and crash the game a second time. I missed my mark to be able to return the game by 30 minutes. If this were fixed along with smoothing out the transitions from chapter to chapter a little more I might...
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Vellum scores 68/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/917950/vellumReviews set the ceiling, and the size of the player base moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 27, price as of Oct 1.
A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.