The main character of Vessel is M. Arkwright, an inventor who creates a liquid-composed labor-performing automaton, called the Fluro.

In order to restore the machinery back to a functioning status, Arkwright must travel through the world of Vessel and fix the broken parts.

Using many different forms of liquid, such as water or lava, the player creates Fluros to do things such as activate switches, move cogs, and pull levers.

[6] Strange Loop Games is a company founded by two programmers: John Krajewski and Martin Farren.

Both former employees of Electronic Arts, they left in order to pursue creating games with new and interesting gameplay mechanics instead of high quality graphics.

[7] The Vessel team includes Milenko Tunjic, the art director, and Mark Filippelli, the lead artist.

[8][9] The physics engine consists of individual particles that exhibit pressure on one another, as well as taking surface tension and viscosity into consideration.

The created fluid shapes are also illuminated through a clustering algorithm that adds point-lights to a liquid depending on how closely packed a group of particles are.