Vampire Survivors was released on the 17th of December, but it gained unexpected popularity only recently. In Steam at its peak 62 thousand gamers were playing it, and on Twitch streams on the game were watched by 139 thousand fans of driving gameplay. But what made the indie action game so successful? I have evaluated Vampire Survivors, chopped ten thousand creatures into a cabbage and I’m in a hurry to share my impressions!
What is Vampire Survivors
Vampire Survivors was created by Luca Galante. For a long time the developer had been administering a private Ultima Online server, making customised browser games and only dreamed of conquering the gaming industry. According to him, the decisive motivation to start his own project was the desire to gather a community and organise friendly online meetings with it.
Once Luca spent 1.5 thousand dollars on assemblies, artwork and music, and then sat down to create Vampire Survivors. The developer didn’t even expect to make a hit out of the new game, except that he hoped to recoup his investment in a year or two. The game was released in early access on the 17th of December and at first it didn’t find its audience: for a long time less than a dozen gamers were playing it. They enjoyed the gameplay and praised the project, but it was not enough.
As usual, youtubers changed everything. On New Year holidays Vampire Survivors review was posted by a famous blogger with an audience of 700 thousand subscribers – that’s when the madness started. Online gradually grew to 62 thousand, 99 per cent of the game’s reviews became positive, and every streamer felt it his duty to tear the evil to pieces. As you can see, the story of the unexpected popularity of the game is a lot like Among Us. The game about the search for the traitor was also not interesting to many people, until it was praised by streamers and youtubers. But does Vampire Survivors deserve such success? Definitely, yes. Luca Galante has managed to create a fantastically addictive gameplay: there is nothing easier than to look at Vampire Survivors for five minutes and stay in it all day long.
Vampire Survivors gameplay
So far, Vampire Survivors has no story or lore. Given the presence of different locations and particularly powerful enemies, the killing of which is marked, one day the game will have at least a minor story. Until then, however, the bet is placed solely on gameplay. At first, Luca’s creation does not impress with its variety. There is only one character to choose from, and the gameplay is uninspiring in the first minutes. The brave hero runs on the grass and sadly stabs bats. And in Vampire Survivors there isn’t even a punch button. All the gamer can do is to run around the map and watch the character perform attacks on his own. After such a start someone may switch off the game and take it off PC, but you shouldn’t make hasty conclusions.
The thing is that blue stones fall from enemies – they bring experience. Collect a couple of them and the hero will be able to add another attack to his arsenal. Fireballs, lightning bolts, holy water vials, magic attacks, bibles circling around the fighter and much more can be added to the whip.
Each level, the character will gain new enhancements. They can be passive and will teach you to run faster, restore health, reduce the cooldown of attacks, increase damage from spells and so on. Or active: we’re talking about a variety of different weapons. After all, there is an option to pump up the existing arsenal. A weak whip will eventually turn into a weapon of death, destroying even the most powerful creatures, and ordinary fireballs will become deadly meteorites. It turns out that at the beginning of the roll, the hero has only one weak attack in his arsenal, which can only stop the weakest devils. However, by level 60 he will turn into a horseman of the apocalypse and every second will destroy a hundred evil creatures, overflowing the screen with special effects. However, it’s not easy to grow to such power. Enemies are constantly advancing, and from their pincers now and then you need to break free. In addition, creatures like to ambush and surround the hero – you can save yourself only thanks to great dexterity. And you should choose improvements wisely: ideally, perks should complement each other. As a result, the path from wimp to nagibator turned out to be as fun as possible. During the passage you can feel how with each new level you become stronger, and notice more and more deadly monsters that replace the weaklings. Each new run is not like the previous one. There are 17 active and 15 passive skills in total in Vampire Survivors, and each level gained allows you to choose one of three randomised upgrades. So, if last time you lit up the map with the help of axes and fireballs, in the new rink you’ll probably have to rely on other options. In general, the hero’s pumping is the most exciting part of gameplay, because when he becomes powerful, the interest disappears. The hero doesn’t need to sweat anymore, because from now on he is a hunter, not a prey. By level 60 the whole arsenal is pumped to the full, and the enemies can not oppose the enemy – how not to get bored here. In the end, even the mightiest hero will be crushed by the evil, but five dreary minutes will not be avoided.
In the final stage, the fact that enemies don’t shoot is particularly noticeable – they can only do damage when they get close to the character. Some of the creatures fly towards the target and explode, or attack sharply in large packs, but none have ranged attacks. Perhaps an expansion of vampire abilities could revitalise gameplay when the hero has reached peak power. However, the process of becoming a hero takes much longer, and it is as exciting as possible. After all, the hero needs not only to fight and collect experience, but also to plan his actions. For example, from time to time special enemies appear on the map: it’s not so easy to kill them, but the reward will be a chest with coins and additional improvement. Plus, there’s health replenishing food scattered around the map, and special items fall out of defeated enemies – they stop time, turn your character into a magnet that attracts experience points, destroy all the villains on the screen, and much more. To get to such valuables, you’ll often have to think out a route.As a result, the gameplay of Vampire Survivors seems outrageously primitive, but it’s enough to keep you engrossed. The battles with the devil are very addictive – and the game has other features as well.
Elements of “roguelike” in Vampire Survivors
The hero collects gold coins on each of his missions. They are scattered around the map, fall out of chests left by particularly evil creatures, and become a reward for special merits like killing bosses. You don’t need coins during the roll – they are useful during breaks. The main thing about gold is that you can spend it on new characters. Each of them has their own starting weapons and features.
For example, Gennaro initially has a passive that increases the number of weapons. While a normal hero will throw only one axe at enemies at first, Gennaro will throw two at once. The old man Poe has a reduced amount of health, but he attracts objects at a greater distance and immediately wields the imbecile garlic. There are 13 of these characters in total. In addition, gold can be spent on upgrading. By investing coins, you will be able to make all heroes faster, add power to attacks, teach them to gain more experience and much more. This will cost a lot, but will simplify the rolls. To raise more money, you can pass levels in accelerated mode. Then the enemies will be much faster, but coins will fall out 50 per cent more. The “roguelike” mechanics add interest to Vampire Survivors. The system may be rudimentary, but given the addictive gameplay, you always want to collect a bigger coin purse, learn more skills, and break the record for time spent on a level.
Graphics, system requirements and soundtrack
From the screens it is easy to notice that the developer relied on gameplay, but not on the tricked-out visuals – with a budget of 1.5 thousand dollars, you can’t do it any other way. However, the visuals turned out to be quite adequate, the variety of monsters is impressive, and the effects are nice. To run Vampire Survivors, even a primitive PC with 1 GB of RAM and Intel Pentium 4 processor will be enough. Any video card will do. You shouldn’t expect any bugs or crashes – the project works stably. But the soundtrack is worth complaining about: already on the tenth minute of passing the looped melodies begin to annoy. It’s better to switch off the sound in the settings and switch on your own playlist – it will be more fun to slay creatures that way.
Vampire Survivors is a great game with fantastically addictive gameplay. It quickly pulls you in and doesn’t let you go until you unlock all the heroes and kill the most powerful enemies. Considering that the project costs only 82 rubles, you can’t think of a better way to spend your money.
