All of the let's play narration for these random-build-focused slot-machine-action-games is like 'ohh after your 50th run you'll have enough gopher coins to now unlock the Zuckerberg's Icon so now when you play Billy Boy and choose the Steven Stone for your 14th Arcana Tier you'll be able to Yummymax your way past the 4th Tier of Encroachening when you face the waves of 23 Yeti-men. Make sure to spend you 1.0% APR Slammy Shards only on Subtle-enchanted Attack Boosts to make sure the chance of reaching Heaven is fulfilled on a blue day! Like comment and subscribe
Vampire Survivors is quite literally what all those shitty mobile games pretend to be, but minus the entirety of a grindy f2p business model. So the game is just fun. It's basically a big dopamine button hooked directly to your brain that you can mash until you are spent. For a game priced at just 3€, it's more enjoyable than many 60-80€ games that forget to prioritize fun nowadays.
Vampire Survivors is great for a cheap game that you can get a good amount of enjoyable for serveral hours. Through incremental item and character additions and the most absurdly easy gameplay it gets you addicted even though you’re not really doing anything but moving your character around while he does the fighting for you. It’s nothing special but for a game less than $5 you can do much much worse. The first few attempts are really fun as you are learning that all the items, weapons, and new characters do. However the game does drop off once you find the characters are mostly just skin swaps and you find the best combo of weapons to use. Once you figure that weapon combo you almost can’t lose. It’s not a game I would necessary recommend to everyone but for someone looking for a cheap game it’s definitely worth looking at.
I don't understand why this is so immensely popular. It's cheap-looking and very unengaging. If I wanted to walk around in circles while unfitting music played, I could just put on headphones and go outside. Playing this makes me feel like I'm thinking about playing a video game.
This is it? This is the game that I saw break the website in two for a short bit???
Ok being real I don’t like this game, breaking a game down to its most basic mechanics and just having it be a “watch the numbers go up” stuff is fine for like a time waster games but I saw so much praise and pure vile hatred flung at this game and even after playing it I’m just confused on why people would even get as mad at this game as they did. So I got super bored and decided to just play it for myself to get a better understanding of what people were even talking about.
Is this one of the best games of last year…..eh….that’s really a person by person thing, personally I’d say hell no since this is as basic as a video game can by; it’s pure ADHD filled gunk all the way down with every little for me to chew on besides lore pages which read are fffffine, very gay and I mean that in a good way; but I’m dyslexic as fuck so when it comes to lore I’d much rather you have it implemented into the pre-existing world and have people figure it out along the way like Dark Crystal or Zeno Clash, or just have it slowly unfold itself on to the player as they explore it more and meet more of it’s world like Mass Effect or Lord of the Rings, in compersion to just have some poor underpaid intern just write page after page of lore for a world and characters that look like NFTs. The sprites are fine but too static for my taste, most of the background are also static and super plane; I guess it’s to make it easier when all the enemies just bum rush you but I just think it looks to dull, and the whole upgrading system during the game is actually just pure dopamine rushes and I still don’t know if I like it or not; on the one hand it make my ADD happy and it’s fun to look at the pretty colors, on the other hand half the time I feel like I’m looking at a slot machine and I feel gross and nasty just thinking about the weird manipulative dopamine tactics I can feel oozing out of the look boxes you find.
Overall I can understand why people would play this over and over again and enjoy every second of it. I just couldn’t get into it mostly because I like my games to have substance like a hooking narrative or fun evolving gameplay. I’ll still never understand people who have this weird hatred for this game though.
LIke I get where people are coming from when they say this game is really bad and it’s a pure nothing of a video game once you break it down but like……it’s not like it’s trying to be much else. It’s a time waster game that cost 5 bucks; what else were you expecting? Like is this really the hill you wanna die on? Do you wanna die on the hill calling forth a game that is about on the same level as shit like cookie clicker? While I don’t personally like games like this I’m not gonna get mad over it and more importantly feel as though people or REALLY like the game are wrong in some way, to me these are just junk food games that you play when you don’t wanna think and you just wanna fiddle with you hand while on a call in discord or something I can think of FAR worse game you could do that with (I’ve been doing it with Mafia 3 and I’ve hated every second of it, idk why I keep playing it but I have). I didn’t want to turn this last bit into a gamer rant so I’ll just leave it at let people play what they wanna play, and hate on the game just because the writer of the game is Jim Stephanie Sterling, that’s just poorly masking your transphobia and they get enough shit from gamers already so like please just leave them alone and stop stalking them on twitter thinking you owned them by calling them a man; you didn’t do jack shit that just makes you very cringe and gay.
Ok being real I don’t like this game, breaking a game down to its most basic mechanics and just having it be a “watch the numbers go up” stuff is fine for like a time waster games but I saw so much praise and pure vile hatred flung at this game and even after playing it I’m just confused on why people would even get as mad at this game as they did. So I got super bored and decided to just play it for myself to get a better understanding of what people were even talking about.
Is this one of the best games of last year…..eh….that’s really a person by person thing, personally I’d say hell no since this is as basic as a video game can by; it’s pure ADHD filled gunk all the way down with every little for me to chew on besides lore pages which read are fffffine, very gay and I mean that in a good way; but I’m dyslexic as fuck so when it comes to lore I’d much rather you have it implemented into the pre-existing world and have people figure it out along the way like Dark Crystal or Zeno Clash, or just have it slowly unfold itself on to the player as they explore it more and meet more of it’s world like Mass Effect or Lord of the Rings, in compersion to just have some poor underpaid intern just write page after page of lore for a world and characters that look like NFTs. The sprites are fine but too static for my taste, most of the background are also static and super plane; I guess it’s to make it easier when all the enemies just bum rush you but I just think it looks to dull, and the whole upgrading system during the game is actually just pure dopamine rushes and I still don’t know if I like it or not; on the one hand it make my ADD happy and it’s fun to look at the pretty colors, on the other hand half the time I feel like I’m looking at a slot machine and I feel gross and nasty just thinking about the weird manipulative dopamine tactics I can feel oozing out of the look boxes you find.
Overall I can understand why people would play this over and over again and enjoy every second of it. I just couldn’t get into it mostly because I like my games to have substance like a hooking narrative or fun evolving gameplay. I’ll still never understand people who have this weird hatred for this game though.
LIke I get where people are coming from when they say this game is really bad and it’s a pure nothing of a video game once you break it down but like……it’s not like it’s trying to be much else. It’s a time waster game that cost 5 bucks; what else were you expecting? Like is this really the hill you wanna die on? Do you wanna die on the hill calling forth a game that is about on the same level as shit like cookie clicker? While I don’t personally like games like this I’m not gonna get mad over it and more importantly feel as though people or REALLY like the game are wrong in some way, to me these are just junk food games that you play when you don’t wanna think and you just wanna fiddle with you hand while on a call in discord or something I can think of FAR worse game you could do that with (I’ve been doing it with Mafia 3 and I’ve hated every second of it, idk why I keep playing it but I have). I didn’t want to turn this last bit into a gamer rant so I’ll just leave it at let people play what they wanna play, and hate on the game just because the writer of the game is Jim Stephanie Sterling, that’s just poorly masking your transphobia and they get enough shit from gamers already so like please just leave them alone and stop stalking them on twitter thinking you owned them by calling them a man; you didn’t do jack shit that just makes you very cringe and gay.
I appreciate NSO's week-long trials. They're liked being lowered into hell and then hoisted out before it consumes me completely. I don't respect Vampire Survivors. I get it, though. It's a simulacrum of a game. It's satisfying to move the analogue stick in a circle for thirty minutes and watch the upgrades come flooding in. As an unabashed timewaster, it's pretty effective, but that's not the nature of this, is it? I will never play it again in my life. I know it's what awaits me afterwards.
Finally completed this games content (at least pre-DLC). Everyone who plays this follows the same path:
- Play a few runs, probably die in most, don't quite understand the appeal.
- Play again, finally finish your first run
- Unlock new stuff, and from there the brain worm sets in
I'll be back to play the DLC at a later date, fantastic game.
- Play a few runs, probably die in most, don't quite understand the appeal.
- Play again, finally finish your first run
- Unlock new stuff, and from there the brain worm sets in
I'll be back to play the DLC at a later date, fantastic game.
Vampire Survivors is the Power Wash Simulator of Bullet Hells.
Vampire Survivors is Cookie Clicker: the Roguelite.
Vampire Survivors is Flappy Bird meets Dynasty Warriors.
Vampire Survivors is the gamification of popping bubble wrap with your mind and winning drugs that let you pop more bubble wrap with your mind even faster.
Vampire Survivors is pretty good. It’s also pixel barf, the equivalent of a Unity Asset Flip on a Mega Drive, emulated on an Android, emulated on a PC.
Vampire Survivors is the pioneer of a new genre without a name. Most developers gesture towards it by including “Survivors” in the title of their game. It’s probably easier than attempting to legitimize the unwieldy “Survivors-like” as a new genre, anyways.
Vampire Survivors is not a reinvention of the wheel. By all accounts, it’s more of a throwback title, more Galaga than Binding of Isaac.
Vampire Survivors is Smash TV: the Action RPG.
Vampire Survivors is not a purely idle experience, as some would have you believe; it’s certainly not a brainless game, either. It is extremely basic and, in some cases, you may owe your success (or your failure) to RNG more than any particular skill level. Calling it a game that plays itself would be hyperbolically reductive. Calling it mechanically shallow would be almost irrefutable.
Vampire Survivors is an inoffensive F2P mobile game which only gives you one (1) advertisement per run (if you wish to revive once after death). It’s a far cry from the miscellaneous shovelware titles practically built around funneling users to its next unskippable ad.
Vampire Survivors is $5 USD on Steam and sits at “Overwhelmingly Positive” with nearly 200K reviews.
…
(CW from here on out: Eating Disorder, Alcoholism)
When I lived in Portland from mid-2017 to early 2020, I lived a very frugal lifestyle. I never found stable employment. I earned my income through temp work; dishwashing, manual labor, etc. Between classes at University, I would usually eat at a Mediterranean food cart right outside the Engineering Building. Almost every day, I’d buy this special $5 lamb and chicken over rice. Sometimes the owner would give me fresh baklava or tea, but he’d never charge me extra for anything. In a place I felt otherwise unaccustomed to, there was somewhere I felt warm and welcome.
I struggled when I lived in Portland. Some days I only ate a snack or two. Anything to not live above my means. I lost a lot of weight. I wasn’t healthy. I was starving.
In 2017 I would’ve killed for the life I have now.
There are days I’m nostalgic for Portland. I met a lot of cool people there, had some unforgettable experiences. I wish that I’d’ve taken care of myself more; then again, I would’ve never been able to take care of myself the way I needed to begin with.
$5 got me to school and back on a bus. $5 got me a 3-pack of Steel Reserve, 24 fluid ounces each, enough to erase some nights completely. $5 got me lamb and chicken over rice almost every day for over two years.
…
Vampire Survivors has been universally recognized as a good game by default. It probably takes more out of a person to denounce Vampire Survivors for its sins than to extol it for its chic roguelite sensibilities. It won a BAFTA for crying out loud! In a year where Elden Ring was a game, a group of people sat down and decided that a mobile game should be the Best Game That Year.
Vampire Survivors is the de facto choice for Gaming At Home or On-The-Go. For the low price of Five US Dollars (or Free if you’re on Mobile!) you too can experience the drip-feed roguelite arcade experience that people have described as “addicting,” “like taking drugs,” or even, “crack cocaine”. Brother, the only thing gamers love more than comparing games to food is comparing games to drugs!
Vampire Survivors is the Drugs of Games People Won’t Shut Up About.
Vampire Survivors is the Food of Drugs People Like to Use in Analogies.
Vampire Survivors did NOT ruin my life. I started playing Vampire Survivors December 22nd, 2022 and I “finished” Vampire Survivors on August 25th, 2023 (“finished” as in completed “the Collection” which, to my understanding, is the truest win condition outside of the final stage/boss). I took frequent breaks for weeks or months at a time so my journey through the game was a leisurely one.
Vampire Survivors is definitely a crapshoot more often than not. You’ll likely have enough upgrades to make any build feasible late game. The only thing that tips the scale in (or against) your favor is the RNG, and even that can eventually be manipulated using the “Seal” upgrade which allows players to remove certain weapons/items from rotation, controlling the parameters before a new run even starts. However, the Seal upgrades cost a fortune – much more than any regular upgrade, anyways. If you’ve unlocked all the regular upgrades though, chances are you can turn just about any character into an AFK Gold Farm on Endless Mode and let it idle in the background until you’re satisfied. I guess in that way, it really does become an idle game at some point. It would be interesting to see a game that begins as Vampire Survivors turn into a Cookie Clicker late game (I know I called it Cookie Clicker earlier (additionally, I will write a Cookie Clicker review one day, and it will be nowhere as kind as this)), but at that point, I think we’d have to collectively agree that video games as a medium can no longer be considered art (this is a joke (unless hypothetically this video game becomes real, or maybe already exists, in which case I fear we’ve doomed ourselves to a fate much worse than death as is (this is another joke; this “game” would probably not be that good anyways, and just because one game highlights distressing market trends, does not mean they’re all Going To Be Like That. Not every game is Call of Duty. Not every game is the Last of Us. Not every game is Vampire Survivors. etc.))).
Vampire Survivors does NOT have any vampires in it.
…
Worked as a janitor at a sports club once. Real weird place. Had the musk of half a century and none of the charm. Trophy cases hadn’t been touched in generations. The attendees were pallid, shambling creatures, all of them probably sitting on a pretty six or seven figures. Bet I looked like an insect to them.
My memory’s fuzzy. Don’t remember who it was showing me the ropes. Just remember the empty rooms, infinite corridor locker rooms and dead mess halls. Spraying down various surfaces. Mirrors. Windows. Nowhere spaces. When people passed through, I ducked out of sight. Not because I’m agoraphobic or antisocial – just wasn’t dying to be perceived back then.
Worked a full eight hour shift without a break. Whoever was supposed to be checking in on me didn’t. I slipped through the cracks. When it was time to leave, I walked into the food court as it was about to close and asked one of the workers if they still had anything left to eat. I explained I hadn’t taken a break, and one of them gave me a box of rice and chili. I remember he told me that, sometimes, “it ain’t about the taste, it’s about the space”.
Words to live by, man.
I was starving.
I hardly played any games while I was living in Portland. Didn’t have the time. Didn’t have the money. I played Super Mario All-Stars and Demon’s Souls while I was living with my buddy Ian. I played Persona 3 FES for a bit. By the time I’d moved into my second apartment, I hardly played anything. I watched my roommates play Death Stranding and Final Fantasy IX. I always wanted to play more. I never did.
It’s about the space. I think about long, sprawling open world games with a hundred objectives and points of interest; a million collectibles; enemy strongholds; side quests; secrets; the last of these I played, after I'd left Portland, was Ghost of Tsushima. At a zombie’s pace I trudged through the game in a little under two years. I thought it was good. I probably won’t play it again.
I made friends with a coworker named Dan. He’s a big PlayStation guy. He has a PlayStation sticker on his tumbler. We started talking about games one day and I brought up Ghost of Tsushima. He said he’d never played it, but his friend played it – he told me that his friend would play exclusively with the black-and-white filter on, and only while listening to hip-hop mixtapes. I told him, “That sounds rad”.
Ian and I used to play Dark Souls while listening to Agalloch, drinking like sailors. There was never enough time to finish a full playthrough.
My best friend Garrett plays Destiny 2 religiously. Sometimes he’ll listen to a podcast or pull up something else to watch on his second monitor. Sometimes he’ll talk to me while he’s playing.
The point is, everyone plays games differently, and for different reasons. Where some people might find a story compelling, another player might intend to steamroll a game’s main quest – skipping each line of dialogue, every cutscene, every nonessential encounter, all in service of cutting to the chase.
People love to point to Subway Surfers as the Ur Example of brainless gaming (seriously, read some of these reviews), allowing players to split attention between one primary activity (the game) and another secondary activity (movie, television, YouTube, etc.).
I don’t want to speculate what the long term effects of this behavior could be in a broader context here, so I won’t!
…
Vampire Survivors is the Terraria of Subway Surfers. A game focused on incremental growth. Arcadelike and continuous. Formulaic and never-ending.
Vampire Survivors is the essence of the last decade of roguelike/lite experiences, condensed into 30 minutes of undiluted mayhem sans apotheosis. A monomythic Sparknotes page with a bullet point list of the stages of the Hero’s Journey.
Vampire Survivors is a symptom of our gaming climate, not the sickness itself.
Vampire Survivors is a dopamine hit in slow motion.
Vampire Survivors is an ugly mirror. A skinner box numbers-go-up slot machine nightmare monster with gnarled teeth and sharp claws and never-ending jackpots.
…
I’ve only been to Vegas twice. The first time, I was a kid; the second time, I could gamble… so I gambled. I won some money, then I lost some money, then I found the arcade cabinets. I found Bubble Bobble at the casino, man (I don’t remember if it was called Bubble Bobble, but you know what I mean). You could pay real, hard-earned cash to play arcade games in a casino instead of paying real, hard-earned cash to gamble for a chance to win more real, hard-earned cash. Would it be surprising to learn I spent most of my time playing the arcade cabinets?
Arcades are sort of like casinos for kids, if you think about it. I’m sure that’s not an original thought at all, but – is not the sole purpose of the arcade to entice children to spend their parents’ money? Even like a Chuck E. Cheese or Dave and Buster’s or whatever, they have machines where you can win prizes! The main difference really is that parents are less inclined to let a six year-old put them ten thousand in the hole or something.
Time is money. Ever seen that movie “In Time” starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried? I haven’t, but I remember seeing the trailer forever ago and thinking, “Whoa! What a clever and novel idea for a movie,” and honestly? I never want to watch it because of that. Because regardless of what that movie actually is, it’ll never run the gamut of that grand idea – it’s too much, too monumental of a world, of a setting, to be effectively communicated in 120 minutes or less.
It’s weird being alive nowadays. $5 isn’t even $5 anymore. It’s like ten, fifteen minutes maybe, you know what I mean? Every time I buy a coffee or a burger that feels like ten or fifteen minutes. The inverse is true: an hour spent working on pet projects feels like twenty-five dollars. Can’t stop thinking like this anymore.
Gamers continue to demand longer, more expensive, more technologically groundbreaking experiences at the same price – they complain when new releases don’t consume their lives, don’t become their all-in-one entertainment hub, don’t compel them to binge and splurge, don’t give them meaning.
Meanwhile, if I play a game for 20 hours and still haven’t seen 50% of it, I feel like I don't really need to see the other 50% of it. I've got better things to do.
…
Vampire Survivors is $5 and endlessly replayable. Every run is unique. Every run is the same.
Vampire Survivors is criminally underpriced. I clocked in for every achievement at 91 hours – so, if every run is 30 minutes long (barring incomplete/failed runs or special stages that clock in at 15 minutes or less), that means I’ve likely done around 182 runs. If this were an arcade game – and let’s be generous and assume it’s 25 cents a run – it would’ve cost me around $45 and 50 cents to “complete” Vampire Survivors.
Vampire Survivors is at once an empty sandbox, where oceans of enemies seem only to inhabit an infinitely looping Hanna-Barbera background and they aren’t allowed to exist outside of your screen. Nothing exists outside of your screen. You’re unable to outrun the monsters. The space between is a wasteland of tilesets and sprites. The only noteworthy events and special items are usually located on the periphery of each stage. The wild thing is that 30 minutes is usually more than enough time to collect everything.
Vampire Survivors ain’t about the taste.
…
Honestly I picked this game up because I saw Jerma playing it. I was drunk and I had five bucks to spare and I thought, y’know, fuck it. Might as well have another game in rotation. Took a few runs before it started to click.
I used to drink and game often. Definitely played Vampire Survivors drunk a lot. Last year was probably the worst of it. But now I’m 3 months sober and what’s most surprising is how playing it feels the same. It’s definitely more of a warmup or cooldown game, if I had to categorize it; the kind of game you play when you’re waking up, or about to fall asleep.
It’s not bad to be honest.
I’m not going to lie to you and say that this game doesn’t manipulate players psychologically, but also most games manipulate players psychologically? At least to some extent, some games more than others (but not nearly as bad as some have described this game as being imo).
If you were to surgically remove or alter the elements of Vampire Survivors, or reverse-engineer a proper “roguelike/lite” experience out of it, would it really be a better game for it? I don’t know. Is the Binding of Isaac a better game because its RNG elements become more of a determining factor in your success overall? I don’t know. Do I just want some roguelike games to tell me exactly what its items do instead of sinking countless hours into one and praying that its RNG decides to not fuck me for a single run? Absolutely.
Still, I did “finish” this game after 91 hours and I feel comfortable putting it down. I can’t say that I necessarily enjoyed each and every hour of Vampire Survivors (especially towards the end, where completionism was the main goal instead of just playing for additional content / unlocks (and I’m also not going to finish every map with every character, because you don’t really get anything for having done so)) but it was nothing if not one of the games I’ve ever played.
Erato_Heti’s review is a great counterpoint to this. I think it’s a great review. I don’t 100% agree with the conclusions but it’s not like critique of the game itself is a personal attack on people that enjoy the game. Vampire Survivors is not a high maintenance, cerebral game. It’s junk food.
It’s not super mentally stimulating, it won’t enrich your soul in any meaningful way, and it likely won’t dramatically alter the trajectory of your life – but it doesn’t need to.
Junk food’s not terrible in moderation, but you can’t subsist on a diet of snacks.
It’s definitely no lamb and chicken over rice.
Vampire Survivors is Cookie Clicker: the Roguelite.
Vampire Survivors is Flappy Bird meets Dynasty Warriors.
Vampire Survivors is the gamification of popping bubble wrap with your mind and winning drugs that let you pop more bubble wrap with your mind even faster.
Vampire Survivors is pretty good. It’s also pixel barf, the equivalent of a Unity Asset Flip on a Mega Drive, emulated on an Android, emulated on a PC.
Vampire Survivors is the pioneer of a new genre without a name. Most developers gesture towards it by including “Survivors” in the title of their game. It’s probably easier than attempting to legitimize the unwieldy “Survivors-like” as a new genre, anyways.
Vampire Survivors is not a reinvention of the wheel. By all accounts, it’s more of a throwback title, more Galaga than Binding of Isaac.
Vampire Survivors is Smash TV: the Action RPG.
Vampire Survivors is not a purely idle experience, as some would have you believe; it’s certainly not a brainless game, either. It is extremely basic and, in some cases, you may owe your success (or your failure) to RNG more than any particular skill level. Calling it a game that plays itself would be hyperbolically reductive. Calling it mechanically shallow would be almost irrefutable.
Vampire Survivors is an inoffensive F2P mobile game which only gives you one (1) advertisement per run (if you wish to revive once after death). It’s a far cry from the miscellaneous shovelware titles practically built around funneling users to its next unskippable ad.
Vampire Survivors is $5 USD on Steam and sits at “Overwhelmingly Positive” with nearly 200K reviews.
…
(CW from here on out: Eating Disorder, Alcoholism)
When I lived in Portland from mid-2017 to early 2020, I lived a very frugal lifestyle. I never found stable employment. I earned my income through temp work; dishwashing, manual labor, etc. Between classes at University, I would usually eat at a Mediterranean food cart right outside the Engineering Building. Almost every day, I’d buy this special $5 lamb and chicken over rice. Sometimes the owner would give me fresh baklava or tea, but he’d never charge me extra for anything. In a place I felt otherwise unaccustomed to, there was somewhere I felt warm and welcome.
I struggled when I lived in Portland. Some days I only ate a snack or two. Anything to not live above my means. I lost a lot of weight. I wasn’t healthy. I was starving.
In 2017 I would’ve killed for the life I have now.
There are days I’m nostalgic for Portland. I met a lot of cool people there, had some unforgettable experiences. I wish that I’d’ve taken care of myself more; then again, I would’ve never been able to take care of myself the way I needed to begin with.
$5 got me to school and back on a bus. $5 got me a 3-pack of Steel Reserve, 24 fluid ounces each, enough to erase some nights completely. $5 got me lamb and chicken over rice almost every day for over two years.
…
Vampire Survivors has been universally recognized as a good game by default. It probably takes more out of a person to denounce Vampire Survivors for its sins than to extol it for its chic roguelite sensibilities. It won a BAFTA for crying out loud! In a year where Elden Ring was a game, a group of people sat down and decided that a mobile game should be the Best Game That Year.
Vampire Survivors is the de facto choice for Gaming At Home or On-The-Go. For the low price of Five US Dollars (or Free if you’re on Mobile!) you too can experience the drip-feed roguelite arcade experience that people have described as “addicting,” “like taking drugs,” or even, “crack cocaine”. Brother, the only thing gamers love more than comparing games to food is comparing games to drugs!
Vampire Survivors is the Drugs of Games People Won’t Shut Up About.
Vampire Survivors is the Food of Drugs People Like to Use in Analogies.
Vampire Survivors did NOT ruin my life. I started playing Vampire Survivors December 22nd, 2022 and I “finished” Vampire Survivors on August 25th, 2023 (“finished” as in completed “the Collection” which, to my understanding, is the truest win condition outside of the final stage/boss). I took frequent breaks for weeks or months at a time so my journey through the game was a leisurely one.
Vampire Survivors is definitely a crapshoot more often than not. You’ll likely have enough upgrades to make any build feasible late game. The only thing that tips the scale in (or against) your favor is the RNG, and even that can eventually be manipulated using the “Seal” upgrade which allows players to remove certain weapons/items from rotation, controlling the parameters before a new run even starts. However, the Seal upgrades cost a fortune – much more than any regular upgrade, anyways. If you’ve unlocked all the regular upgrades though, chances are you can turn just about any character into an AFK Gold Farm on Endless Mode and let it idle in the background until you’re satisfied. I guess in that way, it really does become an idle game at some point. It would be interesting to see a game that begins as Vampire Survivors turn into a Cookie Clicker late game (I know I called it Cookie Clicker earlier (additionally, I will write a Cookie Clicker review one day, and it will be nowhere as kind as this)), but at that point, I think we’d have to collectively agree that video games as a medium can no longer be considered art (this is a joke (unless hypothetically this video game becomes real, or maybe already exists, in which case I fear we’ve doomed ourselves to a fate much worse than death as is (this is another joke; this “game” would probably not be that good anyways, and just because one game highlights distressing market trends, does not mean they’re all Going To Be Like That. Not every game is Call of Duty. Not every game is the Last of Us. Not every game is Vampire Survivors. etc.))).
Vampire Survivors does NOT have any vampires in it.
…
Worked as a janitor at a sports club once. Real weird place. Had the musk of half a century and none of the charm. Trophy cases hadn’t been touched in generations. The attendees were pallid, shambling creatures, all of them probably sitting on a pretty six or seven figures. Bet I looked like an insect to them.
My memory’s fuzzy. Don’t remember who it was showing me the ropes. Just remember the empty rooms, infinite corridor locker rooms and dead mess halls. Spraying down various surfaces. Mirrors. Windows. Nowhere spaces. When people passed through, I ducked out of sight. Not because I’m agoraphobic or antisocial – just wasn’t dying to be perceived back then.
Worked a full eight hour shift without a break. Whoever was supposed to be checking in on me didn’t. I slipped through the cracks. When it was time to leave, I walked into the food court as it was about to close and asked one of the workers if they still had anything left to eat. I explained I hadn’t taken a break, and one of them gave me a box of rice and chili. I remember he told me that, sometimes, “it ain’t about the taste, it’s about the space”.
Words to live by, man.
I was starving.
I hardly played any games while I was living in Portland. Didn’t have the time. Didn’t have the money. I played Super Mario All-Stars and Demon’s Souls while I was living with my buddy Ian. I played Persona 3 FES for a bit. By the time I’d moved into my second apartment, I hardly played anything. I watched my roommates play Death Stranding and Final Fantasy IX. I always wanted to play more. I never did.
It’s about the space. I think about long, sprawling open world games with a hundred objectives and points of interest; a million collectibles; enemy strongholds; side quests; secrets; the last of these I played, after I'd left Portland, was Ghost of Tsushima. At a zombie’s pace I trudged through the game in a little under two years. I thought it was good. I probably won’t play it again.
I made friends with a coworker named Dan. He’s a big PlayStation guy. He has a PlayStation sticker on his tumbler. We started talking about games one day and I brought up Ghost of Tsushima. He said he’d never played it, but his friend played it – he told me that his friend would play exclusively with the black-and-white filter on, and only while listening to hip-hop mixtapes. I told him, “That sounds rad”.
Ian and I used to play Dark Souls while listening to Agalloch, drinking like sailors. There was never enough time to finish a full playthrough.
My best friend Garrett plays Destiny 2 religiously. Sometimes he’ll listen to a podcast or pull up something else to watch on his second monitor. Sometimes he’ll talk to me while he’s playing.
The point is, everyone plays games differently, and for different reasons. Where some people might find a story compelling, another player might intend to steamroll a game’s main quest – skipping each line of dialogue, every cutscene, every nonessential encounter, all in service of cutting to the chase.
People love to point to Subway Surfers as the Ur Example of brainless gaming (seriously, read some of these reviews), allowing players to split attention between one primary activity (the game) and another secondary activity (movie, television, YouTube, etc.).
I don’t want to speculate what the long term effects of this behavior could be in a broader context here, so I won’t!
…
Vampire Survivors is the Terraria of Subway Surfers. A game focused on incremental growth. Arcadelike and continuous. Formulaic and never-ending.
Vampire Survivors is the essence of the last decade of roguelike/lite experiences, condensed into 30 minutes of undiluted mayhem sans apotheosis. A monomythic Sparknotes page with a bullet point list of the stages of the Hero’s Journey.
Vampire Survivors is a symptom of our gaming climate, not the sickness itself.
Vampire Survivors is a dopamine hit in slow motion.
Vampire Survivors is an ugly mirror. A skinner box numbers-go-up slot machine nightmare monster with gnarled teeth and sharp claws and never-ending jackpots.
…
I’ve only been to Vegas twice. The first time, I was a kid; the second time, I could gamble… so I gambled. I won some money, then I lost some money, then I found the arcade cabinets. I found Bubble Bobble at the casino, man (I don’t remember if it was called Bubble Bobble, but you know what I mean). You could pay real, hard-earned cash to play arcade games in a casino instead of paying real, hard-earned cash to gamble for a chance to win more real, hard-earned cash. Would it be surprising to learn I spent most of my time playing the arcade cabinets?
Arcades are sort of like casinos for kids, if you think about it. I’m sure that’s not an original thought at all, but – is not the sole purpose of the arcade to entice children to spend their parents’ money? Even like a Chuck E. Cheese or Dave and Buster’s or whatever, they have machines where you can win prizes! The main difference really is that parents are less inclined to let a six year-old put them ten thousand in the hole or something.
Time is money. Ever seen that movie “In Time” starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried? I haven’t, but I remember seeing the trailer forever ago and thinking, “Whoa! What a clever and novel idea for a movie,” and honestly? I never want to watch it because of that. Because regardless of what that movie actually is, it’ll never run the gamut of that grand idea – it’s too much, too monumental of a world, of a setting, to be effectively communicated in 120 minutes or less.
It’s weird being alive nowadays. $5 isn’t even $5 anymore. It’s like ten, fifteen minutes maybe, you know what I mean? Every time I buy a coffee or a burger that feels like ten or fifteen minutes. The inverse is true: an hour spent working on pet projects feels like twenty-five dollars. Can’t stop thinking like this anymore.
Gamers continue to demand longer, more expensive, more technologically groundbreaking experiences at the same price – they complain when new releases don’t consume their lives, don’t become their all-in-one entertainment hub, don’t compel them to binge and splurge, don’t give them meaning.
Meanwhile, if I play a game for 20 hours and still haven’t seen 50% of it, I feel like I don't really need to see the other 50% of it. I've got better things to do.
…
Vampire Survivors is $5 and endlessly replayable. Every run is unique. Every run is the same.
Vampire Survivors is criminally underpriced. I clocked in for every achievement at 91 hours – so, if every run is 30 minutes long (barring incomplete/failed runs or special stages that clock in at 15 minutes or less), that means I’ve likely done around 182 runs. If this were an arcade game – and let’s be generous and assume it’s 25 cents a run – it would’ve cost me around $45 and 50 cents to “complete” Vampire Survivors.
Vampire Survivors is at once an empty sandbox, where oceans of enemies seem only to inhabit an infinitely looping Hanna-Barbera background and they aren’t allowed to exist outside of your screen. Nothing exists outside of your screen. You’re unable to outrun the monsters. The space between is a wasteland of tilesets and sprites. The only noteworthy events and special items are usually located on the periphery of each stage. The wild thing is that 30 minutes is usually more than enough time to collect everything.
Vampire Survivors ain’t about the taste.
…
Honestly I picked this game up because I saw Jerma playing it. I was drunk and I had five bucks to spare and I thought, y’know, fuck it. Might as well have another game in rotation. Took a few runs before it started to click.
I used to drink and game often. Definitely played Vampire Survivors drunk a lot. Last year was probably the worst of it. But now I’m 3 months sober and what’s most surprising is how playing it feels the same. It’s definitely more of a warmup or cooldown game, if I had to categorize it; the kind of game you play when you’re waking up, or about to fall asleep.
It’s not bad to be honest.
I’m not going to lie to you and say that this game doesn’t manipulate players psychologically, but also most games manipulate players psychologically? At least to some extent, some games more than others (but not nearly as bad as some have described this game as being imo).
If you were to surgically remove or alter the elements of Vampire Survivors, or reverse-engineer a proper “roguelike/lite” experience out of it, would it really be a better game for it? I don’t know. Is the Binding of Isaac a better game because its RNG elements become more of a determining factor in your success overall? I don’t know. Do I just want some roguelike games to tell me exactly what its items do instead of sinking countless hours into one and praying that its RNG decides to not fuck me for a single run? Absolutely.
Still, I did “finish” this game after 91 hours and I feel comfortable putting it down. I can’t say that I necessarily enjoyed each and every hour of Vampire Survivors (especially towards the end, where completionism was the main goal instead of just playing for additional content / unlocks (and I’m also not going to finish every map with every character, because you don’t really get anything for having done so)) but it was nothing if not one of the games I’ve ever played.
Erato_Heti’s review is a great counterpoint to this. I think it’s a great review. I don’t 100% agree with the conclusions but it’s not like critique of the game itself is a personal attack on people that enjoy the game. Vampire Survivors is not a high maintenance, cerebral game. It’s junk food.
It’s not super mentally stimulating, it won’t enrich your soul in any meaningful way, and it likely won’t dramatically alter the trajectory of your life – but it doesn’t need to.
Junk food’s not terrible in moderation, but you can’t subsist on a diet of snacks.
It’s definitely no lamb and chicken over rice.
A dopamine machine with some sophistication that sinks its claws and fangs into you.
The schtick is that it costs like 4 bucks and not whatever vile freemium scheme its mobile clones use, and that's honestly amazing.
It's better to play Vampire Survivors than to become a whale for some half assed mobile game.
30 minutes runs are way too long, especially since they can be lost with mere seconds on the clock. Every parameter in the game should have been doubled and runs capped at 15.
The schtick is that it costs like 4 bucks and not whatever vile freemium scheme its mobile clones use, and that's honestly amazing.
It's better to play Vampire Survivors than to become a whale for some half assed mobile game.
30 minutes runs are way too long, especially since they can be lost with mere seconds on the clock. Every parameter in the game should have been doubled and runs capped at 15.
can I make it through that tiny gap of the absolute swarm of enemies and get that chest so that I can more effectively mow down the absolute swarm of enemies...lets find out
If there was ever a game where Steam recommendations needed a 'meh, it depends' button, this is it. It's not that Vampire Survivors is an outright terrible game. It's just extremely basic and mediocre to play. and neither visually nor sonically all that stimulating. The visuals quickly become drab and uninspired, and the music quickly becomes repetitive. The game does get somewhat fun once you're ten or so minutes in your run and have a bunch of weapons and power-ups, but the baseline dopamine hit hardly feels worth the time invested. It feels like a game to play in the background while talking to someone, or listening to your own music of choice, because it doesn't justify the player's full attention.
A lot of player reviews talk about the addictive potential of this game, and for good reason. Just 15 minutes in, I started harbouring a suspicion the developer had a background in the gambling industry, which... of course he does. The game shamelessly ticks off all the boxes of 'ka-ching!' psychology casinos use to get you to play. The thing is, if you're onto it, it's much harder to be deceived. I found picking up treasure chests the most annoying part of the game, as they bring your gameplay groove to a halt to force you to watch an overlong slot machine animation. Quite frankly, I don't give that much of a fuck what power-ups I get, just let me keep playing.
Vampire Survivors is cheap, but not very fulfilling. I don't see myself playing it in a focused way beyond what I've already done - only occasionally, as 'something to look at' while doing other stuff. Players looking for a substantial game should avoid it. But a game that's carelessly bought and carelessly played, it can bring some enjoyment.
A lot of player reviews talk about the addictive potential of this game, and for good reason. Just 15 minutes in, I started harbouring a suspicion the developer had a background in the gambling industry, which... of course he does. The game shamelessly ticks off all the boxes of 'ka-ching!' psychology casinos use to get you to play. The thing is, if you're onto it, it's much harder to be deceived. I found picking up treasure chests the most annoying part of the game, as they bring your gameplay groove to a halt to force you to watch an overlong slot machine animation. Quite frankly, I don't give that much of a fuck what power-ups I get, just let me keep playing.
Vampire Survivors is cheap, but not very fulfilling. I don't see myself playing it in a focused way beyond what I've already done - only occasionally, as 'something to look at' while doing other stuff. Players looking for a substantial game should avoid it. But a game that's carelessly bought and carelessly played, it can bring some enjoyment.
I know people love this game, and it's steam deck starter kit material. But HoloCure: Save the Fans is infinitely better.
This game is basically a brain dead mind numbing experience. It's just move, that's it. Move the dude. He attacks. The end. Move some more. Get enough upgrades so you don't have to move. The whole game is basically a slot machine of dopamine where the more you win the less you play it and the more you just are hitting "OKAY" to move onto the next upgrade reward.
I can see why it's addictive, but I think it's in an unhealthy way and I'd encourage people that like this game to try HoloCure if you want a better version of this experience that doesn't insult you as a human.
This game is basically a brain dead mind numbing experience. It's just move, that's it. Move the dude. He attacks. The end. Move some more. Get enough upgrades so you don't have to move. The whole game is basically a slot machine of dopamine where the more you win the less you play it and the more you just are hitting "OKAY" to move onto the next upgrade reward.
I can see why it's addictive, but I think it's in an unhealthy way and I'd encourage people that like this game to try HoloCure if you want a better version of this experience that doesn't insult you as a human.
Dopamine receptor fryer, you dont actually enjoy this.
played 20 hours. feels like watching a MrBeast video
this game sucks dude. im listening to spirit theyre gone spirit theyve vanished by animal collective rn and its soooo good. and i logged onto backloggd and saw this was getting a version 1.5 update and yeah idk just wanted to give my take. bad game. listen to spirit theyre gone spirit theyve vanished instead.
At first I was unsure if I should review this since I technically never played it but then I remembered that I watched a baby sensory video once and that’s basically the same thing
Actually a really solid game!
The gameplay loop is quite simple, but still so much fun. I like how the unlocks motivate you to try different levels with different characters, so you can't just cheese everything with whoever your favorite is. Speaking of unlocks, this game is heaven if you're an achievement hunter and I'll most certainly be going for the rest of those, since I've just got about half before the credits rolled. (Also there are many easter eggs and they're great!)
In the end I've had way more fun with Vampire Survivors than with several AAA games and you honestly can't go wrong with the entry price of just five bucks. If you're uncertain, I recommend checking out the mobile version - it's free and all ads are optional.
The gameplay loop is quite simple, but still so much fun. I like how the unlocks motivate you to try different levels with different characters, so you can't just cheese everything with whoever your favorite is. Speaking of unlocks, this game is heaven if you're an achievement hunter and I'll most certainly be going for the rest of those, since I've just got about half before the credits rolled. (Also there are many easter eggs and they're great!)
In the end I've had way more fun with Vampire Survivors than with several AAA games and you honestly can't go wrong with the entry price of just five bucks. If you're uncertain, I recommend checking out the mobile version - it's free and all ads are optional.
After about 30 hours and as much time pirated, AND it sitting idle in my computer for a year, I decided to delete it. It's a nice game but I can not 100% it as I initially intended to.
This is just a pacifier for adults
Pasqualina, you have to stop. You smoke too tough. Your swag too different. Your bitch is too bad. They'll kill you
so ive been thinking about time a lot recently, about how many games i have in the backlog and wishlist and how im gonna beat them all before i die. that was part of the reason i made a huge high priority list to see what i actually fucking care about lol, because to be honest about 250 of the games on the backlog i dont really give a shit about, they just fall between mid and low priority titles. and when accounting for replays, thats around 200 total games i wanna play before i die. lol fucking looking at my wishlist, whats on there that i really really wanna buy? the rest of trails? wolverine? baldur's gate? p3r which is already pre-ordered? that's not much...
the point im trying to make is the majority of games ive added over the nearly 3 years ive been on this website are little more than a "that looks cool, i dont wanna forget it". but i forget anyway. i dont forget trails or xenoblade or persona 2 but i forget why i wanna play fucking... elder scrolls or stephens sausage roll(????) so maybe they arent that wonderful of an experience im imagining if i have little care to whether i buy them for more than ticking down the boxes of "182 games" on my wishlist. i could spend 108 dollars on the steam store for shit i wouldnt play for years. maybe id boot it up but then be like "nahhh" like i was for fear and hunger, or blood, or duke nukem?
today was christmas (duh) and i got a lot of stuff id consider high priority, metroid, p5t, ff16. i got a few other things on steam, one of them being this game. and while it's a perfectly fun game, with nice music and a nice loop, there was an emptiness i felt whilst playing. i could be p-ranking violence or something. its like that game "arrow a row"
you feel so empty after it ends but then get back in thinking itll be better the next round, but you die and die and die and keep playing and keep playing and keep playing. and unlike something like cybergrind, or fortnite thats based on skill or playing with friends its mostly based on rng and such, and just keeps you coming back but like social media you dont really wanna be scrolling, i could be playing something epicsauce instead, yknow. something from those 200 games. and thats not to say this is unfun or anything, it just feels.. empty.
i feel like id be a bad candidate for trying out hoyoverse games for the same addictive tendencies, but even then those have fantastic art and a story behind them, which this does not
im refunding it
the point im trying to make is the majority of games ive added over the nearly 3 years ive been on this website are little more than a "that looks cool, i dont wanna forget it". but i forget anyway. i dont forget trails or xenoblade or persona 2 but i forget why i wanna play fucking... elder scrolls or stephens sausage roll(????) so maybe they arent that wonderful of an experience im imagining if i have little care to whether i buy them for more than ticking down the boxes of "182 games" on my wishlist. i could spend 108 dollars on the steam store for shit i wouldnt play for years. maybe id boot it up but then be like "nahhh" like i was for fear and hunger, or blood, or duke nukem?
today was christmas (duh) and i got a lot of stuff id consider high priority, metroid, p5t, ff16. i got a few other things on steam, one of them being this game. and while it's a perfectly fun game, with nice music and a nice loop, there was an emptiness i felt whilst playing. i could be p-ranking violence or something. its like that game "arrow a row"
you feel so empty after it ends but then get back in thinking itll be better the next round, but you die and die and die and keep playing and keep playing and keep playing. and unlike something like cybergrind, or fortnite thats based on skill or playing with friends its mostly based on rng and such, and just keeps you coming back but like social media you dont really wanna be scrolling, i could be playing something epicsauce instead, yknow. something from those 200 games. and thats not to say this is unfun or anything, it just feels.. empty.
i feel like id be a bad candidate for trying out hoyoverse games for the same addictive tendencies, but even then those have fantastic art and a story behind them, which this does not
im refunding it
When can I log a Survivors-like as "Completed"? Because I definitely haven't done everything, but I think I've done enough now? I have like 40 hours in the game and I feel like I've seen basically all it has to offer. I decided to finish off the Garlic Paradise Adventure before logging it here.
The game is very best at the start. I was completely hooked and it was so fun to play and level up and get stronger! In the beginning when you're low level, Vampire Survivors actually takes a bit of attention and skill to play. But once you figure out how the game works, it becomes incredibly trivial.
Nowadays, by minute 20 out of 30, I've maxed out my weapons and can stand idly while a bunch of flashing lights kill everything for me. It was best in the first few hours where I couldn't even get to the end of the first level! After that it was a slow descent into monotony.
And now I'm at a point where there's not really much content left except "Get Each Character to Level X and You Unlock Y". Which is pretty lame and the type of content that I would usually just ignore. But honestly I probably will play this game a bit more, it's the game I play in the background while I watch One Piece. (Just got to episode 800). But I'm not sure how much more gameplay I can squeeze out of this game.
Edit: I originally gave this a 3/5, but after reflecting on it some more, this game is a lame-ass video game equivalent to tiktok sludge content. The same thing as scrolling endlessly on your phone for no reason. Just nothing of any value.
The game is very best at the start. I was completely hooked and it was so fun to play and level up and get stronger! In the beginning when you're low level, Vampire Survivors actually takes a bit of attention and skill to play. But once you figure out how the game works, it becomes incredibly trivial.
Nowadays, by minute 20 out of 30, I've maxed out my weapons and can stand idly while a bunch of flashing lights kill everything for me. It was best in the first few hours where I couldn't even get to the end of the first level! After that it was a slow descent into monotony.
And now I'm at a point where there's not really much content left except "Get Each Character to Level X and You Unlock Y". Which is pretty lame and the type of content that I would usually just ignore. But honestly I probably will play this game a bit more, it's the game I play in the background while I watch One Piece. (Just got to episode 800). But I'm not sure how much more gameplay I can squeeze out of this game.
Edit: I originally gave this a 3/5, but after reflecting on it some more, this game is a lame-ass video game equivalent to tiktok sludge content. The same thing as scrolling endlessly on your phone for no reason. Just nothing of any value.
dopamine feels good and this is one of my STRONGEST dealers
there is a constant sense of progression, it's really well done i ADORE this game
there is a constant sense of progression, it's really well done i ADORE this game
I had a longer review planned out, but honestly man?
This game just isn't that much different from a clicker/idle game. If you like those games then wire in, but to me they're just meritless time blackholes that're little more than Cocomelon for adults with untreated ADHD.
This game just isn't that much different from a clicker/idle game. If you like those games then wire in, but to me they're just meritless time blackholes that're little more than Cocomelon for adults with untreated ADHD.
the video game equivalent of crack
it's lowest-common-denominator "number go up" nonsense but man, does it feel good unlocking the right upgrades and mowing down everything your path
it's lowest-common-denominator "number go up" nonsense but man, does it feel good unlocking the right upgrades and mowing down everything your path
“I can quit it any second bro, trust me”
kind of arbitrary whenever i decide to log this since i am Not gonna be a completionist about it, and also its obviously a difficult game to write about because it completely resists all normal avenues of game criticism, or at least the ones i care about. ill just say this: i think its understandable to be put off by the vibes, i kinda was and still kind of am. but what puts me at peace is that it is a game that takes the most Greedy types of games out there, and turns it into one of the most Generous. the timesink euphoria it offers is not completely what i want from games, but there is no ill will behind it, it just wants to give it to u freely. its hard to be mad at that.
Eu joguei no Steam, eu joguei no Game Pass, eu joguei no celular.
Alguém me ajude, esse jogo não sai da minha cabeça, estou enfeitiçado como um rebanho para um Tzimisce, sendo sugado pelas incontáveis runs que já me aventurei na busca pelo vampiro que está em outro caixão.
Alguém me ajude, esse jogo não sai da minha cabeça, estou enfeitiçado como um rebanho para um Tzimisce, sendo sugado pelas incontáveis runs que já me aventurei na busca pelo vampiro que está em outro caixão.
Brain: OFF. Kill: ON. Easy to understand, massive replayability, tons of secrets, tons of fun.
Pure dopemine.
Almost no real gameplay other than moving around. The real reason why it's so much fun is due to the absurd combos and builds you can make and the progression.
Just when you think you've seen everything this game has a new update comes out with an entirely unique new thing to the game and then you're back in and playing for another hour or two!
This game is pure crack and I can't get away from it. Not that I'd even want to :)
Almost no real gameplay other than moving around. The real reason why it's so much fun is due to the absurd combos and builds you can make and the progression.
Just when you think you've seen everything this game has a new update comes out with an entirely unique new thing to the game and then you're back in and playing for another hour or two!
This game is pure crack and I can't get away from it. Not that I'd even want to :)