What are Vampire Survivors?
Vampire Survivors is a roguelike shoot ’em up video game. This game, commonly referred to as poncle, was created and released by Luca Galante. It was released for macOS and Windows on October 20, 2022, after an early access period starting on December 17, 2021. On November 10, 2022, ports for the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S and for Android and iOS devices were released.
The player is in control of a character who automatically attacks while battling endless waves of creatures. The objective is to withstand the assault for as long as you can while also gaining access to new characters, weapons, and artifacts for later sessions. Despite the title and key art of the game, none of the several monsters faced are vampires.
How To Play Vampire Survivors
You can choose among 4 characters at the beginning of this no-cost online version of the game to begin your journey. With 10 levels improved, your attack will increase by 10%. Sale starts with Antonio Belpaese, who gets stronger with each level.
Imedal Belpaese, Pasqualina Belpaese, and Genaro Belpaese are the other three options.
To unlock each character, you must have a credit (which you will get throughout the game).
Imedal Belpaese will cost 11 credits; this character is great for rising up quickly because every five levels you gain will result in a 10% increase in experience score.
In this no-cost online version of the game, you can start by selecting one of four characters. Your attack will rise by 10% every 10 levels of improvement. Antonio Belpaese serves as Sale’s starting point and gets stronger with each level.
The other three choices are Imedal Belpaese, Pasqualina Belpaese, and Genaro Belpaese.
You need to have a credit to unlock each character (which you will get throughout the game).
Costing 11 credits, Imedal Belpaese is a wonderful character for climbing the ranks rapidly because every five levels you acquire will raise your experience score’s value by 10%.
Gameplay
The player controls one of multiple characters, each with different beginning bonuses and weapons, on an unending stage with an automatically created layout that repeats. The goal is to outlast the player’s encounters with recurring waves of creatures that inflict harm on them when they come into touch with them.
Weapons used by the player automatically attack. The player can “floor chicken” by collecting experience gems, which can advance their level. By destroying creatures and exploring the stage, it replenishes the player’s health and other essential things.
With each level rise, the player gets the choice of three or four weapons and passive power-ups. Only after successfully maximizing each of the game’s six weapons and power-ups will the player be able to unlock any additional levels that offer them floor chicken or gold coins. Another way to upgrade weapons and power-ups is through opening chests. These can contain one, three, or five random objects and are dropped by creatures that are especially strong. When a weapon has been fully upgraded and other prerequisites have been satisfied, it can be obtained in its ultimate form by unlocking a chest.
Vampire Survivors sessions have a flexible duration limit of 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the stage selected. After the timer expires, all foes on the stage are eliminated, and Death, the last and most formidable foe, will then show up. The player will eventually die as a result of another Death appearing every minute after that. Successful sessions are rewarded with extra gold coins for completing the stage in the specified time. Gaining access to new characters and lasting power-ups across sessions is possible with gold money. By succeeding in challenges, the player can also acquire additional characters, weapons, and levels.
Plot
Supposedly set in 2021, Vampire Survivors is set in a remote area of Italy. The courageous survivors, including the Belpaese family, decide to hunt down and vanquish the evil Bisconte Draculó. They do that after the land is destroyed by armies of monsters he summoned. A cursed woodland, a haunting library, an abandoned dairy plant, an evil tower, and an otherworldly chapel are just a few of the monster-infested places they must go through on this adventure.
Development
The game’s creator, Luca Galante, began developing it when he was unemployed in 2020. He wanted to make this one because he had previously worked as an administrator for an Ultima Online server. The inspiration for the game came from the mobile title Magic Survival. It also included a character who attacked adversaries without hesitation. Galante spent over £1100 on assets, music, and artwork for the first early access edition throughout its development, which lasted about a year. Before beginning work on the game, Galante was a developer in the gaming sector. The chest-opening animations in Vampire Survivors make advantage of Galante’s knowledge to add to the charm of the game.
Galante was able to leave his work in February 2022 to focus solely on the creation of the game because it was more successful than he had anticipated. In his leisure time, “a few friends” offered him informal help. The proposed content included an “endless mode” with extra characters, stages, and weapons. Galante wants to withdraw from early access before the end of 2022. Galante increased the team’s size by hiring a number of freelancers in March 2022. A significant accomplishment for mid-2022, according to Galante, is the conversion of Vampire Survivors to a “industry-standard” game engine. This action was taken to raise the system’s overall performance. This was in addition to providing a roadmap that described the breadth of the anticipated new content.
The whole game was made accessible for Windows and macOS on October 20, 2022. The game was made available for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on November 10, 2022. On December 8, 2022, ports for iOS and Android devices were released. The game was released on various platforms as a cheap yet quality game, despite the fact that the mobile version is free to play with optional advertising.
Reception
When Vampire Survivors first came out, it was unknown, but by the end of January 2022, it had become popular and had amassed over 30,000 concurrent players on Steam. The next month, the game had over 70,000 concurrent players as a result of this number’s sustained growth. Despite not being the first game of its kind, it inspired many others. The following year, these games—the majority of which were launched for a low price and in early access—were largely based on automatic gameplay and roguelike progression.
According to review aggregator Metacritic, Vampire Survivors’ Windows reviews were “mostly positive,” while the Xbox Series X/S evaluations were “universally praised.”
Both Graham Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun and Ian Walker of Kotaku lauded the game and compared it to dopamine. Nicole Carpenter of Polygon recognized the intricacy of the game by remarking that “no livestream I’ve watched played entirely the same.” The game was chosen as the year’s best game by Aaron Zimmerman of Ars Technica. In addition, GamesIndustry.biz’s Marie Dealessandri named her game of the year, praising its performance on the portable Steam Deck, which was also introduced in 2022.
Conclusion
You don’t have to be concerned about flaws or imperfections when playing because this version of Vampire Survivors, which was created for the internet and retains nearly all of the game’s unique features, is entirely free.
