Vampire Survivors - the Cheapest Addiction of the Year

[brat-sampson]

This game is less than £5 and life-consumingly fun. The gameplay is unusual, like a twin-stick shooter with only one stick, or like tower defense but all of the towers are you. You basically just move a guy around while a bunch of auto-attacks go off on cool-down. No aiming, no clicking, ya just move. Meanwhile you're getting assaulted by wave after wave of ghoulies numbering into the thousands.

Kill one and there's a chance it'll drop an xp gem. Get enough of these and you'll level up. Level up and you get a choice of usually 3 weapons/items. This is how you Level up your attacks. Get more attacks. Level up those attacks. Go for passive buffs. Level up those buffs. Etc. ( Evolve your attacks...)



So you end up with leveling dopamine, constant decision making and focused avoidance gameplay until hopefully the scales tip and you get to enjoy the fireworks as your arsenal shreds through the Armies of the Damned and the satisfying hit/gem collection sounds start trilling into the 1000+BPM range.

The main goal is to get to 30m. Other goals include racking up gold to make meta-progress a la Rogue Legacy, or investigating weird secrets in the stages themselves, or unlocking new characters, or...

It's on game pass PC, it's less than a fiver on Steam and it's a definite runner for indie GOTY. Just don't fire it up if you were planning on getting other shit done this afternoon.

[Crenners]

I'm surprised @ImmaculateClump hasn't started a thread already. Sounds like it ticks a lot of his boxes.

[Pink Gregory]

I'm surprised @ImmaculateClump hasn't started a thread already. Sounds like it ticks a lot of his boxes.

Flounced while you were gone

hope they come back at some point

[Crenners]

Oh, that's a shame, just saw his last active. Hope he's merrily dodging bullets out in the blue yonder.

[NoSleep]

Heads up. This has arrived on the Switch this week. I'm giving it a go because it's vaguely reminiscent of Jeff Minter's Llamatron 2112 (which is, itself based on Williams classic Robotron 2084) although it's minus any control over where you can point your weapons at. Haven't decided whether it's truly addictive or just a time hole at this early stage.

[Peri Peri]

Heads up. This has arrived on the Switch this week. I'm giving it a go because it's vaguely reminiscent of Jeff Minter's Llamatron 2112 (which is, itself based on Williams classic Robotron 2084) although it's minus any control over where you can point your weapons at. Haven't decided whether it's truly addictive or just a time hole at this early stage.

I gave it a go on Series X for the first time last week. It looks very much like my kind of thing, I thought, looks like Isaac when it gets really intense but from the start. After a few hours, I felt thoroughly empty. It's little more than a clicker. Very well made, a compelling hollow drip of dopamine for a little while but there's negligible skill or playstyle or even player involvement here. It's soma.

[madhair60]

playing Holocure instead, which is the same but better in all respects - yes, vTuber adjacent, but much more fun, much pacier, better economy and generally more to do. All free too.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

i prefer 20 Minutes to Dawn

[NoSleep]

I'm giving it a go because it's vaguely reminiscent of Jeff Minter's Llamatron 2112 (which is, itself based on Williams classic Robotron 2084) although it's minus any control over where you can point your weapons at.

Also minus the excitement of playing Llamatron and Robotron.

[oggyraiding]

I don't get why it's so huge to be honest. I got it and the DLCs on Xbox as it's cheap as chips, but it does feel like a F2P mobile sort of thing.

Also I have a pathetic gripe with it because James Stephanie Sterling placed it as her game of the year, even though she wrote all the bestiary entries. For someone who rails against corruption in the gaming industry, labelling a game she literally got paid to work on as GOTY just pisses me off.

[Pink Gregory]

You can diregard JSS's actual opinions on games most of the time.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I don't know who that is but now I will

[letsgobrian]

I don't get why it's so huge to be honest. I got it and the DLCs on Xbox as it's cheap as chips, but it does feel like a F2P mobile sort of thing.

It was the growth of the game in the pre-release form. You'd get a patch, play it until you unlocked all the new things, put down and pick it up again with the new patch.

I've barely played it since the final release, because a good chunk of the fun was watching it grow.

The Robotron comparison doesn't do it any favours, because it's more like a power up management game than a shooter.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

the one mechanical thing i like in Vampire Survivors that none of the others do (I think) is thats you're incentivised to avoid collecting the gems early on and just kill and much as possible or get close as possible to rare items on the map. so you're taking risks and it adds an outside factor to what "build" you're making. staying in one place is bad and so is circling back to get your loot.

then an attracter orb drops or you reach one the map and DOPAMINE EXPLOSION

this is what i like most about it and none of the others really do it. 20MTD feels more like a Game-Game whereas Holocure is better at filling the gap between a shooter and an idle game.

Also I have a pathetic gripe with it because James Stephanie Sterling placed it as her game of the year, even though she wrote all the bestiary entries.

it shouldnt annoy me but JSS promoting this game thats 1) designed to be as compulsive as possible 2) if not stealing then closely imitating the art assets from another series and 3) drip feeding DLC when others give it for free is fucking blatant.

all that stuff about how exploitative dopamine/gacha style games are for people with different neuro issues and then OMG PLAY THIS ITS MINDBREAKINGLY ADDICTING your brain is defenseless against it!! im sure no big corps will notice this particular formula or what makes people put 2000 hours into VS. just a totally innocent fun little game. oh we do have such fun in the videogame industry tee hee hee.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

speaking of Minter someone on CaB should milk the nostalgia market and make 8BIT UK SURVIVORS with microcomputer graphics where the enemies are all dizzy, banyan trees, gianna sister owls, saber wulf man, armalyte ships, mutant camels etc.

[madhair60]

Holocure 4 life tbh. I've unlocked everyone now. Just need to get all their little outfits.

[Kelvin]

I plan to get this on Switch, but I want to ask; should I buy it with the DLC included, or does the DLC unbalance the main game, as is often the case with these things.

[madhair60]

i would just buy it without the DLC then if you like it and want more, buy the DLC. there's plenty in the main game to be getting on with.

[Consignia]

I plan to get this on Switch, but I want to ask; should I buy it with the DLC included, or does the DLC unbalance the main game, as is often the case with these things.

There's plenty of game braking stuff in the main game, the DLC stuff is just more variety. I like the DLC, it's actually got some quite different levels compared to the main game rather than more of the same.

[Kelvin]

Damn this is good

[madhair60]

it isn't. you're just addicted to gambling.

[bgmnts]

Tried very hard to like this, as in I give it the four minutes it was due, and can't quite believe how indy games get away with this shit now.

Pixelart and shitty ROGUELIKE mechanics everywhere.

Where are the decent mid level games now? It's either pixel art wank, huge empty worlds or soulless franchises.

Tl;dr - Not my cup of tea but fair enough if people love it.

[Mecha Rodney]

Tried very hard to like this, as in I give it the four minutes it was due, and can't quite believe how indy games get away with this shit now.

Pixelart and shitty ROGUELIKE mechanics everywhere.

Where are the decent mid level games now? It's either pixel art wank, huge empty worlds or soulless franchises.

Tl;dr - Not my cup of tea but fair enough if people love it.

Armored Core VI my friend.

[Kelvin]

Tried very hard to like this, as in I give it the four minutes it was due, and can't quite believe how indy games get away with this shit now.

I assume you're exaggerating, but if you only played it for a few minutes (or even a a handful of runs) you really haven't given it a proper chance. We're not talking 20 hours till it gets good; the game starts pretty slowly in the first few runs, as it teaches you the basics, but it has a pretty rapid rate of progression after that. Within an hour or so you'll be facing off against hundred of enemies, and unlocking permanent mechanics, levels, weapons and upgrades with every run. After a handful of hours, I've already had several attempts which were absolutely insane.

If you still have the game, at least get to the second level and do a few runs. 

[madhair60]

don't do it bgmnts. it's a slot machine game designed by a slot machine designer. it will addict you to gambling, like it has Kelvin.

just don't do it.

[Kelvin]

it will addict you to gambling, like it has Kelvin.

Got the DLC but lost the house  :(

[oggyraiding]

I like the synergies you can create. It's a bit like Binding Of Isaac where the right combo of buffs and weapons can really make you feel powerful. One good thing I like about it, compared to BoI (a game I've put probably over 1000 hours into), there aren't items which completely fuck up a run. In BoI if you ended up with certain items, especially if they're the question mark ones that conceal the item until you pick it up, you could become so ineffective you may as well quit. Never reached a point in Vampire Survivors where I restart a run due to bad luck.

[chutnut]

I made it to level 8 on this and now never want to see it again

[Shaxberd]

Bought this last week on the strength of this thread and have been thoroughly enjoying it.

It's certainly much easier than something like Binding of Isaac but discovering the various synergies and secrets makes it more involved than just "waggle joystick, get reward". I also think the graphics work in its favour, reminds me a lot of the janky shareware games I played for hours as a kid.

As for gambling - I can see the design tricks of feeding the player a steady stream of new things and shiny objects to ping the dopamine, but it's vastly less predatory than the gacha and lootbox mechanics in many other games. Yeah, it's trying to grab your attention, but it's not actually gouging money out of you. I don't know how much interest it will hold for me once the unlockables have been unlocked, but as a way to kill half an hour or so it's pretty decent.

[Consignia]

I thought I'd put this fucker to bed months ago, but they've only gone done a bastard update and put a new level and more achievements in it. Well, couldn't leave my 100% acheievent untarnished and went and sought them out. Back at 100%. Hope they don't update it again.