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Vampire Survivors

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Vampire Survivors
Developer(s)Luca Galante
Publisher(s)Luca Galante
Composer(s)
  • Daniele Zandara
  • Filippo Vicarelli
Platform(s)
Release
  • macOS, Windows
  • October 20, 2022
  • Xbox One, Series X/S
  • November 10, 2022
Genre(s)Roguelike, shoot 'em up
Mode(s)Single-player

Vampire Survivors is a roguelike shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Luca Galante, also known as poncle. Following an early access period from December 17, 2021, it was released for macOS and Windows on October 20, 2022. Ports to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S were released on November 10, 2022.

The player controls an automatically attacking character while fighting against continuous waves of monsters, with the goal being to survive the onslaught for as long as possible and unlock additional characters, weapons, and relics for subsequent sessions. In spite of the game's name and key art, none of the variety of monsters encountered are vampires.

Gameplay

The player selects one of multiple characters with different starting weapons and bonuses, and controls them on an endless stage with an auto-generated, repeating layout. The player's weapons attack automatically, and the goal is to survive as long as possible against constant waves of monsters that inflict damage when they come in contact with the player. Defeating monsters and exploring the stage allows the player to collect experience gems, which are used to level up, "floor chicken", which restores the player's health, and other helpful items. Each level increase provides the player the choice of three or four weapons and passive power-ups; once the player has collected six weapons and six power-ups and upgraded them all fully, any further levels they gain offer only gold coins or floor chicken. Another way to upgrade weapons and power-ups is to open chests, which are dropped by particularly powerful monsters and may contain one, three, or five random items. Most weapons have an ultimate form that can be attained by opening a chest after fully upgrading them and meeting other specific conditions.[1][2]

Sessions of Vampire Survivors have a soft time limit of 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the stage chosen. At the time limit, the stage is cleared of all enemies and a final, tremendously strong enemy named Death will spawn. One additional Death will appear every consecutive minute thereafter to ensure the player's eventual demise. A session that reaches or exceeds the stage's time limit is considered a successful completion and rewards bonus gold coins. In between sessions, accumulated gold coins can be spent to unlock new characters and persistent power-ups. Additionally, by completing challenges, the player can also unlock new stages, weapons, and characters.

Plot

Vampire Survivors is nominally set in rural Italy in 2021. Hordes of monsters summoned by the evil Bisconte Draculó ravage the land, and the Belpaese family and other heroic survivors take it upon themselves to hunt down and defeat Draculó.[3] This quest takes them through monster-infested locales such as a cursed forest, a haunted library, an abandoned dairy plant, an ominous tower, and an otherworldly chapel.

Development

Developer Luca "poncle" Galante explained that he created Vampire Survivors because he wanted to manage a community, based on his past experience as being an admin for an Ultima Online server. The game was inspired by Magic Survival, a mobile game that also consisted of a character automatically attacking enemies. Development of the initial early access version took around a year, with Galante spending around £1100 on assets, art, and music.[4]

The success of the game exceeded Galante's expectations and allowed him to quit his job in February 2022 to focus completely on development of the game. He was informally assisted by "a few friends" in their spare time. Planned content included additional weapons, characters, and stages, and an "endless mode". Galante's intent was to bring Vampire Survivors out of early access by the end of 2022.[5] Galante hired multiple freelancers in March 2022 to expand the Vampire Survivors team and accelerate development. In addition to outlining the scope of the promised new content with a roadmap, Galante explained that a major milestone slated for mid-2022 would be porting Vampire Survivors to an "industry-standard" game engine to improve its overall performance.[6]

The full game was released for macOS and Windows on October 20, 2022.[7] The game was also ported to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on November 10, 2022.[8]

Reception

While Vampire Survivors was initially obscure on release, by late January 2022 it became a hit and reached over 30,000 concurrent players on Steam.[4][19] This number continued to climb, with the game reaching over 70,000 concurrent players the following month.[20] While not the first game in its genre, Vampire Survivors led to several other games based on automatic gameplay and roguelike progression being released the following year, most released for a small price and in early access.[21]

Vampire Survivors received "generally favorable" reviews for Windows according to review aggregator Metacritic;[9] the Xbox Series X/S version received "universal acclaim".[10]

Ian Walker of Kotaku and Graham Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun praised the game, both comparing the game to dopamine.[1][22] Polygon's Nicole Carpenter noted the game's depth, with her saying "no one streamer I've watched played entirely the same".[2] Aaron Zimmerman of Ars Technica named Vampire Survivors as his pick for game of the year.[21]

Accolades

Awards and nominations for Vampire Survivors
Year Award Category Result Ref
2022 Golden Joystick Awards Best Early Access Launch Nominated [23] [24]
Breakthrough Award Won
The Game Awards Best Debut Indie Game Pending [25]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Early access version

References

  1. ^ a b Smith, Graham (January 25, 2022). "Vampire Survivors is a pure hit of dopamine". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
  2. ^ a b Carpenter, Nicole (January 27, 2022). "Vampire Survivors is no thoughts, just spells". Polygon. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
  3. ^ "Vampire Survivors by poncle". itch.io. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  4. ^ a b Klepek, Patrick (January 27, 2022). "How 'Vampire Survivors' Went From Obscurity to 27,000 People Playing at Once". Vice. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
  5. ^ Brown, Andy (February 3, 2022). "'Vampire Survivors' creator Luca Galante talks quitting his job to fulfil his promise". NME. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  6. ^ "Development Roadmap Overview and updates on the plan for Early Access". Steam. Retrieved March 29, 2022.
  7. ^ Vampire Survivors [@poncle_vampire] (October 20, 2022). "🧛‍♂️Vampire Survivors v1.0 is officially OUT NOW!🎉On @Steam & @XboxGamePassPC!🙌🦇So excited for you all to play the new content!😆Thanks for all your support!💖#VampireSurvivorsLaunch #poncle #outnow #gaming #Steam➡️https://store.steampowered.com/app/1794680/Vampire_Survivors/➡️https://xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/vampire-survivors-game-preview/9pd5bm2z8c4l" (Tweet). Retrieved November 13, 2022 – via Twitter.
  8. ^ Holt, Kris (November 1, 2022). "'Vampire Survivors' is coming to Xbox consoles on November 10th". Engadget. Retrieved November 1, 2022.
  9. ^ a b "Vampire Survivors for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved November 23, 2022.
  10. ^ a b "Vampire Survivors for Xbox Series X Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved November 30, 2022.
  11. ^ Donlan, Christian (October 24, 2022). "Vampire Survivors review - near-endless RPG popcorn". Eurogamer. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  12. ^ Vore, Bryan. "Vampire Survivors Review - Single-Stick Masterpiece". Game Informer. Retrieved November 23, 2022.
  13. ^ Cunningham, James (October 20, 2022). "Review: Vampire Survivors". Hardcore Gamer. Retrieved November 13, 2022.
  14. ^ Stapleton, Dan (February 11, 2022). "Vampire Survivors Early Access Review". IGN. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  15. ^ Stapleton, Dan (November 11, 2022). "Vampire Survivors 1.0 Review". IGN. Retrieved November 13, 2022.
  16. ^ Tucker, Jake (October 20, 2022). "'Vampire Survivors' review: the most compulsive game of the year". NME. Retrieved November 23, 2022.
  17. ^ Litchfield, Ted (October 27, 2022). "Vampire Survivors review". PC Gamer. Future plc. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  18. ^ Greenwald, Will (May 24, 2022). "Vampire Survivors (for PC) Review". PCMag. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  19. ^ Moore, Jared (January 27, 2022). "Vampire Survivors Is a Beautiful $3 Nightmare Taking Over Steam". IGN. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
  20. ^ Just, Christian (February 19, 2022). "Vampire Survivors: Steam-Phänomen mausert sich zum Schwergewicht". GameStar (in German). Webedia. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  21. ^ a b Zimmerman, Aaron (October 20, 2022). "Vampire Survivors—a cheap, minimalistic indie game—is my game of the year". Ars Technica. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
  22. ^ Walker, Ian (January 21, 2022). "Castlevania-Inspired Roguelike Is Pure Dopamine". Kotaku. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
  23. ^ Jones, Ali (November 22, 2022). "Vampire Survivors claims the Breakthrough Award at the Golden Joystick Awards 2022". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on November 22, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
  24. ^ Loveridge, Sam (November 22, 2022). "Here are all the Golden Joystick Awards 2022 winners". GamesRadar+. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 26, 2022.
  25. ^ Harte, Charles. "The Full List of the 2022 Game Awards Nominees". Game Informer. Archived from the original on November 14, 2022. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
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