First we survive, then we crawl.
The latest and greatest game from poncle, developer of the genre-defining Vampire Survivors, is spin-off entry in an entirely different genre that scratches the same itches in new, fun ways. Vampire Crawlers is a first-person dungeon crawler that’s also a roguelike cardbattler, so it’s got a lot going on at the surface, and there’s a fair amount of potential complexity under the hood too.
It’s highly enjoyable and satisfyingly simple, even for those who may have never touched a game remotely like it before. Get ready to sink some hours into the grind of gold, XP, and a whole bunch of sprites popping all over your screen.
Dopamine simulator
Big numbers, bigger hands, and even bigger decks. Vampire Crawlers is all about filling the screen with all sorts of nonsense in the same exact way that Vampire Survivors is, but with a different perspective and battle system that’s unique and exciting in its own way.
The core loop of Vampire Crawlers is going out into the world map, exploring dungeons, opening chests, defeating enemies and leveling up with blue gems, and clearing out a boss battle at the end of each level. The battles are turn-based and card-based, meaning each ability, power-up, and attack you use requires Mana
The same characters, weapons, and abilities you know and love from Vampire Survivors are here in Crawlers, now in card form. Runetracer, Cherry Bomb, Lightning Ring, Eight the Sparrow and Phiera Der Tuphello, Santa Water. They’re all here, and they go as wild as ever with a Duplicator, so long as you have the Mana to play all the cards you want.
Most battles end up revolving around playing the right cards in the right order in your turn, defeating each encounter as enemies press the advantage and close in on you. This can make individual encounters mundane at times, but the satisfaction is found with progression and customization of your cards and each individual deck build. It is very fun using specific cards found with each level up to increase your hand size, lower the Mana cost of certain cards, allow them to be copied or replayed, and more. But if you’re looking to mindlessly speed through a dungeon to grind currency or something, then you can also use the Play All button to move through your turn like Survivors’ auto-attacks.
Attack cards can be buffed with different mods, but the key in encounters is using ability cards to buff things like the number of projectiles, the duration of the attack, and their strength levels. These buzzwords should all be familiar if you played Vampire Survivors, and they function in the same way here.
Finishing a dungeon means returning to your home base, where you can increase base stats, unlock new characters (Pasqualina, Mortaccio, Antonio, and the rest of the Survivors gang are all here with their own Crawler cards to play), and more before heading back out on another dungeon crawl.
You can upgrade each individual attack card to allow for more mods, too, so there’s a fair amount of stuff to grind for and further customization at the end of the journey. I can easily see myself dedicating dozens of hours to this game. I’ve only been playing for about a week, and there’s still quite a bit to unlock and find within.
Just about every upgrade and unlock in the home village requires gold, which can be found in each level as you progress. The better you do, the more enemies you kill, and the further you progress gets more gold, but the early-going of the game feels a bit slow since it’s all tied to the one currency. It requires a good amount of time investment to get the best of everything so you can survive later levels and harder encounters.
If you gain joy from unlocking things, hearing dozens of achievement notifications pop up, and watching your screen light up with damage indicators and fun animations, then this is the game for you. And just like Survivors, Crawlers is astonishingly cheap for the amount of hours you can get out of it ($10).
Knowledge of Vampire Survivors is slightly advantageous but not a requirement. I do think Crawlers is more enjoyable if you’ve put in countless hours to the original game, like I have, because it has the same aesthetic and art style that evokes the 16-bit era of gaming, and the characters and abilities will almost feel nostalgic at this point.
And if Crawlers ends up like Survivors, it’d be fair to expect some very cool, very cheap DLC add-ons throughout its life cycle to further expand the journey. But even for now, on day one, it’s 100 percent worth every cent…especially if you put a bunch of time into the demo like I did, since the game carries over all of that progress. Seriously. I launched Vampire Crawlers and had 46 Steam achievements at the ready.
