Vampire Survivors
| Developer: Luca Galante | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Poncle | Sound: |
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| Year: 2022 | Difficulty: |
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Genre: Thinking game  | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
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If reading all these lines exhausts you in advance, trust my mark blindly. The bleating hordes with their overwhelmingly positive ratings cannot be wrong.
Are you familiar with twin stick shooters? This genre has existed for many years (Robotron 2084, 1982). Imagine that one day, a mobile game developer committed the innovation of tearing off one of the appendages. He invented the single-stick shooter, in which the user merely moves the character whilst the computer handles the other half of the work: shooting, and sometimes, even aiming.
One of these titles, Magic Survival (2021, iOS), perfectly suited to mobile platforms, served as a model for the game we’re discussing today: Vampire Survivors, a horror-themed variation whose graphical elements make rather unsubtle references to the Castlevania game series.
The principle is biblically simple: survive as long as possible, kill the enemies who rush at you (in straight lines but by the thousands), collect the gems they leave behind to gain experience points, level up, obtain new powers, and thus survive longer, kill more enemies, collect more gems… You understand why pedants call this a “gameplay loop”.
I remember my first game. I tried to dodge enemies (with one hand, mind you), I collected heaps of gems… I felt as stimulated as when I’m hoovering. I died quickly, of course, and after the game over screen, I received a shower of achievements (or “reward badges”, to use proper English).
“Well done, champ, you’ve killed 15 bats!”
“You’ve reached level 2!”
“You’ve reached level 3!”
“You’ve opened a chest all by yourself!”
I felt as though I was being taken for a fool…
And there it is; the game’s main driving force: constantly rewarding the player for every trivial task, even when they fail (even when they quit!) so that they don’t realise the emptiness of the concept. Add to the badges some rather boisterous light and sound effects, directly inspired by casino slot machines, which aim to maintain a sort of neurotic compulsion linked to the accumulation of wealth (which I’ve already discussed in Boulder Dash) as well as the feeling of overwhelming power experienced when, by the end of the game, the sheer volume of projectiles and explosions completely obscures the screen, instantly vaporising swarms of enemies, despite their arriving in senseless numbers.
By the way, the epilepsy warning at the start isn’t there for a laugh!
Second motive (and last, because I told you it doesn’t piss far): the Rogue-lite component, with a “t”. It’s about adapting the difficulty to the user’s level, always granting a little something at the end of a game. A bonus, power, or new avatar which, unlike the aforementioned badges, confers a concrete advantage, marginally improving one’s chances of going further in the next round.
The flattered subject, however rubbish they might be, has the impression that no session is “useless” (irony). They feel the satisfaction of progress and will inevitably end up triumphing over the game. From then on, the game only rewards their assiduity, not their efforts. If you think about it, it’s the opposite of an arcade game, which demands from the player a certain mastery through practice or, failing that, inserting more coins into the machine to continue. Here, it’s the game that pays us to stay!
I confess, what displaces me most about Vampire Survivors is the community’s dithyrambic reception. I shouldn’t take this factor into consideration, but we all have our biases. It became popular overnight following its presentation by a YouTuber. I’m not casting stones at the developer. All concepts are worth trying, after all; and good for him if he’s found success beyond all expectations. I blame the consumers who amplify this phenomenon through their purchases (yes, I’m guilty too!), as well as video game critics who recommend this title. Because of us, publishers, both small and large, will stuff us with insipid clones for years, encouraged as they are to exploit risk-free, sanitised formulas, incorporating all the usual deceptive practices, and more broadly, to treat us like lab monkeys.
It seems the primary selling point for the fans is its price (5 euros in 2023). Dozens of hours of entertainment for the price of a sandwich!
But if value-per-hour is your main criterion, why not look out the window and amuse yourself by counting the cars? Cheaper and no less fulfilling!
Others praise its “satisfying” nature, a word that lacks a “satisfactory” translation in French. Soothing? Antistress? This might be connected to that trend of satisfying videos involving pressure washers…
Have people become so thick that they only seek out contemplative sensory experiences without adversity, like infants hypnotised by plastic toys spinning above their heads? It’s worrying, isn’t it?
If you’ve made it this far, you probably have quite a clear idea of my opinion, and if not, here’s a small summary by way of conclusion:
Vampire Survivors is a product devoid of the slightest creative inclination (the graphics are pulled from a developer asset pack), with bare-bones mechanics and practically no variation; the core of the game relying exclusively on a calculated addiction process, implemented through infantilizing and unhealthy slot-machine tactics.
Yes? What else do you want? Something wrong about the mark?
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