Translated by AI Translator
This year I just played Vampire Crawlers, had a blast for a week, and now I’m catching up on Vampire Survivors.
Vampire Survivors pioneered the great roguelike subgenre known as vamplike and spawned numerous similar games. Among the many vamplike games, it remains one of the best.
Vamplike
The current gaming market is polarizing. On one hand, AAA game prices are soaring, with costs approaching levels that sales and pricing can’t cover. Mobile games, meanwhile, are moving toward premium quality and full-platform availability, gradually leaving behind the mobile-only focus. On the other hand, the lightweight and casual game market is seeing stable revenue—amid busy lives, hardcore games seem to be losing appeal, and many games are simplifying their gameplay.
The vamplike genre largely emerged from this backdrop. Starting with Vampire Survivors, a typical vamplike game can be summarized as:
- Primarily auto-attack, minimalist gameplay (players usually only need to control movement and choose builds)
- Roguelike, abundant content, diverse build combinations
- Emphasis on mowing-down satisfaction and impactful feel
Vamplike is actually a genre with great potential: broad audience appeal, simple implementation, and most importantly, its gameplay fits perfectly with portrait orientation.
Vamplike的始祖
Along with the release of Vampire Survivors, many similar games sprang up. Apart from Brotato which achieved comparable popularity, most couldn’t replicate Vampire Survivors’ success.
Why did Vampire Survivors, with its simple graphics and arguably crude mechanics, become a classic? On one hand, the game content is indeed abundant; on the other, the game feel and sound design deliver exceptional mowing-down satisfaction. It’s said the creator came from a slot machine background, and it really shows.
Analyzing the game isn’t particularly interesting—it’s essentially a numbers game with simple mechanics: a series of roguelike features combined with equipment synthesis and evolution, with meta-progression also driven by stats.
我和Vamplike
I’m writing this mainly to share some of my personal experiences with vamplike. I’ve actually made two vamplike games: one was a relatively simple reskin; the other introduced vamplike combat mechanics into a multiplayer auto-chess game. The ease of implementing vamplike indeed saved me a lot of trouble in both projects.
The future of the vamplike genre holds many possibilities. I believe adding or subtracting certain elements could still yield many interesting gameplay combinations.