Vampire Survivors is one of the most popular indie games of all time. Not only is it popular, but it also has a lot of financial success and positive reviews. It even has a ton of collaboration with IPs like Castlevania. They recently released a spin-off or a game close to its origin, and it is called Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors.
What is this game all about?
For the sake of the rest of the article, we’ll just call it Vampire Crawlers. This game is not like Vampire Survivors because the tags that it has are card deck building, roguelike, and a strategy game. It is very different from Survivors, because that game is more like a bullet hell with roguelike elements.
How to Play
Here is the overview on what you need to do and play Vampire Crawlers
Dungeon Crawling
The key gameplay aspect where combat is involved is the dungeon-crawling part. You can choose several areas or dungeons to dive into and start your adventure. The goal is to finish each dungeon successfully. Don’t worry if you die, you won’t have any severe repercussions. It’s like in Vampire Survivors, every time you fail, you can use your resources to get stronger.
Building Your Deck
This is where the deck you build can make your dungeon crawling easier and more fun. There is a town where you can gather your thoughts. You can edit your cards and characters to use. Having the right cards to use is ideal and vital, depending on the dungeon. Some enemies are easier to dispatch when you have the right setup. Aside from your deck, be sure to get those permanent upgrades in town. That way, you can survive longer and hit harder in your future dungeon crawls.
The Actual Combat
Let’s now get into the combat or battle mechanics. When you enter a dungeon, you will have your character of choice. As you venture into the dungeon, your cards will pop up when an enemy appears. Each card has a Mana cost, as you can see in the image below with the white circles. Your mana is on the side with the green circle. You must decide which cards you want to use to release combos. When you don’t have mana, you can’t use the specific cards. Progress through the dungeon, and hope you can complete it.
Why it’s good and why you should buy
It takes rougelike elements to a different level. It combines some of that RPG trope where you strengthen your character in a town and head off. It’s a different flavor from Vampire Survivors and can be worth the money and time. It’s not a game that needs time and commitment, or at least you can play at your own pace. It has an overwhelmingly positive review on STEAM, and that’s always a good thing. Try to pick this game up, and maybe it will have its own series of collaborations in the future. Even with the long title, you can just call it Vampire Crawlers.
