Vampire Survivors: What 2000-era Flash Games Dreamed Of
The joys of the past, today!
I used to play a lot of flash games on sites like Newgrounds and Armour Games and many of my favorite titles were “endless defense” games (e.g. turret defense games). These are games where players get incrementally stronger over time until
either they or their enemies scale to become unkillable resulting in either an “endless” game or one where any skill/strategy becomes irrelevant. I enjoyed these games because of two fundamental reasons
- There’s a point where players will enter an incredibly satisfying “flow,” where enemies will simply disappear due to the player’s strength out-scaling the enemies’ defenses.
- Due to the nature of flash games and how low-power PCs were in the early 2000’s (when flash game flourished), most of these games would actually end by just crashing the computer if developers didn’t set an end goal.
Vampire Survivors fully-embraces the “flow” while having a set 15/30-minute end point. All while giving players a decent amount of flexibility with how they want to reach that flow; offering enough challenge to maintain
interest;
without requiring too much strategy or technical skill to just have fun. It features a graphics and sound style that wouldn’t be out of place in an SNES-era title and a soundtrack that’s… good enough at best, to be honest. However, what
really
sets apart Vampire Hunters is its low price of $3.00 – low enough that if anything about it looks interesting, one should just go ahead and give it a go. Being cheaper than many AAA titles’ most bland of DLC also means that many of its
shortcomings can be forgiven.
At the time of writing, Vampire Hunter comprises 6 unique stages, 18 playable classes/characters, and about 15 different weapon types. These can all be mix-and-matched to best align with the gameplay style
each player wants to enjoy while also being “fair” – no one character is stronger or weaker than others and all the weapons can carry players to the 30-minute end.
However, the way Vampire Survivors achieves this is cheap – while some
characters may have a unique starting weapon (of which players can carry 6), most playthroughs that reach the end will feel the same. In my 20 hours of gameplay (again, for 3 bucks, an insanely good value), I’ve come to the conclusion that
there are three types of final weapon configurations:
- A circular “kill aura” which instantly destroys enemies as they enter it.
- A stream of bullets which seek out and penetrate through enemies, instantly destroying them.
- An endless stream of colorful vomit which instantly destroys enemies.
Notice a pattern? However, what Vampire Hunters does so well is the lead-up to that point. Having to choose the best tool, knowing how to strafe around the horde, and earning those final few minutes of pure enjoyable chaos are what make Vampire Survivors a great game, and all for less than the cost of a morning coffee!
Last Updated: 04/17/2022
Published On: 04/17/2022
