Vampire Crawlers is a roguelike deck-building crawler, starring the characters of Vampire Survivors. It is a spin-off of the highly successful roguelike shoot 'em up by poncle, and developer Nosebleed Interactive gave this one a nice little twist. You struggle your way through areas in first-person, fighting turn-based battles with your ever-expanding deck, discovering treasures and upgrades, defeating bosses, and digging your way to new levels until you reach the end.
What I love about Vampire Crawlers
The whole look and feel of the game is great. You can’t help but fall in love with the pixel-art retro visuals. The 2D sprites might not be every gamer's cup of tea, but if you’re into that style, it really is a treat. Everything looks very authentic, and you can see that the developers put their soul and passion into every single detail. From the cards, the enemies, and the areas, to the village; it really draws me in. The upbeat yet gloomy music, which seems to come straight out of a haunted house, adds to the overall atmosphere.
I also love the high tempo of the game. You can just fly through areas in first-person by moving your analog stick around, and you don’t even have to turn to engage in combat. Just back up into an enemy and the fight starts right away. In combat, you don’t have to manually skip your turn every single time either; the game does this for you when there are no moves available. This works beautifully to make the gameplay extremely speedy, which is a good thing in my opinion.
The leveling system feels just right, as you shoot through the first levels in no time to help build your deck, and progress slower as you reach higher levels. The way you unlock certain powerful cards is also a nice touch. You have to sacrifice your cards to create a better version, which is always a (small) trade-off. Vampire Crawlers doesn’t hand out many freebies, and that makes the game addictive and fun.
What I like about Vampire Crawlers
I like how Vampire Crawlers throws you straight into the action from the very start. You get no introduction and no tutorial; you learn by playing. The mechanics aren’t that hard to understand, so you will figure out what to do in no time. Especially if you’re familiar with these kinds of deckbuilders, you won’t get stuck at all. However, that doesn’t mean it won't take some time to master, as the game is quite challenging.
I also like the way the areas are structured, featuring a good mix of enemies and bonuses to make sure you can survive the deeper levels. You have a very clear mini-map, which sometimes gives away a bit too much, to be honest. The village is a great addition as well. You can buy power-ups in the shop between runs, which greatly improve your survival odds, so it really pays off to build up your characters. The fun truly starts when the village expands, but I’m not going to spoil that.
I am a bit torn on where to put my next point, as I do like that the game doesn’t explain much. You have to figure out how everything works by playing, but sometimes I wanted a bit more feedback. For example, I still haven’t figured out where to find the enemies' health bars. This makes it difficult to plan when to play my next card. I love the calculation part of card games, but I’m missing that in Vampire Crawlers, simply because I don’t know where to look.
What I dislike about Vampire Crawlers
While I do like the different characters (called crawlers) in the game, there isn’t much variety between them in my experience. In a card game like Slay the Spire, every character is completely unique, both in their playable cards and their abilities. That makes a game like Slay the Spire (which is the best in its class in my opinion, so it’s a tough one to challenge) feel like a brand-new game every time you start a run with a different character. That is a great way to draw me back to a game time and time again, and I just don't get that same feeling with Vampire Crawlers. I suppose I should look on the bright side, because one card-game addiction is more than enough, but still… It feels like a missed opportunity.
I also don’t like the sudden difficulty spike early on in the game. It goes from being way too easy to seemingly impossible in a heartbeat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always up for a challenge and love the ascension levels in Slay the Spire, for example, but here it feels like an unnaturally steep hill to climb from a certain point. It is always better when the difficulty increases gradually, as that is what makes you want to come back for "just one more run."
It doesn’t help that the areas can become a bit of a grind when you have to go back to gain strength just to survive that difficulty spike. After a while, you can practically navigate the early areas in your sleep, and I actually became a bit sloppy at times. Of course, you will eventually progress just by keeping at it, but a bit less grinding would have been nice.
All in all, Vampire Crawlers is a great addition to Game Pass, and if you’re into roguelike card-builders, you should definitely give it a shot.
This article was written by a human and edited by Gemini 1.5 Flash.
Disclaimer: All content is created with the help of AI. Be aware of possible hallucinations or factual errors. When in doubt, always check with official sources.
