Vampire Survivors

Cover Art - Vampire Survivors
Vampire Survivors is a time survival game with minimalistic gameplay and roguelite elements.
Hell is empty, the devils are here, and there's no place to run or hide. All you can do is survive as long as you can until death inevitably puts an end to your struggles. Gather gold in each run to buy upgrades and help the next survivor.

The supernatural indie phenomenon that lets you be the bullet hell!
Platforms Xbox One S/X, Xbox Series S/X, Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS
Developer Poncle
Publisher Poncle
Player Count 1
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Journal Entries

January 18th, 2023

So, I’ve been hearing a lot about this game called Vampire Survivors lately. At first, I didn’t think it would be my cup of tea. I’m not usually a fan of idle games and the idea of “just moving around with the left stick” didn’t sound like it would be very fun. But, boy was I wrong!

I picked up the game on Steam during a sale, and at just $8, I thought it was worth a try. My first game was a bit confusing – I was surrounded by bats and wasn’t really sure what was happening.

20230118 - Vampire Survivors - This is pretty much how you start
This is pretty much how you start, except for the direction arrows

But as I started to understand the mechanics and level up, I found myself really enjoying it. It’s a bit like the soulsborne games where dying is part of the learning process and hidden lore. It’s also like the old bullet hell or shmup games from my younger days. The firing is automatic, but there’s still a lot of depth to the gameplay.

One of the things I love about Vampire Survivors is how it keeps surprising me. There are some really cool, Lovecraftian elements to the game that I wasn’t expecting. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone else, but let’s just say that things can get pretty weird!

20230118 - Vampire Survivors - You can become borderline indestructible
Stick with it, and at the end of your first hour you can deal damage like this

Overall, I’ve been having a great time playing Vampire Survivors. It’s become my go-to game when I’m tired but still want to play something. Playing it on the Win 3 or Steam Deck is a great experience and it’s perfect for relaxing on the couch with YouTube.

Sometimes, turning on the laptop isn’t an option. I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be playing Vampire Survivors more than Peglin thanks to this!

20230118 - Vampire Survivors - I have made some progress
According to Steam, this is what it looks like after 20 hours of playing – and Antonio isn’t my main character!

January 25th, 2023

It’s been an eye-opening week for me, playing Vampire Survivors on my new Steam Deck. I had heard great things about the game as a time-killer, but playing it on this console takes the experience to a whole new level. I ended up spending about 8 hours on the couch playing it this week alone!

I’ve been using my Steam achievements as a guide to determine what to play next. Right now, it’s relatively easy to knock out a few achievements in one play-through. A lot of them involve playing with a new character and surviving for a certain amount of time, while others are for unlocking new weapons or evolving them into newer forms.

20230125 - Vampaire Survivors - Lasted past the 30 min mark
Achievements are still being accidentally unlocked, like lasting for a minute past the end of the round

With a total of 159 Steam achievements, though, I can see how it would be quite a challenge to go for 100% completion. But I may be tempted to take up the challenge!

Even though I’ve put in a lot of hours this week, lying on the couch and playing Vampire Survivors on my Steam Deck has been a real treat. I think this will be a great way for me to work through some of the games in my backlog, as well as new ones.

For example, the remake of Final Fantasy: Crisis Core piqued my interest, but I thought I would skip it. I don’t want to play it on my big screen. Playing through the original on my PSP was a great experience, and tying yourself to the couch isn’t the same. Playing it on the Steam Deck though feels like it will be a perfect fit!

20230125 - Vampaire Survivors - Tackling different achievements as I play
I can see many nights on the couch knocking over achievements

But before I move on to other games, I still have 53 achievements in Vampire Survivors to work through. I’ll be tackling them slowly but surely!

February 1st, 2023

Super quick one for Vampire Survivors this week. Like Cartographers on my mobile, you can safely assume I am playing Vampire Survivors at this point!

The achievement hunting has slowed a little, but not the gameplay. Right now, I have unlocked 112 of 159 achievements – pretty impressive in my opinion! There is no timeline for me to try for all the achievements. If I looked further down the list there are probably 20 more ‘easy’ ones for me to unlock with the right characters.

One thing I was super happy with was I managed to last 35 minutes on a level – 5 more than you are supposed to. What does that mean? Not much! But it was super fun to reach that milestone, and made me happy for the rest of the day!

20230201 - Vampire Survivors - I lasted a long time
So when the reaper in white comes out, the game isn’t playing anymore