I, like many other people, fell down the Vampire Survivors rabbit hole eons ago. Poncle’s flagship Bullet Heaven captured many hours of my time, and it seems like they may do it again with Vampire Crawlers. After playing several hours of the (surprisingly dense) Vampire Crawlers demo, I’m very excited for the full release.

Vampire Crawlers takes familiar things from Vampire Survivors and pulls them into a Dungeon Crawler/Deckbuilder hybrid. You move through dungeon areas, breaking destructible light sources for gold (or wall chicken), as well as taking on enemies, finding treasure, and upgrading your cards or stats.

Battles are turn-based, card-based battles where you fight in battles similar to Slay the Spire. Each card requires mana, and if you play cards with successive mana costs, you can increase the power of your cards via combos. The combo mechanic really encourages you to think about how you are playing, in addition to making sure your armor level is up to protect you from damage.

Vampire Crawlers blends the wave-focused combat of Vampire Survivors with this deck-building combat in a seamless way. As you fight, you either knock enemies back away from you (thus preventing them from attacking) or you kill enemies, allowing enemies to move up and fight from the next wave. It is an engaging, sometimes chaotic gameplay loop that really hits that same vibe as Vampire Survivors.

The demo itself offers a wealth of content, with several unlockable characters, two main stages, and lots of unlockable cards and gems. Gems can be placed in cards to add effects, which change your build even further. Progress from the demo is said to carry over to the main game, so exploring the depth of its content is well worth it.

Overall, if you like Vampire Survivors and you want something different in that same world, Vampire Crawlers is a great vibe. With Slay the Spire II and Vampire Crawlers coming out this year, my deck-building plate is gonna be pretty full. Seriously, though, play the Vampire Crawlers demo. It is fantastic, and there is a lot of content to dig into.

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