Oh, my dearest poncle, what have you done to me? I swear, after spending hundreds of hours on Vampire Survivors (and its various DLCs), I knew that Vampire Crawlers was going to swallow me. As I suspected, Vampire Crawlers is a surprising twist on the deckbuilder formula, while also still providing that engaging and enthralling style that Vampire Survivors created.

The familiar trappings from Vampire Survivors are here; your various characters are known now as Crawlers, for starters. Each one has a different, unique effect, usually dependent upon playing a certain color of card. Weapon cards are red, most items are yellow, things like armor are blue, and wild cards are (usually) grey.

Some cards have gem slots that you can put gems into, as the term “gem slot” implies. These consist of things like adding armor, refunding mana, and all sorts of other things I won’t spoil. In fact, part of the fun of Vampire Crawlers is diving deep into its systems to figure out just how far the rabbit hole goes.

In fact, that is the brilliance of Vampire Crawlers in general. It takes the idea of a Dungeon Crawler and the idea of a Deckbuilder and then adds layer upon layer of Vampire Survivors-esque ideas. Each of the mechanics has a Vampire Survivors-esque veneer on top, but it is enough to help you understand the game even if you aren’t familiar with card-based action.

All the common ideas are in play, including weapon evolutions, arcana cards, and more. However, poncle also added some fun things that enhance the experience too. Each time I think I have reached the depths of what Vampire Crawlers can offer me, a new mechanic or idea is introduced. Not only that, but if the game is anything like Vampire Survivors, I wouldn’t be surprised if a variety of free content updates, as well as a few paid DLCs, are in the works already.

The art takes on a pseudo-3D Pixel art vibe, like a pop-up book or maybe an HD-2D RPG? It is hard to explain outright, but the images in this review likely give you an idea. What is also amazing about it is that the developers have remixed some popular Vampire Survivors tracks, added a few new tracks, and made a banger soundtrack overall.

The only real problem Vampire Crawlers has is that when you have a large number of cards, navigating your hand is a hassle with a mouse. With a gamepad, it isn’t too bad, but with a mouse, it is a pain. The developers have commented that this is going to be dealt with in an upcoming patch, but for now, it’s just something to make note of.

I could gush about Vampire Crawlers all day, but in reality, it will likely appeal to a lot of players. Whether you like Deckbuilders, Vampire Survivors, Dungeon Crawlers, or all of the above, I can see it catching lots of players’ attention. It is a fantastic game, and I’ll be crawling the various levels for a while, just to see what I can unlock and what goodies are hidden that I haven’t found yet.

A PC Review Copy of Vampire Crawlers was provided by poncle for the purposes of this review.

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Vampire Crawlers

$9.99

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• Great Deckbuilding Gameplay
• Super fun Vampire-Survivors callbacks
• Engaging progression
• Fantastic Soundtrack

Cons

• Sorting Cards and moving through Hand is tough with a mouse