Goth roguelike Vampire Survivors made its mobile debut recently and with appropriate gloominess—the indie game’s developers said in a Steam update that rampant clones “forced our hand to release the mobile game ASAP, and put a lot of stress on the dev team that wasn’t even supposed to worry about mobile in the first place”—but, well, now that it’s here, it’s pretty goddamn good.
Like the undemanding original, Vampire Survivors offers 30-minute runs exploding with bats, skeletons, and whatever timed, mystical nonsense your stoic survivor character has to kill them with. You’ll be glad to get lost in this game’s dangerous, repeating roads.
And while its PC version is available on Steam for $5, mobile Vampire Survivors cleverly uses optional advertisements to stay free and afloat. You can sustain a long run by watching an ad, and if you die, you can opt again to watch an ad to keep more of your collected gold coins, which can be used for permanent upgrades.
A good match for: Roguelike lovers, Castlevania admirers, 8-bit Hot Topic shoppers.
Not a good match for: Impatient people, those who fear death and pixellated bad guys.
Watch it in action.
