No Survivors - topic about Vampire Survivors clones

[Woody Alien 2]

After Vampire Survivors' enormous success and critical acclaim in 2022, as it always happens, lots of similar games, titles inspired by it and outright clones came out, it seemed a fad in the beginning but for the moment it seems like they are here to stay, and people are even trying to find a definition for the genre, stuff like "roguelite bullet hell", "bullet heaven", "reverse tower defense" or just "Survivors-like".

Personally I do enjoy them, even if not to the point of spending hundreds of hours on them like some people do, and after playing the OG I tried various ones both commercially available and free of charge, and I'm in the process of getting more of these, so I'm going to update this topic every now and then to discuss about the various characteristics of each one. Of course you can suggest more of them if you're interested and tell the forum your anecdotes or impressions about these games!

So let's start with a free one (unless noted all the games are assumed to be the Steam versions):

HoloCure - Save the Fans!

I have no real interest in Virtual Youtubers (and not much more in real ones for that matter) but this game is perfectly enjoyable even if you know nothing about them, though you'll have to like the Japanese colorful anime-esque style or else it would be unpalatable to you. As for me I find it a breath of fresh air in the glut of all the other medieval fantasy survivors-like that are very similar one another. What's more impressive is that it was made mostly by a lone developer, by a fan for fans, and every single gameplay element is a reference to some piece of Hololive VTubers' extremely expansive "lore" including fan-speak, fan arts and so on. That doesn't mean it is a "meme game", as I said before it's perfectly playable even if you know nothing about these characters, and impressively not only there's literally dozens of them but also they are for the most part mechanically fairly different from one, another so that one can choose whoever is more tailored to their playstyle. There are tons of achievements both in-game and Steam ones, lots of stuff to unlock imitating the style of "gacha games" but much less frustrating than these; the progression is very similar to Vampire Survivors as for weapon unlocking and evolving but there's less randomisation, plus if you're really a freak of this kind of stuff there's also a secondary system where you manage to gain "popularity ranks" (like real VTubers) for your favorites by winning stages in certain conditions and so on, and those will in turn give more bonuses during the gameplay.

INNOVATIONS: A whole secondary "relax" mode, HoloHouse, where you can play minigames about fishing, farming, cooking, decorating home and other charming simple activities that are used to gain bonuses and coins for the main game without having to grind too much in the "regular" stages.

HoloCure is one of the fangames more similar to VS beneath the cutesy adorable anime-esque style but for a free game it also has a staggering amount of content and the opportunity to tweak your gameplay in various ways. Graphics are clear even in situations of great chaos, music is good, difficulty level is ideal for beginners (that doesn't mean it is a cakewalk though) and everything is explained in a very clear way. All in all one of the best games if you want to approach this genre.

[Woody Alien 2]

Kagura Survivors - Endless Night

Another free VS clone. As far as I can understand Kagura Games is a publisher of H-games and the like and they asked some indie studios to make a game starring their mascot, a magic-powered kunoichi or something. It does have a patch for 18+ content but I'm not interested, it's always the same thing and I only downloaded it because it's free. That however does explain why among the enemies besides the uber-generic fantasy baddies like slimes, ogres and goblins there are random ugly fat dudes and muscular guys with their faces hidden... This is the first thing I noticed, the background graphics and pixel art in general is fairly well done but there is almost no variety in enemy mobs (it does have garden gnomes tho). As for the gameplay it is pretty similar to VS but with an Asian mystical flair (talismans, energy fireballs in place of the rotating books etc.), but the main difference is that in the shop you not only upgrade weapons but also modifiers, which are of 3 different types and apparently affect both the katana primary weapon and the secondary weapon. However this part is not well explained and it's not clear what advantages some of these modifiers offer, so it's possible to squander money on some improvements that look cool but don't offer a substantial advantage in gameplay. It's also not always clear how you get these items to appear in the shop besides finding them in the chests scattered around the 3 maps.

Speaking of maps, you have to pick an actual map in order to see the mini-map of the area you're in, but since these are always found near your spawning point and once found you have it forever, I wonder what the point of adding it is...

Another strange facet of the gameplay is the emphasis on gaining rank by continuously defeating enemies and never getting hit, the usual one that goes D>C>B>A>S>SS and finally SSS. The S ranks offer some aesthetic modifications to your avatar, but besides some achievements and the score multipliers to gain more points by killing enemies when you're in a higher rank, there does not seem to be much difference in power and abilities. There's a ton of stats in the submenu but they don't seem to affect the gameplay that much if at all, and if you don't care about climbing the score ranks in the leaderboard, there's no real point in keeping a high in-game rank other than boasting that you're a "pro player".

INNOVATIONS: Secondary abilities. the addition of a dash mode to pass through the hordes of enemies if you are overwhelmed and push them off you, you have to find and upgrade it like all of the other weapons. It's fairly interesting. There is also the "ultimate" move that works like a smart bomb and recharges slowly, for when you are in a pinch.

You also can choose whether to reroll level-up items by spending either EXP or money but there's always so many EXP gems around that saving your money is always the obvious choice.

In general, Kagura Survivors looks interesting and well-made for a free game at a first glance, but it's fairly repetitive and the various modifications to the basic Survivors gameplay either don't really enhance the experience or aren't well explained to the player, so that you have to rely on external guides to understand what builds work better to progress in the game. There's not much for completionists either and it's mostly all in the direction of getting a high score at the end of the session, while other survivors-like aren't really concerned with scoring points.

[excelsior]

The thing with these games is that they're pretty much a modern take on arena shmups like Geometry Wars. I find it hard to say they're an evolution of the format, because I personally find them less engaging. They benefit in terms of accessibility and have a wider appeal, through being more passive in their play, and including the more recent popular trend of randomised upgrades. Anyway, I like the idea more than the execution in terms of what I've played.

Vampire Survivors itself just doesn't do it for me. The biggest issue I have is that it's slow. From my not very wide experience with the genre, there seems to be an agreed upon idea that nothing happens for the first ten minutes of gameplay. That's something I see in VS that I'd like to see an alternative move away from. The setting also doesn't really excite me, so as mentioned before, the concept I like, not the execution. I'm also surprised for a game which achieved so much success, I saw no pushback against blatantly copied artwork.

Going back to Geometry Wars, I recently played one called Geometry Survivor. It basically takes Vampire Survivors and Geometry Wars and splices them together, as the title suggests. I like the theme much more than VS, so that works. It tries to take inspiration from some of the enemy generation patterns of GW, though in a much less aggressive way. There's also a techno soundtrack, but it's nowhere near as catchy as GW. Disappointingly, once things really pick up in game, the framerate drops off a cliff. I played on Switch, so I would be curious to hear how the PC version compares, but even with severe slowdown I beat the standard game fairly easily.

So, yeah, if there's some with a more interesting theme than VS, that also picks up fairly quickly so I don't feel like I'm going through the motions in the early game, I think something like this would suit me. I did really like GW and played it heavily back in the day, but I think, for me at least, the survivor gameplay needs to be tweaked, since so far it doesn't really deliver the moment to moment tension and excitement those games could.

[dsparil]

What I find interesting about clones of Vampire Survivors is that it itself is a clone! The original game is Magic Survival which is Android only so that put a real limit on it's growth. I haven't actually played Vampire Survivors (or any clones until HoloCure from this thread), but the art was from royalty free packs. Based on HoloCure anyway, I can see why it became popular with streamers i.e. it seems like an easy game to play and chat at the same time. I do agree that it isn't a new concept. Another example is Crimsonland originally from 2003. It is incredibly similar in concept except as a more active twin stick shooter. The developer is still around, and it is actually available on modern platforms. I remember playing that a fair amount when it was new.

I am interested in seeing the state of these games today though! 

[Woody Alien 2]

Mar 18, 2024 7:24:06 GMT -5 excelsior said:

The thing with these games is that they're pretty much a modern take on arena shmups like Geometry Wars. I find it hard to say they're an evolution of the format, because I personally find them less engaging. They benefit in terms of accessibility and have a wider appeal, through being more passive in their play, and including the more recent popular trend of randomised upgrades. Anyway, I like the idea more than the execution in terms of what I've played.

Vampire Survivors itself just doesn't do it for me. The biggest issue I have is that it's slow. From my not very wide experience with the genre, there seems to be an agreed upon idea that nothing happens for the first ten minutes of gameplay. That's something I see in VS that I'd like to see an alternative move away from. The setting also doesn't really excite me, so as mentioned before, the concept I like, not the execution. I'm also surprised for a game which achieved so much success, I saw no pushback against blatantly copied artwork.

Going back to Geometry Wars, I recently played one called Geometry Survivor. It basically takes Vampire Survivors and Geometry Wars and splices them together, as the title suggests. I like the theme much more than VS, so that works. It tries to take inspiration from some of the enemy generation patterns of GW, though in a much less aggressive way. There's also a techno soundtrack, but it's nowhere near as catchy as GW. Disappointingly, once things really pick up in game, the framerate drops off a cliff. I played on Switch, so I would be curious to hear how the PC version compares, but even with severe slowdown I beat the standard game fairly easily.

I understand your point of view and the reason it's probably because the developer used to work in the gambling industry so he used his expertise in slot machines and the like to create an addictive gameplay loop that is so simple that everyone could play it, probably that is the reason why it's kind of slow, passive and based so much on randomisation. I do like it precisely because it's so simple but I just can play it in short bursts otherwise it just gives me a headache after a while!

I do remember hearing about Geometry Wars back in the day but I never actually played it, guess I just wasn't interested. I read your post however and went looking for Geometry Survivors, I added it to the wishlist but reviews aren't really favorable for the moment, mostly citing the fact that it's too short without "endless mode" and that you can get all the achievements in an afternoon. I will probably still buy it in a while but maybe my laptop isn't powerful/enhanced enough to play it (ironically since in the end it's just a bunch of neon-colored shapes)

[JDarkside]

Vampire Survivors makes more sense when you realize the real hook of it is the sheer amount of secrets in it, and how these secrets are rewarding because they open up new build possibilities. It gives me the same sense of satisfaction that making a strong build in a CRPG does, but within the span of thirty minutes a pop. It's not so much the randomization aspect that makes it pop (though that keeps thing from getting too stale), but your ability to plan ahead and make powerful set-ups and enjoy the chaos that unfolds. When I started figuring out weapon evolutions, things REALLY opened up for me.

I'm not as addicted to it as some are, but I can play for a round or three a sitting. I have had absolutely no interest in any other copy cats or derivatives, which is rare for me because I usually like checking out other takes on a thing I like, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of meaningful experimentation on the scene, and more a lot of quick cash grabs with little investment because this sort of game is cheap to produce.

[Woody Alien 2]

Disfigure

Another free entry, this time is a minimalistic greyscale one with no plot or anything, featuring a lone man against hordes of giant bugs and other monsters, in almost completely featureless planes. The main hook is that the whole game is set in the dark besides a cone of light above the protagonist, one mouse buttons shoots and the other activates the flashlight to see where the hordes are coming from, you have to do either one or the other. So among the usual level-up upgrades there are some focused on the lighting, for example throwing flashlights around, make the enemies bathed by the light slower, make the whole screen flash at regular intervals and so on. Since all the enemies are black silhouettes and the only tells of their presence are the colorful bullets they may shoot and their noises. Or you could just choose the upgrades that create a lot of shrapnel and ricocheting bullets and explosions and just shoot like mad all around you...

I found it interesting but on the other hand next updates should add more than just new weapons, since everything else is really limited if you want to do more than just shoot all the time. You gain a lot of credits but there's nothing you can spend them on after you've bought all the weapons, since powering them up is just linked to the accumulated XP. (apparently these updates are in the works) Also it's kind of annoying that there's only two maps and the condition to unlock the second one is to defeat the boss in the first one at Hard difficulty.

INNOVATIONS: as said before, being a game set in almost total darkness instead of just making the area around your character slightly darker. It helps making things more tense and your colorful abilties and enemies' bullets are more visible by contrast. Not as cool as, say, Madworld or anything though.

[Woody Alien 2]

Horde Hunters

Another one that came out about a year ago, it doesn't seem to have been very popular, just bought it recently during sales. Have played it fairly thoroughly these days so I'll try to give my opinion on it.

It's advertised as "the survivors-like where you aren't just running in circles" because the Finnish developer decided to introduce several elements that make it closer to RPGs. There are a few classes (Fighter, Mage, Archer, Bard, Jester, Necromancer and Thief), each one with their peculiar stats and weapons, and each one is unlocked by defeating 1000 enemies with the previous one. You can tweak a bit their main attack in the character selection screen, and leveling up gives you a Diablo-esque sistem (or at least I think since I never actually played Diablo) where weapon and loot can be poor/common/strong/epic and you can reroll, no weapon combinations or anything of the sort here, but there's several items that can help change stats, plus another innovation, consumables.

You can pause the game with the mouse and choose what kind of item deploy then and there, be it healing items, weapons, shields or bombs (which amusingly are almost all farm animals).

There are also several places that work like in simple RPG games, like the bank where to deposit our gold, libraries to gain more XP for a while, mines to farm gold and so on, all with a cooldown time; to break the monotony of combat, there are also missions where you have to defend buildings or characters to gain prizes or have the rescued characters become helpers that count as secondary weapons. Missions boil down to stay inside a circle and survive for some time, defeat a certain number of enemies or pick up a certain number of items without going outside the area for too much. A nice idea that admittedly breaks down the repetitivity for a while, at least.

As for the rest, there's four maps ranging from the village which has everything and a high number of additional missions and item farming spots, to the desert where there are almost no resource and it's a big barren area with terrain that slows you down. There's achievements for completing every map with each class plus completing it without added unlocked power-ups, also there's special missions for each map like saving the buildings in the village from burning down, to picking up a certain number of apples, rescuing a certain number of people in the desert and so on.

All well and good but despite everything, monotony sets in after a while: enemy mobs are always the same in each map, as is the bosses you have to defeat to complete them, and tweaking the specs of maps and characters can only do so much. However it's nice how you can choose to speed the game up and have the bosses appear, say, after 10 minutes instead of having to wait half an hour like in Vampire Survivors, which can become tedious when you're fully powered and there's nobody even able to touch you.

It's said that this game is a tough one, but I did not find it that hard with the consumables and missions replenishing your lifebar, it's more difficult for the fact that the gameplay nuances are not well explained and I had to rely on guides for the builds and such. Defeating "elite" enemies gives you skulls that can be used in the meta-game menu to improve character stats and abilities, at first it seems a tall order but you can easily stock on them after a while. There's still multiple difficulty levels if you want a bigger challenge though. There's still some annoying aspects like bad weather slowing you down or reducing the visibility, storms of flying enemies draining your health in seconds, or enemies making a beeline directly homing on you, especially infuriating where's elites and bosses doing it to you.

In the end I found it a nice game with some interesting aspects but didn't find it as good as Nomad Survival, that is one of my personal favorites. Will probably talk about that one soon enough!

[Woody Alien 2]

So among the other free indie games I usually add to my Steam library there's also the demo of this survivors-like titled Ruiga Pirates: First Survivors.
It's intended to be an appetizer for the full game that is called just "Ruiga Pirates" and will feature many more characters and items, but after playing it a couple hours I decided I'm not going to follow it and just uninstalled the demo.
The idea is fairly original at least: you're the captain of a pirate crew and you play as the ship, surrounded by other vessels and sea monsters, and you have to find islands to complete missions that will give you money and other resources that can be spent in the main menu to improve the various stats and so on.
It has the novel idea that you choose both the ship and the captain, which have different weapons and characteristics, so you can find a different synergy, at least in theory: this is one of the worst and most boring games I've played in this sub-genre. For starters, beginning is very difficult because the power-ups never seem good enough to defeat the hordes of enemies and for a game based on plundering treasures there's too little money that can be spent to improve our stats. Isles are few and far between, and they give us paltry sums that are never enough to make things better. But, if you manage to survive, then it's almost difficult to lose because the enemy mobs don't scale and stay always relatively the same, so the challenge doesn't scale and everything is just boring and samey.
I hope that the full game solves these issues, but even then the graphics are ugly, with barely readable pixelated fonts, the sea shanty-style BGM is too repetitive, you never get a sense of being powerful and for a pirate-themed game there's remarkably little treasures and everything feels unimpressive and scaled down. I dunno, it just feels an all-around underwhelming game that wastes its interesting concepts. While I often spend several hours on these games because of the "just one more try" factor, this one got me bored pretty soon and I don't feel the urge to revisit it soon, or ever.