The Scale

The Monstergirl Scale

For determining if a game is like Vampire Survivors

-1 to 1 in 60 categories

Genre

1. Rogue-Lite 2. Auto-Shooter / Auto-Battler 3. Real Time 4. Top-Down or Isometric 5. Direct Control of Single Avatar Camera Usually Centered on Player 6. Arcade Style (Little Plot) 7. Bullet Heaven A Many Player Shots 8. Bullet Heaven B Few Enemy Shots / Damage on Touch Focus

Simple Movement Focused Controls

9. One Handed Play (With Controller) 10. Move Only 11. No Dash / Dodge 12. No Trigger 13. No Special Move Button 14. No Aiming 15. No On Attack / On Aim Movement Penalty

Survival Game Modes

16. Timed Survival / Boss Mode 17. Endless Mode 18. Unannounced & Organic Waves 19. High Enemy Count / "Horde"

Power Progression

20. Level on XP Gain Run Event 21. Streamlined Level Choices 22. Currency Based Meta Unlocks 23. Goal Based / Find Based Meta Unlocks

Depth of Buildcrafting

24. Build Crafting 25. Impactful Level / Item Options 26. Weapon Combination / Evolution 27. Interesting Weapon, Item & Ability Synergy 28. Invincible / Broken Builds Possible

Map / Level Features

29. Explorable Map 30. BIG Maps 31. XP / Currency on Ground 32. Health on Ground 33. Temp Powerups / Items on Ground 34. Treasure Chests / Loot Events 35. Vendors on Map / Run

Depth and Breadth of Content

36. Enemy Variety 37. Elites & Bosses 38. Many and /or Interesting Characters 39. Many Challenges 40. Multiple Stages 41. Difficulty Modifiers 42. Bestiary / Lore 43. Achievements 44. Secrets

Aesthetics

45. Retro / Pixel Art Style 46. Damage Numbers 47. Lo-Fi Charm 48. Bumpin' Music 49. Unique / Fun Names / Writing 50. Subtle Humor

Gameplay Vibe Check

51. Panic & Zen Duo Vibe 52. Over The Top 53. "One More Run" / Short Runs 54. Difficulty Ramp 55. Fun Ramp 56. Low Price 57. Technical Check / Functional Polish 58. Controls Check 59. Fun Check 60. Feels like VS

How to Tally

-1 to 1 in 60 Categories
Scoring in 10ths
(example: -.4 or .8)

1: Feature Fully Present
0: Feature Missing
-1: Critical Difference

Tip:

Rely Heavily on Vibes!

Report as number out of 60,
Or Convert into 10 Point Score.

The scale "assumes you're
ranking a very "similar game.
In theory a final score can be negative.

See Definitions for a full explanation of every category on the similarity and review scales. See scoring guide for detailed examples.

Comparison Scale Examples:

Vampire Survivors

10.0 | 60

Halls of Torment

9.0 | 53.9

Chess Survivors

8.0 | 48.0

20 Minutes Till Dawn

6.8 | 40.8

Risk of Rain

5.1 | 30.7

Hades

4.4 | 26.3

Returnal

3.2 | 19.4

Rogue

1.0 | 6.1

Elden Ring

-1.9 | -11.3

Call of Duty 2

-3.8 | -22.9

Fun at Home!

Score games yourself with The Scorecard!

Argue about it on the playground!

Patch Notes Archive

Home » Updates » Patch Notes Feed » RICE - Repetitive Indie Combat Experience » V28: Antares Boss

Patch notes are imported from steam. There may be errors. This mostly exists so I can stay on top of them to update the features in our tags and scoring categories (which I do manually), but since many of you liked the idea of staying up to date with all the games in one place I'm working on making this data automated (right now I manually hit it every couple days) with better info and linking in with the game views.

There will be more data and proper atribution here (original author, steam link, original post date, etc) real soon, I promise. This is just like a technical test to see if they're coming in ok at all.

RICE - Repetitive Indie Combat Experience » V28: Antares Boss

Hey RICE fans!
More update goodness coming your way today. In fact, we’re now officially on update #28! Lots of updates and lots of yummy RICE content to enjoy.
We’ll share the notes on all the new content you’ll find in this update in just a sec, but first we wanna give a heads-up to the RICE community: on October 2, the base price of the game will be increasing to $5 USD (or the Steam equivalent for your region)! As we were working on this update, we felt like now was the time to update the change in price. It’s super-important to us that RICE provides not just loads of fun for players, but also loads of value for the price. After nearly thirty free updates, we felt it would be justifiable to bump the price as a reflection of the work we’ve put in these past few months and certainly hope you agree!
But don’t worry if you’ve been on the fence about snagging the game while it’s still $3 – you have a few more weeks to do so! And FYI in case you were wondering, the game will not be increasing in price again once we exit Early Access.
If you’re curious and wanna check out some of the work we’ve done since early May, here are some of our personal favorite updates of the past few months:
V23 – Brazen Helmet
V24 – Mushroom Map
V26 – Pulsar Boss Fight
And as promised, some very juicy notes for you on Update #28!

A new boss battle is now available, against the stars Antares A & B!

Additions:

– You can now adjust the max amount of projectiles the game will allow.

Changes:

– Armour now blocks damage from being on fire.
– Trail particles were rewritten using the new particle system, so they should perform better.
– Trail particles are now also affected by the projectile transparency option.
– Props can no longer be poisoned.
– Planetoid HP now scales on player level partially.

Dev Note:

Sorry for such a late patch, Antares required a lot of balancing and some rewrites to actually work correctly (and fairly) and took a lot longer than anticipated. Overall, I think it’s still too hard for meta-less runs, but I’ll have to mess around more with it in the future.
Armour was changed to block being on fire because it somewhat makes sense, while giving a counter to fire and making armour more valuable, a very nice two birds with one stone.