Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 92.8

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/23/2023

The standard to which all other games on this list are held! We recognize that it's not just the basics of gameplay but also the depth of content and collectables that makes it addictive.

It's a simple casual game about moving towards some things and away from other things. And it's a complex hardcore build crafting systems game about over the top screen wiping action. It's a very influential game with an auto-fire design that isn't just replicating how weapons work without it, where as one dev on another game put it "every weapon makes you move in a different way." Many followers don't fully understand what it attempted to deconstruct and many attempt to do their own thing.

Also I just found out a full symphony orchestra was used for the DLC soundtrack - what the fuck!

We're not considering some more recently added features in our main scale, mainly just because they came out after the game had moved to DLC. The multiplayer is free, but the boom happened before it happened so we're just kind of leaving it in metadata for now. The new adventure mode is also linked to DLC.

It's totally possible, just annoying, to add more categories to the scale, but for now we're going on 'vanilla' Vampire Survivors circa 2023. It's easy to see which categories we are comparing, anyway, on the scale heatmap!

There isn't as in depth review notes here, but if you check out the explainer much of it is about breaking down what made Vampire Survivors so successful and seperated it from other similar games that came before. The scoring guide also will walk through how Vampire Survivors works for every category on the scale.

Note on other games: "Many of these games have campaign or dungeon crawling mode, but we're not really scoring that for or against them directly, just if they include the wave survival modes."

Longer reviews are sometimes for worse games: "I just write more when there are issues to note. Some are just more complicated. Just don't think a short review means it's bad, often it means there's little to complain about. Enjoy the scale!" - xoxomonstergirl

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 11.3

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/23/2023

An excellent choice to scratch your Vampire Survivors itch. This one is very inspired by oldschool Diablo 1 feel from graphics to enemy types and attacks. Great enemy patterns/AI, kind of beautiful sometimes to watch them move. Has options for Auto Aim and Auto Attack. Quick Toggle available at all times means it still gets high scores in those columns.

There is a prelude so you can try it out and see if you like the more downtempo vibe. I can see how some people complain about the graphics, but it's pure nostalgia for me! It's a great game, but I'm personally often looking for something a little more over the top and upbeat in this genre, which explains my lower playtime vs. some others.

I should write more on this at some point, it's one of the better games on the list, but I imagine it being up so far and already popular most people already know that. Like a few other games the detail of notes suffers because I played most of my time in it before I was making notes and they are already on my list to play a lot more of. That's generally a good sign, but I intend to revise the notes later.

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 19.7

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 10/16/2023

This one was put in pretty early so the review will be fleshed out a bit later.

Options to play one handed with a mouse or to turn on auto-aim can make this feel more like VS. Contains an Endless Mode, but also "Rog's Mode" which has a map with multiple choices like some other Rogue-likes, with special challenges, bosses and bonuses along the way. A large amount of content, can be a little slow to get going but breaks your computer with overwhelmed screen eventually, like any good VS-like should!

There's no limit to amount of items/upgrades you can get, so that's pretty fun. Is a little different in that targeting matters, there is a dodge and some other abilities. One class manually fires. Cool art style with the charm of pixel art and hd 2.5d kind of like Octopath Traveler / Live A Live remaster.

I'll be honest, could bump up in my pure vibes rating a fair amount by offering some more gal characters (the Duelist is a femme but I didn't realize until the dev poked me.)

You might recognize this one as the game that donated us some high res assets to use as the sub background! Great responsive dev.

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 3.4

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 12/9/2023

Earlier on Steam there were 3 different free versions, released in the order Prologue > Chapter 0 > Demo. Prologue and demo are no longer available, so Chapter 0 is the current free version. Achievements will be available in 1.0 on Jan 15th, 2024

Played for a bit in each version. Personally I don't love when the upgrades are character specific or spread out on a map (I just want to get into the next run as soon as possible), but it looks like there may be some depth here.

Problem is the way the upgrades are laid out slows me down a lot. I would rather have there be less depth if I could get into a run quicker! Right now the weapon names and too incremental upgrades feel a little plain. Has a sidescroller stage which is interesting. Weird choice to lead with no-name in a time travel cameo game, but I think she's interestingly creepy. I dig the art style - feels like pixel crusted retro pre-rendered 3d art but is actually 3d, I think.

Sandbox mode to test your builds is a nice addition. Really takes the map/exploration aspect seriously, which I appreciate. Really enjoyed some stuff like the powerups, which are often boring in games but the mushroom one is super fun. Serious UI issues with controller / steam deck and bugs in the menues bringing down review scale store. I'll revisit on full release!

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 515.2 (Adorn)

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/20/2023

This uniquely bright and poppy dungeon crawling shooter has been dominating my steam recommendations for weeks as I browsed survivors-likes, so I sought out an experienced player to help us compare it. Following are notes from Adorn from the Voidigo discord! Adorn's scorecard notes: "A top down twin stick shooter dungeon crawling action roguelike, it becomes more like a Bullet Hell as difficulty progresses"

Auto-Battler/Shooter: "There are powerups(pwus) that give turrets and companions but majority of the input is from players."
Arcade Style: "There is a bit of plot and a relatively lengthy tutorial, but after that's done runs are really easy to start up."
Bullet Heaven: "Follows the heaven format for enemies, which don't fire that much even on higher difficulties, but is closer to a Bullet Hell for the bosses who are relentless on really high difficulties."
No-Aiming: "There are pwus that give the effect of a no-aiming mode but they are not guaranteed on every run of course."
No On-Attack Movement: The game has a sprint and a walk, so firing will stop your sprint, but the walk speed is the same, hence the 0.5.
Endless Mode: "There's no dedicated mode, but the player can "loop" which will restart the run with all of there items and this is only limited by the power of your PC."

Impactful Items: "Some pwus don't change much but most of the pwus can drastically change how you play the game.
Invincible/Broken Builds: You still need to pay attention to progress in the game, but the builds can get really OP especially on high loops."
Temp Powerups on "Ground": "All of the pwus can be permanent if you want but can be traded hence the 0.5."
Many Player Characters: "All of the pwus and weapons are obtainable to you when you play the game so the Player Characters aren't that different in the endgame, but they are pretty unique at the start."
Bestiary/Lore: "There is a list of all of the enemies with descriptions in the tester build but you need tester commands to access this list. The game does have some decent lore but it's not focused on for majority of play."
Secrets: "There are a few easter eggs such as weird noises happening at certain points, and a literally game event called a "secret crack" but nothing too big."
Lo-Fi Charm: "The game has charm for sure, but that charm isn't really because it's a homely indie game. The game genuinely has a very polished and smooth feel to it."
Dodging: "The player will "jump" over attacks and can "stomp" on enemies if they are above them. Stomping will stun some enemies and can be comboed on multiple enemies to extend invincibility frames."

"The player can hold up to 2 a melee or ranged weapons. Melee are generally more risk/reward as they will do a lot of damage but will use a lot of "durability" and have very short ranges, while also being able to block some attacks. Ranged will be safer as they can attack from a distance with a bit less damage and more ammo efficiency, while also being able to "gunslap" enemies for small melee damage."

Difficulty/Fun Ramp: "The games difficulty is pretty reliant on learning and overcoming how certain enemies/mechanics/synergies work. The meta is essentially what works best for the player."
Low Price: "It's $20 which isn't that low, but relative to the content it provides it's a huge bargain. I have several hundred hours and all achievements and I still have pretty different experiences on different runs."
Technical Check: "The game can start to struggle with some frame stuttering when a lot is happening on the screen but this is pretty rare and you'd have to be pushing the game a lot to cause this."

Conclusion: "For VS players that enjoy the horde survival aspect, this game isn't too great since the game is more focused on small enemy groups and a domineering boss. But VS players that are fans of the roguelike aspects will find great enjoyment as this game will have plenty of options to scratch this itch."

Scaling and Review Notes

Personal Hours Played: 10.8

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/16/2023

An interesting game to compare and not unlikely to come up in your search because it's a "survival" game with "hordes" of enemies. It's also top down and a twin stick shooter and randomization, so it's got some surface level similarities. But it's also an incredibly complex game with many controls, so in many ways the polar opposite of something like Vampire Survivors.

It has a campaign mode but also a survival mode with timed waves. The general gameplay loop consists of gathering resources and base building to develop and increase various weapon powers and survive waves of enemies. Set up towers, do research, explore and so on. It's really a rather cool mashup of genres, which got me interested in checking it out.

It's got kind of the polar opposite of "simple level choices", having some of the most complex systems to upgrade your fighting level imaginable (dependent on base building.) I mostly liked that, but for my review score I'll have to note I found the voice acting grating when I should have been loving this. It might hurt that my name is also Ashley so it just felt like my robot dad was yelling at me a lot.

With a game design really revolving around long term play, it's definitely not a roguelite, but with map generation and hardcore mode, it is a non-traditional Roguelike in the same manner that Diablo 2 is a roguelike. I usually use roguelite to refer to metaprogression and I'm not sure if the campaign unlocks apply to hardcore mode yet - and if they do to the survival mode, it actually shares more in common with these games than I thought at first glance. In any case, I'm giving it a partial score in "rogue-lite".

It doesn't have a sprawling open world or stretching maps, but you do explore to other maps through the same game when playing the campaign. Aesthetics feels a little like some custom Star Trek map with one mech defending from waves of zerg rushes. Voice acting and writing is kind of annoying imho, probably could have done entirely without it but it doesn't intrude too often.

It feels a bit more bullet heaven when you equip a gun on each hand and stand near a million towers you set up. Enemies do have ranged attacks, though. All in all it's more of an ARPG / base building hybrid and not a survivors-like, but it could tickle your fancy for long term wave defense with more complex systems.

Scaling and Review Notes

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 12/6/2023

Scale scoring from scorecard submitted by Developer. Once evaluated after a couple hours play and some research, will be adjusted and moved up into the ranking proper.

Full metaprogression notes by Daemonbound, possible spoiler warnings: "The player's goals is ever changing as there are numerous things to work towards that will increase the player's options and overall power. To start off the player will initially work towards finding chests on the map to unlock new armor sets, artifacts, weapons and characters."

"They will also be looking for means of getting gold, which is used to purchase unlocked items and to upgrade their stats, via the upgrades menu. Player's goals might shift then to finding the exit on a map to unlock the next one, so they can further increase their arsenal and selection of characters."

"Each character has their own unlockable main weapon and secondary weapon, which can be unlocked by finding a gold chest on any map. Furthermore, these characters all have a primary and secondary stat bonus, which can be increased by reaching higher levels in a run past level 100. Players can later through the collection of marbles, increase the base damage of weapons in their stash to further increase their power too."

"As the player collects more achievements, their Survivor rank increases too, which unlocks numerous other hidden features, such as a new tier of upgrades, the workshop, where some of your unlocked characters offer their services as artisans, that can craft weapons and offer many other services. There is also the tavern, where adventurers you have found and saved on maps, can be hired to aid you with their skills. Lastly there is also the Auras feature, where the player's characters now can have unique auras to further enhance their and other player's stats."

Dev Scorecard Notes: "The game has elements of Diablo 2. Over 100 updates released since the game's launch."

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Scaling and Review Notes

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/20/2023

Scale scoring from scorecard submitted by Developer. Once evaluated after a couple hours play and some research, will be adjusted and moved up into the ranking proper.

Dev: "The game is a horde shooter very much like VS, but you have to aim and fire yourself. The game is older than VS, so no major inspirations, HOWEVER, there is a new version (currently in Steam beta) coming some time in the future and it does have an option for auto-firing, and there may be one new game mode which is auto-fire only."

Help us rank this game! [Submit Review]

Scaling and Review Notes

Review Disclaimer

Every game ranked was played, but also scaled based on research, talking to developers & your feedback. The priority with the scale's initial design was to compare similarity on relatively objective features - so it doesn't claim to include reviews of the depth and clarity you'd get at a games journalism site, nor the intensive time played you might get from player reviews on steam. We try to incorporate and link all of that along with a 'review scale' that checks for bugs. See the heatmap and breakdown! Time played noted so you can take any notes with a big grain of salt! I can't get to high level gameplay in 850+ games so I heavily research every game. Over 80 game creators let me interview or survey them! I Hope to go back and refine. Please argue or submit your own scores and reviews to be incorporated with credit into the notes and score numbers.

Added or last checked on 11/18/2023

Scale scoring from scorecard submitted by Developer. Once evaluated after a couple hours play and some research, will be adjusted and moved up into the ranking proper.

Help us rank this game! [Submit Review]