Vampire Survivors may not have procedural maps, but randomizes playthroughs via upgrades available and mimics other aspects. It allows the player to progress between runs with both currency based and goal based unlockables.

Risk of Rain is a randomized exploration action game that allows players to progress between runs via items and characters unlockable through accomplishing in-run goals or finding items within the run.

Rogue is the inspiration for the entire traditional roguelike genre. It has permadeath and randomization, but there is no progression or carry over between runs. It's also turn based, but we take that more into account in its own column.

Reality Break brands as an "opt in rogue-lite" where there is ongoing progression and respawn in most game modes, but some run ending events with some resets and powering up between runs.

Elden Ring is a soulslike, where you always build up progression and advance the plot on one playthrough, but it is heavily punctuated by run-like deaths and respawns where all enemies are reset instead of staying killed. They are not randomly placed, though, so Elden Ring gets a very low partial score.

Path of Exile is almost entirely focused on long term progression with respawn. However, it does have optional hardcore modes and certain bonuses that only carry over until death, meaning there is loss for an "ended run." There is also shared account metaprogression in terms of stash and other mechanics. This gives Path of Exile a score that is only partially negative.

Call of Duty 2 is a campaign game where the player completes maps in order to complete the game. There is no meta progression where you unlock things to impact a future playthrough of the campaign and no randomization.

Vampire Survivors places a great emphasis on automation, automating aiming and firing and ignoring other action controls. The player only controls movement and level choices. Most people consider it an auto shooter.

Boneraiser Minions places a similar emphasis on movement and level choices. While it adds a dash, this doesn't push it over the edge for us and we give it a full 1 for being an auto battler since the minions do most of the direct battling and your job is primarily to run away.

Time Wasters works quite well with some builds without worrying about aiming (just dashing, usually) but aiming is quite important in the early game. It's got auto-fire but it's also a twin stick shooter. So it gets a partial positive score.

Disfigure is pretty reliant on a trigger, but it also has a variety of abilities that go off based on other conditions. In some ways it feels like setting up a chain to go off in other automated games. So we are generous with a partial positive score.

Whisker Squadron: Survivor borrows some elements from more typical survivors-likes but takes on a 3rd person spaceship on rails shooter perspective like Star Fox. This results in an action game where some elements - like flying in a certain direction at a certain speed - are automated. Since it's an action game just with some restrictions, it gets a 0 score but not a fully negative score. It can be said to lack the ability to be an auto shooter, but it's not the polar opposite either.

Path of Exile has many action controls, but it is also possible to make a summoner build where you only really worry about movement for long periods while your troops do the fighting. This gives it a very negative but not entirely negative score.

Dead Cells is an action heavy game that relies greatly on player skills and reflexes to manipulate a variety of controls with near constant precision. It earns an entirely negative score for its completely opposite game design philosophy about user interactivity.

Vampire Survivors is an action game which pauses for you to select level up rewards. All enemies and the player move at the same time, except for special powerups (which we don't count against it.)

Cult of the Lamb is a rogue-lite dungeon crawler with an additional colony sim element. However, both modes proceed in live time as opposed to any sort of turn-based outside of pause menus and leveling. This earns it a full point.

Dwarf Fortress (evaluated by the fortress mode) is a colony sim styled roguelike. It has "real time with pause" gameplay where it's possible to issue commands in real time, but likely that you will pause to do most of the player inputs. It gets a partial positive score.

Chess Survivors is a survivors-like with a turn-based hybrid mechanic combining chess-like moves on a timer and real-time bullet physics. It feels close to real time, earning it a partial positive score.

Crypt of the Necromancer centers its gameplay around a unique rhythm mechanic. You get one move per beat, meaning it's technically turn-based but not diametrically opposed.

Peglin is a pachinko/Peggle style rogue-lite, where you take turns aiming and firing a ball. It plays out in real time via physics, so it gets a not-entirely-negative score.

Rogue is a traditional turn-based rogue-like, the namesake of the genre. It is purely turn-based with no timer, earning a fully negative score.

Vampire Survivors may technically be a top down game with player and enemies moving on a flat field, but the sprites are presented at a sideways perspective to the camera. This gives it a somewhat isometric seeming view. So fans refer to it both ways!

Nova Drift is an asteroids-style game where your space faring organism (which looks very much like an abstract ship) is viewed from a top perspective and moves on a 2d plane. Since it's top down, it gets a full point.

Hades is an isometric dungeon crawler where the player moves from area to area presented at a fixed camera angle from above. Since it's isometric, it gets a full point.

Gunlocked is a vertically scrolling spaceship game. The perspective is from the top down on your ship, but because it's a slightly different genre with vertical movement progressing outside the control of the player, we've given it a fuzzy score of 0.8.

Whisker Squadron: Survivor's camera is behind the player instead of above it. It's pretty different, but we consider some other camera modes more different. It has a zero.

Risk of Rain 2 is a third person shooter. The camera is up and behind the player. In this game it's pretty far up and behind often with some classes, making it feel a little closer to isometric games. So it ends up with a partial negative score.

Peglin is a turn based peggle-style game where the camera is at a side perspective. It also shows the puzzle gameplay area that isn't really a field of play in the same way.

Call of Duty 2 is a first person shooter with no way to see the player character in game. It's considered completely different on our scale, a good example of a -1.0.

Vampire Survivors has the player control a single character, who they move around the play space with the control stick. While there are summons, the player doesn't directly control them.

Boneraiser Minions is a game that revolves around a summoning mechanic, but while you play the round you don't actually directly summon units. Your control is limited to a single avatar so it gets a 1 point.

Overlord is an action strategy game where you control an evil horde through the influence of your character. There is directing troops but also direct abilities and attacks, earning this a high partial score.

Pikmin is a strategy puzzle game where you control a character as it gathers and directs minions. You are mostly controlling the character's ability to give orders, but you give orders carried out by other player controlled units. This earns it a partial positive score.

Peglin requires the player to aim a cannon that releases a ball for peggle like puzzles. But it also has a single character who has hit points and is the focus of the journey. Since you don't directly control during the action, it gets a 0, but it's also not diametrically opposed.

Loop Hero is an innovative roguelite hybrid that requires players to guide a character around a loop by influencing the conditions of the map. For example, they can place a tile that increases stats or one that spawns enemies. The player also manages the equipment and inventory of the character. There is no direct control over movement or attacks, but you are minding the character and their inventory. So it earns a slightly less than fully negative score.

Dwarf Fortress is a colony management sim where the player issues orders that are carried out indirectly by units who have been assigned related jobs (or just feel like doing it.) There is very little direct control and there is no single player character. No character is more so a player character than any other. Due to significant game design philosophy differences, Dwarf Fortress gets a fully negative similarity score.

Vampire Survivors throws players right into the action and then quickly back again, even with a quick start menu as soon as you open the game. During the run and after there is no exposition or plot, just your score, stats, gold acquired and the desire to do another run. Vampire Survivors differs from classical arcade games by offering rogue-lite metaprogression.

Osmos is an action puzzle game that lets you select a level and jump in. Levels or procedural challenges don't take long to complete. It could be considered to be more arcade style than Vampire Survivors, but we cap off at a full positive 1 score.

Hades is a roguelite dungeon crawler with a very moving plot. But it takes place without interrupting the runs so much and runs still take around a half hour. While the runs are dungeon crawling and not wave survival, they are also tweaked to be around 30 minutes leaving it with a similar amount of arcade style in and out time as Vampire Survivors, despite a very different presentation. It gets a high positive score.

Cult of the Lamb is run based but the cult management mode is more than a minigame, requiring a large amount of gameplay between runs. It also has an ongoing plot that plays out through the game, which combined results in a low positive score.

Rogue is an adventure game. While it's run based, it's supposed to feel like a deep adventure and many people never finish a run for a long time. Because it doesn't have the trappings of many modern games in terms of tutorial and cutscenes, we give it a tiny positive score and don't push it towards the negatives.

Dwarf Fortress is also a roguelike, so technically each game starts as a run in a new world. But you can redeploy to the same world or recover an old spot for a new fortress and it's also an incredibly complex game with tons of menus and systems to learn. It simply doesn't feel like can arcade game, but we give it a tiny ding away from full negative since it doesn't have any sort of plot heavy intro either.

Path of Exile is an online action RPG where an incredibly epic and long story plays out over dozens or hundreds of hours of player gameplay with a single character. It has tutorials, dialog trees, cut scenes, you name it. Despite also featuring fast action, it doesn't want to be an arcade game, it wants to feel like the game goes on forever. So it gets a full -1 score.

Vampire Survivors allows the player to stack multiple weapons right from the start and gives them abilities through each run resulting in more and more projectiles. By the end of a run, especially for late game players, the screen is often completely filled with player projectiles. This is what many people refer to as bullet heaven and is the ideal for a full 1 score.

Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde is a tight to formula survivors-like that attempts to flood the screen with attacks. It really doesn't get over the top as Vampire Survivors but the game design philosophy seems to be trying to do the exact same thing, so we give it a full 1 score.

Time Wasters is a space ship survivors-like that never gets quite as over the top as Vampire Survivors (few titles do) but is over the top enough for us to give it a 0.9 score. It allows you to get several weapons systems and level them as high as you can, flooding the screen with attacks. The distinction isn't huge, it would probably also be ok to give this a 1 score if your game is similar, but we think Time Wasters isn't exactly going for a full game breaking flood of bullets.

Path of Exile likely is considered a hack and slash game and not a shooter by most people, but as you build up your character it is quite common for the screen to become covered in player attacks. This gives it a high positive score.

Risk of Rain starts off feeling like a difficult twitch shooting sidescroller, but through skill and experience you can build up to combos that unleash a flurry of projectiles. This gives it a partial score for Bullet Heaven A.

Hades is a quick and flashy hack and slash dungeon crawler where you're often slamming dashes and attacks together with triggered abilities to quickly clear mobs of enemies. There's a technically a gun, but it's not likely you'll be showering that many bullets. We give this an almost neutral 0.2 score.

Boneraiser Minions can have a lot of action on screen on the player's side so we don't give it a fully negative score, but it also has no shots coming out of the player. So we're giving it a solid 0.

Cult of the Lamb is very similar to Hades in many ways, but has notably less projectile or screen wiping combos with attacks, giving it a solidly less aggressive score. It then falls further down since much of the gameplay has no attacks at all.

Elden Ring's brutal melee focused combat may technically have some projectiles available in terms of thrown weapons and spells, but the game is designed for the player to feel outmatched and of low power during almost all encounters. The game design philosophy is to never let the player feel like an action movie spiral of attacks or an all out god - so it gets a -1 score here.

Vampire Survivors has bullets from enemies in rare encounters, but the gameplay mostly revolves around avoiding being touched by enemies. Its game design philosophy is around this tag mechanic and bullets often don't move much quicker than enemies or are parts of the enemy that then return to it. Since well over 99% of enemies killed by the player don't shoot, it's our benchmark for a 1 score.

Halls of Torment features thrilling boss and elite encounters, but the general hordes threaten you with a touch damage focus. It still earns a full 1 score on our scale.

Time Wasters has lots of touch damage mobs, and also attacks during bosses that feel a little similar to games we still give a full store, but they're also more typical of traditional shmups and low level enemies later in a run send out bullets. So we give it a high positive but not totally full score.

Risk of Rain starts off feeling like a difficult twitch shooting sidescroller, but through skill and experience you can build up to combos that unleash a flurry of projectiles. This gives it a partial score for Bullet Heaven A.

Assault Android Cactus is a twin stick shooter that has a lot of popcorn enemies in addition to a variety that shoot. Since not every enemy shoots and generally the screen isn't flooded with bullets, it gets a not entirely neutral score.

Loop Hero is a strategy game with no dodge or shoot mechanics available to the player. So we give it a safely neutral 0 score.

Rogue is an example of a hard to rate game - it has projectiles but it's also turn based and quite simple compared to many of these other games. If something is undeniably different, it doesn't always matter how exactly. We give it a partial negative score.

Returnal is a third person bullet hell requiring a great deal of dexterity to avoid constant enemy bullets. This gives it a fully negative score of -1.

Vampire Survivors maps controls to a single stick. There are no other buttons. You might use your other hand to select while leveling up, but we're going to consider the action part of the game as the point to compare to here. So it's fully playable with one hand.

Brotato includes an option to enable manual aiming but it doesn't need it, isn't really improved by it, and isn't designed around it. With no other controls in the action gameplay, it easily gets a full 1 point.

Chess Survivors has a fairly unique turn based hybrid system that includes essentially aiming your moves. It's easier to use both hands, but the positioning and clicking to confirm can be mapped to one side of the controller, so it gets a high score in one handed play.

Halls of Torment lets players toggle between auto aim and auto fire, resulting in large swaths of gameplay where only the joystick is used to move. Since early in a run using manual aim or fire can be beneficial it gets a high but not full score of 0.8.

Soulstone Survivors is a very typical survivorslike of the popular first wave, where it adds complexity in terms of controls. In this case, with a dodge-like ability and toggle-able auto aim. Since both the manual aim and the dodge seem heavily preferenced in gameplay, this gets a partial score. It's technically possible to play with auto aim and map the dodge to one side of the control, but it doesn't feel like the game is designed to accommodate it, so we give it a 0.5.

Rogue Genesia manages to still feel pretty zen at times, but the controls actually add a near constant dash, one character has manual trigger, and aiming is important. There's also a special move button that might figure into it. While much can be remapped and there's an option to turn on auto-aim, the game is designed around more hands-on action controls earning it an almost neutral 0.2 score.

HoloCure - Save The Fans is very similar to Vampire Survivors but adds a special move button and aim that are highly used during play. It's possible to build one-handed builds so it's not a complete negative in game design philosophy, but especially in the early game aiming is important. It has auto fire, but we still consider it primarily twin-stick shooter.

Peglin is turn-based and doesn't require many button presses at once, but it also just doesn't feel designed to play with a single hand on a controller. The control is very different, so while it's perhaps possible to play single-handed, we nod to that difference by giving it a 0 neutral score.

20 Minutes Till Dawn is heavily aim-dependent for much of play, also requiring manual trigger press and special moves. However, some abilities auto-fire or trigger on other fire, or don't require aiming. That means it doesn't have an entirely negative score and we rely heavily on vibes, giving it a -0.5.

Rogue Legacy is a highly skill-based sidescrolling rogue-lite with buttons required to "trigger" a variety of abilities, making it near impossible to play one-handed.

Risk of Rain 2 is a highly skill-based 3rd person shooter rogue-lite with heavy emphasis on aiming and buttons required to "trigger" a variety of abilities, making it near impossible to play one-handed. It's another example of a -1 on this category.

Vampire Survivors distills an action game down into a single control, just movement using the left control stick (we're evaluating games by controller unless the option doesn't exist.)

Gunlocked feels like a game where you aim since you have to get enemies into specific positions to "lock on" and trigger your weapon fire. However, it's all done by moving your ship around, giving Gunlocked a full 1 point in Move Only.

Chess Survivors is a weird one, a turn based hybrid that requires aiming of a sort and a button press to confirm your move. However, this is all also technically moving. In the spirit of things, we give it a full 1.0 score, despite strange mechanics.

Scarlet Tower is a tight to formula VS-like but adds a dash, aim and fire controls. However, aiming and firing may be best left on auto and dash is a movement skill, so we give Scarlet Tower a high partial score of 0.8 for Move Only.

Army of Ruin has aim and aim penalty, which slows down and complicates movement, but more importantly it also has a commonly used special move button. This gives it a pretty low score of 0.2, still a partial score since it does have auto-fire and focuses on movement as the primary gameplay mechanic.

Star Survivor heavily prioritizes movement in gameplay, but a complicated mechanic earns it a neutral score. The boost relies heavily on aiming in a way that makes sense for the space setting but is quite challenging at first to get used to. This gives it a neutral score. It has a special ability that highly complicates the movement controls.

Time Wasters has a very important dodge and also aiming as a prominent feature. This makes it a twin stick shooter primarily, even if it does have auto-fire. But you can play for long periods without having to dodge or aim. This gives it a neutral 0 for the absence of "Move Only" game design.

Disfigure is a survivors-like that trends farther from the movement in Vampire Survivors by having heavy aiming importance both of a weapon and of the flashlight effect, plus most weapons on trigger and a special button to switch the flashlight. On our scale, this level of complication with controls earns a partial negative score in "Move Only."

Binding of Isaac is a top-down dungeon crawling twin-stick shooter that requires constant aiming, use of special moves or items, and trigger pulls. This puts it far enough from Vampire Survivors to earn a fully negative score in Move Only.

Elden Ring is a complicated 3rd person action RPG game with many controls always at your fingertips including aiming, attacks of multiple sorts, activated abilities, menus active during live play, and so on. This is very far from a Move Only game design so it gets a fully negative score.

Vampire Survivors has no other controls besides moving your character, so it gets a full score for No Dash/Dodge/Boost. Sometimes an item or skill or gameplay mode might change your relative speed, but there is no separate button to control this. This category is scored in the negative so our comparison game always gets a full score. Keep that in mind!

Assault Android Cactus is a top-down twin-stick shooter without any sort of separate movement speeding ability. It does have powerups that might make you move a little faster, but no separate move or toggle. It also gets a full 1 score.

Dwarf Fortress is an interesting example where we have to think outside the box. It doesn't have action gameplay with a single avatar. But it does have an 'increase speed' button that you'll be using often. But that button increases speed for everyone! Perhaps it gets a partial positive score since a control is involved but it impacts everyone.

Binding Of Isaac has some abilities that would count towards this but they aren't encountered in every run. So it gets a partial score relying a fair amount on vibes. Some people may never encounter this kind of ability.

Spellbook Demonslayers is a survivors-like which adds a dash button (alongside optional aiming), earning it a solid 0.

Risk of Rain 2 is a 3rd person shooter rogue-lite that has a dodge style ability for some characters. But it also has the ability to jump for all characters! So we give this a -0.5 for multiple abilities in this category and since they'll be used often.

Hades is an isometric action rogue-lite that relies heavily on dashing in gameplay, with many abilities revolving around the dash. Due to the near constant use in probably every build, the slight shift in subgenre, and the importance of dash in buildmaking and not just avoiding enemies, it gets a full negative score. The gameplay design revolves around dashing.

Vampire Survivors has no other controls besides moving your character, so it gets a full score for No Trigger.

Boneraiser Minions is primarily a movement game while your summons damage the enemies and act as primary attacks. It does have a special move and a dodge but we put those scores in their own categories. We give it a full positive score for No Trigger.

Gunlocked is an innovative vertically scrolling shmup where ship attacks are triggered by lock on conditions being met. Since the lock on happens purely when enemies move through your ship's reticules and there is no way to manually trigger attacks, this doesn't count as a manual trigger. Gunlocked gets a full 1 score for having No Trigger.

Rogue: Genesia has gameplay revolving around auto-fire for the vast majority of the game. However, there is one character who has manual fire. This optional way of playing being restricted to only one case lets us give Rogue: Genesia a high positive 0.9 score.

Halls of Torment has an optional trigger for attacks. Many players may prefer to play with it. But in our estimation the gameplay philosophy of Halls of Torment is to mimic the enjoyable movement focused design of Vampire Survivors. So we give it a high score, since you can play without needing the trigger at all.

Disfigure undeniably has a trigger! But some abilities are not trigger related and others trigger via cascading effects. Since it's pretty in survivors-like vibes in other ways a partial positive score seemed acceptable.

Chess Survivors is a hybrid turnbased game that requires a button press to finish your move. We could have called this button press a special move button or a dash button but we decided to put it in trigger since it's mapped to the trigger (and other buttons.) It doesn't really matter, all we want to do is show a point of difference from Vampire Survivors in the movement control categories and No Trigger seemed as good a place as any. We gave Chess Survivors a neutral 0 score for the "absence" of No Trigger.

Reality Break is a classic top down twin stick space shooter wrapped around a Diablo 2 style ARPG. It's got some Vampire Survivors inspired elements, but the majority of attacks are reliant on trigger presses so we give it a negative score. However you can often just keep it down, kind of like an auto shooter, so we don't think the trigger is the full focus of the gameplay. It gets a -0.5 in No Trigger.

Peglin is a rogue-lite peggle-like, revolving heavily around carefully lining up shots and then pressing the trigger. It's not possible for gameplay to happen without that trigger press, so even though it's also technically turn based we give it a fully negative score in No Trigger.

Path of Exile is a complex Action RPG with many equippable skills mapped to many buttons and even separate suites of buttons accessible via hold downs or toggles. Any one of these could be said to be abilities requiring a manual trigger so we give it a full negative score in No Trigger.

Call of Duty 2 is an iconic first person shooter set in World War II with a great emphasis on manual trigger pulls. It doesn't just have a trigger, it's a trigger you pull specifically and carefully, making sure that every shot counts. The trigger is such a constant focus of gameplay that we give it a fully negative score in "No Trigger" (a double negative, meaning it would be a fully positive score in Trigger if the scale revolved around comparing games to Call of Duty 2.) On ours it gets a -1.

Vampire Survivors has no other controls besides moving your character, so it gets a full score for No Special Move Button.

Loop Hero is an innovative strategy rogue-lite auto-battler where you place tiles on a map and manipulate inventory to help your hero during a run. While there isn't direct control, we already put a 0 in "no trigger" to note the increase in complexity. We consider the "pause" to allowed in any game as basic UI function not requiring its own category. So we're able to give Loop Hero a full 1 in not having a "special move" button. It doesn't have the level of complexity required for multiple neutral or negative scores here.

Assault Android Cactus is a twin stick shooter that requires you to switch between two weapons with the use of a button. It's not quite a special move and you don't use it all the time, but it is added complexity in the controls so we give it a partial positive score of 0.8.

Time Survivors is a survivors-like that is very similar to Vampire Survivors in terms of controls with one major exception: A special move button used periodically in game. For example, the first character uses it to set up a decoy that distracts enemies for a period. It just has the one and it's only used periodically so we give it a neutral 0 in the scale for the presence of a feature.

Whisker Squadron: Survivor is a Star Fox style survivors-like that uses space rail shooter mechanics for each run. As such, it's got heavy emphasis on trigger (-1) and a dodge-style roll and boost that give it a negative score (-1) as well. It also has a bomb button, which you use less frequently. We've called that bomb button a "special move" and given it a 0 score in Special Move to try and represent the range of difference in the movement controls category.

Binding of Isaac has a variety of special moves, including placing a bomb and using an item, but it also doesn't use them constantly, at least not early on in runs. We give it a low negative score.

Elden Ring has a variety of additional moves beyond the trigger for a "main attack". We recorded the run/jump buttons as a -1 in the "No Dash/Dodge/Boost" category and the careful consideration for the main attack earned a -1 in "No Trigger". (It's also got a -1 in No Aiming and No On-Aim Attack Penalty, meaning it's a very different kind of game!) That still leaves a variety of moves such as strong attacks, blocks, parries, special moves with multiple buttons pressed at once, healing items, and so on. Elden Ring clearly has great complexity in controls so it earns an additional -1 in the "No Special Move" category.

Vampire Survivors has no other controls besides moving your character. Your attacks happen automatically on a cooldown timer. They might be directed based on the direction you are facing in, so games with that mechanic can still get a full score for "No Aiming."

Boneraiser Minions has you moving around, dodging, and collecting resources, but you don't summon your troops directly, and there are no real separate mechanics for aiming, so it gets a full 1 score.

Spellbook Demonslayers is a survivors-like with aiming, but it has a toggle that can be used in play to turn on auto-aim. Soon into a run, auto-aim quickly becomes the most useful way to play (and is always available), so we give it a high partial score for "No Aiming".

Gunlocked is an automatically vertically scrolling shmup with fairly unique mechanics. You only control your movement, but in a way you still do aim because you must move to the right position to have a reticule over an enemy. So we've given it a partial score of 0.5 in "No Aiming".

HoloCure is an over-the-top anime bullet heaven survivors-like which heavily preferences directional aiming with the right control stick during much of a run with some characters. While it has auto-fire and will continue to shoot attacks that aren't specifically aiming, aiming can help a great deal, especially early on. But later on, it's less important, and it's possible to make builds that don't use much aiming at all. Due to this, it gets a 0 since aiming is present but not entirely focused on.

Time Wasters is a top-down spaceship survivors-likes which heavily preferences directional aiming with the right control stick during much of a run. While it has auto-fire and will continue to shoot attacks that aren't specifically aiming, aiming can help a great deal. It feels like the gameplay is designed around aiming with most builds, but it's possible to not aim late game or to make a build without aiming required. So it has a strongly negative but not entirely negative score of -0.8.

Returnal is a third-person shooter rogue-lite with a heavy emphasis on dodging bullets and aiming attacks back. While it's true some weapons require less aiming and may automatically track, the gameplay is highly tuned around facing the right direction with the right control stick and getting the targeting reticule on top of enemies, or often near them to fire ahead. You're constantly aiming in Returnal, so it gets a fully negative score in "No Aiming".

Vampire Survivors doesn't slow or impact the movement of the player in any way when a weapon fires.

Boneraiser Minions doesn't impact or slow the player in any way when the player's units are summoned. We're concerned most with whatever primary attack is.

Army of Ruin doesn't slow you down while firing in general, but it does slow you down while aiming, to a stop. It's not often you'd want to aim, so we don't give it a totally negative score and in fact leave it at a high positive score of 0.8.

Returnal is a third-person shooter roguelite with heavy action elements. You generally slow down while aiming and firing, though it can depend on the weapon. It's not a huge slowdown so while the feature is there the player will not be thinking about it constantly, earning it a fairly neutral 0.0 for the existence of the feature but not centering it in the game design.

Hades is a hack and slash isometric dungeon crawling roguelite that puts a variety of weapons with unique control styles in players' hands. Some of these come to a full stop while firing, but almost all of them can be combined in action with a dash, leading to a very free-moving style feel to the gameplay. The feature is there and very important, but it's also mixed in with another important style of playing, so we give Hades a fairly negative but not entirely negative -0.5 score.

Bounty of One is a western-themed survivors-like with a clever twist on the movement. The character generally only fires while standing still. The player doesn't control the trigger, just if they are moving or not, but this is effectively an On Attack Movement Penalty that is central to the game design. So we give it a fully negative score on "No" penalty.

Vampire Survivors default mode challenges you to survive 30 minutes, after which death shows up to end your run (though death can technically be beaten!)

20 Minutes Till Dawn is a twin-stick shooter survivors-like where players must survive for 20 minutes to complete a run. Full point!

Chess Survivors breaks up each run into several levels, but they are each timed. Altogether, a run takes place in a similar amount of time and you spend the whole time running down a clock, so it gets a full point for timed survival modes.

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth + includes a wave survival mode called Greed where groups of enemies come at the player. It's not the primary mode, and isn't formatted exactly the same way, but within it there are many features shared with survivors-likes such as upgrades, a vendor, difficulty modifiers and so on. We give it a high positive score of 0.8. (We also give it a partial 0.8 score for Endless Mode since it's possible to make that happen within this mode.)

Risk of Rain 2's default mode is endless, but it's heavily structured around levels with timed survival and organic waves, sometimes accompanied by bosses. Despite the overall difference in how it's set up, functionally it's rarely actually endless, with short runs always with an eye to the clock. We give it a high partial score of 0.8. The same as Isaac - though that one has it in an optional separate mode and this other has it built into endless runs between several mechanics.

Breakout Survivors is a block-breaking survivors-like mashup that technically has endless runs. However, the game's difficulty continues to increase after about 20 minutes while the upgrades do not. The dev has noted in our interview that this is designed to push the run to an end around 25 minutes. Since it's based around a specific time that the upgrades end, we give it a high partial score.

Path of Exile is a sprawling action RPG that sometimes has little timed wave survival events within its dungeons or maps, so we give it a little positive score.

Loop Hero is a strategy rogue-lite autobattler with an interesting plot that plays out over several chapters. It's normal to end a run by 'returning home' after defeating a boss that shows up at the end of a chapter. It's almost impossible to progress without metaprogression much farther past one boss - so for much of the game it feels a little bit like a boss mode. However, it's technically endless and possible to have a perfect 'endless' run, really the prime appeal for many players. Since the average run is likely still around 30 minutes and ends with a boss or soon after, we give it a fairly neutral 0. In fact, we're not going to go below zero with any example.

Hades is a dungeon crawling hack and slash roguelite that challenges you to fast runs, but the goal is to escape the dungeon, not to run out a clock. Without moving forward, there's no way to advance and waves don't keep spawning in a room. Since it doesn't have the survival mode, it also gets a 0 for the absence.

Peglin is a level-based puzzler. It also gets a zero.

Call of Duty 2 is an FPS with a level-based campaign. It also gets a zero for timed survival modes.

Godstrike is a top-down isometric shooter that feels incredibly far from Vampire Survivors, since instead of a horde survival mode the only mode in the game is a "boss rush" where you must defeat a boss before a timer counts down or you lose. It's almost the polar opposite of a timed survival mode since instead of trying to last for a half hour, you're trying to beat a target in something like 5 minutes and every hit you take gives you less time. There's no running away or delaying, just attacking as quickly as possible. As a player, you're hoping for the exact opposite thing to happen with the clock - for it not to run out.

Vampire Survivors requires a fair amount of work to get there, but once you've proceeded to a certain point you unlock the ability to continue endlessly. Notably, you still get full advancement in this mode and can use it to work on a variety of other challenges. Probably at some point your game will crash, but we don't hold it against it.

HoloCure is a survivors-like that allows you to choose endless mode on a stage. It works as advertised, and we give it a full point.

Risk of Rain is a sidescrolling rogue-lite where you survive waves while moving from area to area. The gameplay is endless by default, though it will be a long time before new players see run times of any real length. Risk of Rain gets a full point for endless mode.

Bounty of One lets you select endless mode if you want to keep playing at the end of the boss that shows up during timed survival. However, this mode doesn't allow you to get achievements or unlocks, so it's literally less rewarding. For this reason, we ding it a little bit, giving it 0.7 for Endless Mode - it's just a little different, but we're not saying it's worse.

Reality Break is a top-down spaceship action RPG with roguelite features that sometimes features wave survival within longer runs. It's not a typical endless or timed mode, but has a similar challenge, so we give it a relatively high positive score.

Assault Android Cactus is a twin-stick shooter with a primary level based campaign mode, but it also includes a "drive" mode with both a "daily" and "infinite" drive. The infinite drive is not technically endless, but the intention for many players is for it to appear so, so we give it a partial positive score of 0.5.

Halls of Torment is a survivors-like similar to Vampire Survivors in many ways, but devs have stated they have no intention of making an endless mode, instead focusing on making sessions harder and interesting in different ways. It gets a full 0 for the absence of an endless mode feature.

Nomad Survival is another survivors-like where the dev has spoken up about their feeling against an endless mode, saying it wouldn't be as fun as players think it would be. The absence is represented by a zero on our scale.

Peglin is a level-based puzzler. It gets a zero for endless modes, though some fans have modded it in.

Call of Duty 2 is an FPS with a level-based campaign. It also gets a zero for endless survival modes.

Vampire Survivors accomplishes organic feeling waves by hiding any sort of timer and by filling waves using a mechanic based on how many enemies are currently on screen. It's not truly randomized, but it feels somewhat unpredictable to the player.

Sea of Survivors is a nautical survivors-like where new boats head in from the edge of the screen throughout your run. It feels quite similar to Vampire Survivors so it gets a full 1 score.

Risk of Rain 2 mostly sends enemies at you at a steady but unpredictable pace. There are triggerable events that will increase the enemies or change the composition of waves, but this also is possible in Vampire Survivors, so they share a full 1 score for Organic Waves.

Spellbook Demonslayers feels very oriented around typical survivors-like organic waves, but there is an ability to interrupt individual enemies as they spawn in, which shows a red X where they will spawn. It's not in every build and there is no separation into rounds or other announcing of the wave as a whole so it still gets a high positive score.

Path of Exile is a long progression action RPG with periodic wave survival modes and events within the campaign. When exploring enemy spawns feel fairly organic, but during wave events they're often punctuated by warnings or counters. We give it a partial score in organic waves.

Hades is an isometric hack and slash dungeon crawling rogue-lite. It mostly consists of moving to new rooms and defeating enemies - but within those rooms there are generally a few small waves. They feel kind of organic and can overlap, but the enemy waves are limited within that room and the spawns can be announced, so we give it a low positive score of 0.2.

Brotato differs from Vampire Survivors here in two ways, by having enemy spawns announced by a red X in the arena, and by having gameplay broken up into rounds. So it gets a 0 for the absence of organic waves. In some categories, we might go into the negatives for such a stark difference, but we consider this a subtle category among wave defense games. We don't want to go into the negative because we'd move similar games too far from each other. A very dissimilar game in this category group would likely get a 0 in all four survival mode categories.

Dead Cells is a challenging melee sidescroller rogue-lite focused mostly on dungeon crawling style runs. It doesn't really have wave survival at all, just enemies you encounter in the dungeon, so it gets a 0 in organic waves.

Osmos is a level-based puzzler. The "enemies" in each area never spawn in or increase. So it gets a 0 also.

Dwarf Fortress is a roguelike colony sim. You can change notification settings, but by default enemy invasions are announced by a loud sound and pop up, so it gets a zero in unannounced waves. As you can probably tell, we're not really assigning less than 0 in this category.

Vampire Survivors can have an incredible number of enemies on screen. Since it's got a pixel art style that uses simple sprites for each enemy and fairly simple movement mechanics, it can simply stack the count to absurd levels. We can't expect every game engine and style to handle this amount of enemies, but Vampire Survivors hordes are our comparison point.

Path of Exile is a complex action RPG with many complicated mechanics and more computer intensive graphics possible on screen at once. Despite this, it manages to periodically have absurd amounts of enemies, to the point we give it a full point here.

Osmos is a level-based physics puzzler where each level starts full of 'enemies' and you're challenged to navigate and overcome them. While it doesn't send hordes of new enemies at you constantly, the large number of starting challenge and the vibe of being outnumbered allows it a full point.

Disfigure is a tense horror-themed survivors-like with shadowy enemies constantly just outside your flashlight range. It certainly feels like they're endless, but at the same time it never seems to have quite as many on screen. Rather, it seems to preference the idea of lurking horror versus a visible horde. We nod to the intended vibe with a very high positive score of 0.9.

Risk of Rain 2 is a third-person shooter roguelite with several wave elements and a lot of enemies to throw at you. Perhaps because of the aim and shoot style action and the 3D engine, it doesn't prioritize a huge horde of enemies though it does want you to feel overwhelmed. So we give it a high positive score.

Returnal is a third-person shooter roguelite somewhat similar to Risk of Rain 2, but with an even higher graphical fidelity and even more of a focus on enemy bullets. With both of those other things pulling on the gameplay, it's not a surprise that it doesn't have as many enemies on screen at once. We give it a low positive score of 0.2.

Elden Ring often challenges you to handle just one or two enemies at once, so we give it a 0. It's not entirely diametrically opposed though since you also often feel overwhelmed by the few enemies that are there.

Monster Hunter series games are about challenging great beasts, but there are also smaller enemies around in general, so it doesn't get a fully negative score.

Godstrike is a top-down boss rush game where every enemy encounter is with a massive boss. All of them are, essentially, 1 versus 1 and thus diametrically opposed to a "horde".

Street Fighter is a 1 v 1 fighter. It's really different from the games we're tracking, and we don't expect many games like this on the list. But just in theory, a game where you only have one or no opponents would get a negative score on high enemy count.