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Over the years, I have heard a great deal about roguelite card deckbuilders: how addictive they are, how they will swallow your free time whole, and how you simply cannot put them down once you start. However, no amount of convincing could make me think that such games were my cup of tea. And yet, here I am, having just spent a considerable amount of time with Vampire Crawlers, my very first proper venture into this particular corner of gaming.
And you know what's even more interesting? I can say that it was not an entirely unpleasant experience. Whether it has changed my mind about the genre as a whole is a different matter entirely.
Story – A World Without a Why
Let us address the elephant in the room immediately: Vampire Crawlers has no story to speak of. None whatsoever. You are a crawler, one of a group of brave or perhaps simply 'not right in the head' individuals who venture into dungeons in pursuit of untold riches. Enemies will spawn, you will fight them, and if you survive long enough, you will come home with your pockets a little heavier than when you left.
Why you are doing any of this, whether there is any greater purpose or narrative thread to follow, or what exactly awaits at the bottom of these dungeons, I genuinely could not tell you, because the game never bothers to explain. For players who live for a good story in their games, let this serve as fair warning: look elsewhere.
Gameplay – Into the Dungeons
Where the game lacks in narrative, it more than immediately compensates in its gameplay loop. And I do mean immediately. Before you see a welcome screen, before you receive a single tip or tutorial, Vampire Crawlers throws you headfirst into a dungeon with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. It is a bold design choice, and a rather effective one, because within moments, you understand exactly what this game is about.
A small map sits at the bottom of the screen, and your job is to navigate your way towards points of interest scattered throughout the dungeon. Most of these will lead you into encounters, and this is where things get genuinely interesting. Combat is handled through a turn-based card system. You will draw from a deck consisting of various attack types, including whips, knives, axes, holy water, bibles, and many more, while simultaneously managing your armour points to absorb incoming damage.
Enemies take their turns, you take yours, and the tension of managing your hand while keeping one eye on your ever-draining health creates a surprisingly engaging back-and-forth.
You begin each run with 60 HP (this is upgradable later), and every hit from an enemy will drain one point of that. Reach zero, and the run is over, simple as that. But in between attacks, you will also draw cards that boost your armour, apply damage multipliers, and provide a wide variety of other buffs that can turn a desperate situation around entirely. Different crawlers, each with their own unique special abilities, can be unlocked as you progress, adding further variety to how you approach each encounter.
The loop itself is clever and well-constructed. The longer you survive in a dungeon, the more you will bring home at the end of a run, mostly coins, which are then spent in the hub between runs to upgrade your gear, purchase buffs, or unlock new Crawlers entirely. It is the kind of system that keeps you going for one more run, then another, then another, until a rather alarming amount of time has passed.
However, and this is where I must be honest, the repetitiveness sets in sooner than you might hope. Once you have seen one dungeon through to its conclusion, a new one will unlock back at the hub, offering you the choice of exploring fresh ground or revisiting old ones. New dungeons do bring variety in the form of new environments with new enemy types.
However, at the end of the day, the core of what you are doing never really changes. You will draw your cards, manage your armour, survive as long as you can, spend your coins, and do it all again. For players who love that kind of repetition, this is a feature, not a flaw. For everyone else, it will eventually test your patience.
Visuals and Sounds – Pixels and Nostalgia
Visually, Vampire Crawlers wears its influences with pride. The game fully embraces the pixelated art style of a much earlier gaming era, going so far as to include two bars on either side of the screen to replicate the 4:3 aspect ratio of old monitors and TVs. It is a charming touch, and one that will no doubt trigger genuine nostalgia in players old enough to remember gaming on those screens for the first time.
For everyone else, it is a pleasant enough aesthetic, though hardly one that will leave you in awe. The visuals do exactly what they set out to do; they establish a mood and a tone, but there is nothing here that pushes boundaries or demands to be admired.
The sound design follows precisely the same path. The 16-bit audio, bleeps, bloops, and all the charming clatter you would expect from a game deliberately evoking the sounds of the last century are entirely fitting for what Vampire Crawlers is trying to be. It is nostalgic, it is atmospheric in its own modest way, and it serves its purpose admirably. But search as hard as you like for something truly memorable, something that lingers in your head long after you have put the controller down, and you will come away empty-handed. It is as standard a 16-bit sound design as you are ever likely to encounter.
Conclusion
Vampire Crawlers is a perfectly competent entry in a genre I admittedly came to with low expectations, and the truth is, it surprised me more than I anticipated. The card-based combat is engaging, the dungeon loop is well-constructed, and there is a genuine pull to just one more run that speaks to the quality of the core design. But the absence of any meaningful story, the inevitable repetitiveness, and a presentation that is charming rather than impressive collectively ensure that this is a game with a rather specific audience in mind.
If you are already a fan of the genre, there is plenty here to enjoy. If, like me, you are a curious newcomer, well, it may just convert you, at least partially. But if you are looking for depth, variety, or a reason to care, the dungeons of Vampire Crawlers may feel like a very long crawl indeed.
The Good
Immediately engaging card-based combat system- Satisfying and well-constructed gameplay loop
- Charming pixelated presentation for nostalgic players
- A solid crawler unlocks adding meaningful variety
The Bad
No story or meaningful narrative whatsoever- Repetitiveness sets in sooner than it should
- Visuals and sound design, while charming, are entirely unremarkable
- Little reason to keep going beyond the loop itself
