Game: Vampire Crawlers Developer: poncle, Nosebleed Interactive Genre: Card Battler Releases: 2026 (Windows) Stalk’s Rating: 6/10 “Vampire Survivors” was a freak success when it first released. No one had seen it coming, yet this small indie title with pixely graphics that did not really take itself all that seriously was so much of a craze that not only everyone and their mother wanted to play the game, but it also spawned its own genre of video game since there were so many imitators trying to get a piece of the success. The original has received plenty of updates and DLCs and is still a highly recommendable title, but you can only do so much to a single videogame before the playerbase gives you funny looks. So, the next big thing was needed; and what we got is “Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors”. “Turbo Wildcard” indeed, since I doubt someone saw a deckbuilding card battler coming as the next installment for the “Vampire Survivors” series. I naturally played through the game, seeing as I like “Vampire Survivors” and card-based games, and the resulting review looks as follows: So, how do you translate the gameplay from “Vampire Survivors” into something that uses cards as the main game mechanic? Well, you pick a character, a so-called “crawler”, who provides four cards as a start to your deck. Cards are color-coded, with the options being red, yellow, blue, and purple, with red cards all being damage options, yellow giving stat boosts for the fight, and blue and purple being utility cards that can produce mana to play more cards or give you armor to shield your life points from the opposing attacks. On top of that, you get the chosen crawler as a card. Crawlers are temporary passives that activate an effect when played and then have a trigger condition like “Blue: Draw a card” or “Red: Gain one mana”. Now, in good old “Vampire Survivors” fashion, there are tons of other bonuses and mechanics to unlock, with relics giving you further permanent bonuses if you find them in the dungeons, the upgrade shop allowing you to start the run with more stats, the blacksmith being able to create sockets for gems that further boost the cards in some way while also being able to change the rarity of the options you get during the run, while arcanas provide game-breakingly powerful effects like permanently gaining more maximum mana when playing a certain number of cards. The gameplay itself is fairly simple and if you have played something like “Slay the Spire” you should feel right at home. You draw a certain number of cards per turn, the normal value being four, while also starting with some amount of mana. Each card has a mana cost in the top-left corner, so the idea is to play the cards in the most effective way. The hordes of enemies in front of you will always show their next action, but whether you build up enough armor to take the hit or slaughter the front row to stop them from attacking is up to you. There is one mechanic though that you need to know of to really get things going in “Vampire Crawlers”: Combo. If the cost of the card you play next in line is exactly one higher, you get a better effect; and this mechanic stacks infinitely. Now, there are only card costs from 0 to 5, but not only can you make cards combo downwards again via gems but there are also wildcards which not only count as a joker but allow you to continue the combo at whatever point you want, which means that you normally go from 0 to the highest possible option, then play a wildcard, and then start from 0 again. The gameplay loop of “Vampire Crawlers” is therefore going into a dungeon, clearing out everything you see for cards, experience (level ups give additional cards), and upgrades to produce a deck that is strong enough to fight the boss. Doing so unlocks the next dungeon or a higher difficulty version of the same dungeon, which you repeat until you face the final boss in the Cappella Magna. It really captured the essence of “Vampire Survivors” in that all the tools are given to the player and enemies are just fodder that appears in sheer endless numbers. I am serious: Regardless of what enemy you face, they can only use attack, block, or a combination of the two. No normal enemy will ever try to do something fancy nor is there any combination of enemies that would be particularly bad because they have some synergy with one another. Bosses can get a bit more creative, but most boss battles are still just an endurance march, seeing whether you can withstand their attacks for long enough to deal the final blow. Bosses can shuffle special cards into your deck, like a trash card that is still mighty useful for drawing two cards for one mana, or a card that randomizes card costs but has options like -2 in its range and therefore often sets up more impressive combos than you could do on your own. One thing that I found particularly annoying is not being able to see how much health the opponent has. Now, I can understand this for the normal encounters to a certain degree since you might fight against sixty enemies altogether, but not having the slightest idea where I am in a boss fight damage-wise is pretty bad and makes planning ahead just guess-work. I also have to admit that I am still not entirely sure what some of the stats do in “Vampire Crawlers”, even though I have finished the game. I guess more area means that the attack hits more enemies, but what do 20 area translate to in terms of range? And what exactly is luck for? Or amount? I mean, amount probably increases the amount of projectiles, but while this was easy to grasp in “Vampire Survivors” I can only guess how much more damage this is dealing in “Vampire Crawlers”. It does not really matter though whether you get what all the numbers do, because “Vampire Crawlers” is a pretty easy game overall. You will hardly ever be surprised by the damage numbers and a “death by inches”-scenario is avoidable by gaining more upgrades or trying a different combination of crawlers. Unfortunately, the biggest problem I have with “Vampire Crawlers” is that it gets fairly repetitive over time. Sure, you can use different crawlers to slightly change the experience, but while “Vampire Survivors” comes with a limited amount of weapon and passive slots which forces you to plan your setup ahead of time, in “Vampire Crawlers” you can just pick cards at your leisure and run with it. Consistency issues can be completely eliminated, since there are plenty of crawler cards that allow you to draw when you play a specific color of card, while combo-ing boosts the mana-producing books into overdrive. The last dungeon was me farming max health as much as possible with “Forever Heart” and healing the difference up again with “Pummarola” and “Pummadora”, all of which give absolutely ridiculous values when you manage to constantly extend your combo with wild cards. Sure, there is a mechanic in the game that will eventually destroy your cards when you use them too often during a single turn, but by the time that could turn out to be a problem I have so much setup done that I can pass the turn and continue the slaughter after the opponent tried something against the unstoppable force that I erected. And that is really all there is to say about “Vampire Crawlers”. The game is fairly straightforward with the depth coming more via meta-progression than actually good deckbuilding, which is a weird way to go for this type of game. Now, despite the fact that I found the game lacking, I would be lying if I said that I had no fun at all. Seeing the numbers grow bigger and effects go ever more over-the-top as I stack cards for combos certainly works for a while, and the comparison I have heard being made with slot machines does make sense with flashing lights and all sorts of noise. “Vampire Crawlers” is far from perfect and in my opinion it does not reach the level of its inspiration in form of “Vampire Survivors”, but it is a solid time waster and definitely worth recommending if you are into card battlers in general.