A few days ago, a unique game "Vampire Survivors" appeared on Steam and attracted the attention of GameLook.
There is no gorgeous graphics, no complicated gameplay, players just need to continue to kill enemies in the game, improve their level, get better props to continue to kill. At the same time, the game also introduces Roguelite elements, each game can bring players a different experience, and the scene of many monsters on the same screen in the later stages of the game is also easily reminiscent of "Billions of Zombies" and "Epic War Simulator".
Of course, as a 2D game, "Vampire Survivor" is certainly not as difficult to develop or expensive as "Billions of Zombies" and "Epic War Simulator". But it is such a game of about 200M, and the energy created cannot be underestimated.
According to SteamSpy, Vampire Survivor has sold more than 2.5 million copies, and the game has a 98% positive rating, which has generated more than $4.5 million in revenue based on the game's $2.99 price.
What is even more surprising to GameLook is that the game has been testing EA for 5 months, but it still maintains a good popularity, Steam's daily online peak can reach 50,000, and according to game producer Luca Galante, the daily active life of the game is about 200,000, and it is not too much to call it a big dark horse this year.
Still, such an achievement may not have been what game developer Luca Galante had originally anticipated. Recently, foreign media interviewed Luca Galant, the developer of "Vampire Survivor", to explore the development process of this game.
Game trailer
A bumpy road to gamers
Born near Rome, Italy, where gaming culture is not very strong, Luca Galant grew up loving classic online games like Ultima online and therefore always wanted to become a game designer.
Luca Galant says he's fascinated by one feature in the Genesis series, which is the persistence of objects in the game world. Even if the player leaves the game, they can still collect them when they return to the game.
Genesis Online
Origin's game allowed Galante to discover his passion for designing RPG content for the first time, and of course, he mentioned that he had spent years making characters, weapons, and armor in Dungeons & Dragons.
It was because of the influence and inspiration of these games that Luca Galant eventually became a game developer. However, in his native Italy, he did not find his ideal job, so in 2010 he decided to move to London and find a job for himself at a local game company.
Unfortunately, even after moving to London, Luca Galant struggled to find the job he wanted, and he only got a job developing slot games, but it didn't take long for him to quit.
Of course, Luca Galant was not completely unproductive in the process, and during the development of Slot games, he learned to write code in Javascript and HTML5.
After accumulating enough experience, in 2020, he decided to join the game industry again and become a game developer, but the road is still very difficult. Luca Galant recalls that during an interview, a recruiter once laughed at himself in the interview.
A game to kill time, inspired by Pac-Man
The idea of designing a vampire-themed game like Vampire Survivor is not complicated, mainly to kill time during the epidemic and let yourself have something to do on the weekend.
Galante said he didn't initially intend to make a game that would appeal to a large number of players, but to hone his skills. At the same time, he also said that he hopes that the game will bring himself fun and will not need to spend a lot of time so that he can play it while riding a bicycle at home.
"I wanted to design the attacks to be automatic so the player could focus on doing other things." Galante explains. However, Galante insisted on adding various new items and characters to the game, so that he could allow some players to come back and continue to play the game.
To find the ideal style of play, Galante analyzed some of his favorite games to see what made them interesting. For example, in his opinion, the way products such as "True Three Kingdoms Matchless" and "Hunting Angel Witch" convey positive feedback to players is very special.
The game does have a certain "matchless" and "mowing" element
Of course, if you have experienced "Vampire Survivor", I believe that you can appreciate that the game's appeal is far more than that, such as the game's special "just one more go" cycle is unique, and this setting is derived from Galante's experience in developing Slot games.
"Playing slot games can actually be as simple as breaking down, pressing a button, and then waiting to see what kind of reward you've won. Because of this, Slot games must maintain a delicate balance between rewards and difficulty, and too simple or too difficult to obtain rewards will cause players to lose. In Vampire Survivor, I'm looking for a similar balance. Galante said.
Opening treasure chests is a major feature of the game
Regarding the balance between automatic combat and player control, Galante also mentioned a game that inspired him greatly. "I've seen a lot of articles about Vampire Survivor, but most of them don't mention a game, and that's the classic Pac-Man, which for me was the inspiration for Vampire Survivor," he said.
In contrast, there is indeed a certain similarity between Vampire Survivor and the classic arcade game Pac-Man. For example, at the beginning of Vampire Survivor, the player must stay away from the enemy, resist their attacks and survive. Players can then collect various items to level up for themselves, and that's when the player can destroy as many enemies as possible.
Galante said that the game was designed with the intention of being light and stress-reducing, "I've seen Twitch streamers playing this game while chatting with the audience, and that's what I originally envisioned for Vampire Survivor!"
Vampire, Gothic elements, in terms of appearance and style alone, Vampire Survivor is very much like a product created by Castlevania fans, but in fact, the game is not affected by too much Takashi Igarashi style.
There is a little, but not thick
Vampire Survivor uses a simple set of 8-bit assets that Galante bought years ago, and he says, "I've used them many times in various previous unpublished prototypes, and now they're part of the design of Vampire Survivor."
Galante has considered many times over the past few months whether to replace it with a new art asset, but so far, he hasn't had the courage to upgrade it. "I don't want to use the free stickers in RPG Maker, overall, the images are more compact and coherent, but there aren't any types of upgrades," he says. ”
From nameless to popular, more interesting products will be made in the future
According to the Steam page, Vampire Survivor opened EA testing on Steam in December 2021, but this is not actually the first time of the game.
Galante said that the game was originally unveiled on the Android platform in May 2021, but the pace of gameplay was relatively slow, so almost no one played it, and he quickly abandoned the mobile version and focused on developing the PC version.
Galante recalls that he also put some generic-looking screenshots on Google Play because he didn't initially think it was going to be a hot game. "I don't particularly care if the game makes money, frankly, I'm more interested in player feedback on the game." He said.
After the Android version failed, Galante brought the game to the Itch platform and then ported it to the Steam platform. But in fact, before January 2022, the game was not noticed by a large number of players, and it was not until the Twitch streamers started playing the game that Vampire Survivor received widespread attention.
With the popularity of Vampire Survivor, Galante's daily life and plans changed almost overnight.
In December 2021, he had landed a suitable job at a game company, but due to the popularity of the game, he quickly quit the job. And since then, he's been working on adding new features and fixing bugs to Vampire Survivor.
As of now, Vampire Survivor has a large number of players, Galante revealed that the game has about 200,000 daily active users. Galante also said that the current completion of the game is around 65%, and there are still some new mechanics in the future that will have a significant impact on the way players play, the first of which will be released in a few weeks.
In addition, Galante also said that he would like to port the game to the Nintendo Switch, and also hopes that the game will adapt to the V Society's new handheld Steam Deck.
As for the plans for the game After Vampire Survivor, Galante said: "Because this game has completely changed my life, the first thing I wanted to do was open my own studio and call on developers to develop new games with potential." Galante is also working towards this goal, working on a full version of Vampire Survivor to get out of the EA testing phase as soon as possible.
Galante said he's received a lot of interesting offers from the game to the hit, but in his opinion, he's not a "businessman" and therefore has to be cautious about what he's doing.
To this day, Galante is still in awe of what happened, he didn't go a day without thanking all the players, his goal was to never disappoint the players, providing them with a rich and interesting gaming experience.
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