Anybody here willing to discuss the recent phenomenon of Vampire Survivors? The game appeared out of nowhere, has very simplistic design/graphics (it looks like it was done in a week or two, to be honest), but currently accumulates +1k new reviews on Steam per day, with 99% of them being positive, which is very impressive, to put it mildly. Making a game with 90% approval rate is easy, 95-96% approval is hard already, 97-98% is exceptional, and 99% is… borderline impossible? At least for a popular title. The best indie hits of the past with cult following like Terraria, Stardew Valley, and Binding of Isaac weren’t able to break through that magic 99% threshold. Which says something about quality and design ideas of Vampire Survivors, I guess?
Also, for me this game is a clear illustration that despite many (almost all, actually) game developers around these forums and elsewhere constantly complaining that these days it’s outright impossible for small indies to get noticed without help of a publisher or decent marketing budget/strategy, this game does prove exactly opposite. As long as you have a good idea (and a bit of luck, maybe?) you will get noticed.
EDIT: For those few of you who never heard about this game, in recent weeks Vampire Survivors has got extensive media coverage from all major news websites out there (Polygon, VICE, Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku, Destructoid, IGN, etc.) due to its fast escalation from a noname solo indie project to outstanding success. That’s why I thought it would be interesting to discuss here.
Same, is this some kind of really shallow marketing attempt? Problem is a forum filled with analytic game developers would not be the best place to drum up interest.
edit:
I had a look around for the game. It’s basically high level decisions you make with poor gameplay but feels satisfying because of the gambling of numbers and you don’t really need to be good at gaming to get far. Look at Loop Hero for more.
There is many enemy types, they all read well despite hundreds of units on screen, the attack fx also read well - timing and spacing all seems to make sense - it looks like it was made with some thought.
I dont think animations would have added anything here. There is hundreds of units all wobbling towards you constantly and getting blown up almost as soon as you see them.
I think developer time spent animating every enemy would have been total waste.
Seems liek a perfect example of indie developer making a simple but well polished title within their scope. The fact that it blows up might be a just the nature of internet algorithms and all that, but I def wouldnt lump this in with goat simulator, which is just a meme. this is an actual game, and everybody is talking about how fun and addictive it is.
To me this is highly motivational. It shows that you don’t need to do anything new, complex, or even noteworthy. Just a well made game even if it is dead simple. People are bored, games are just like fast food to pass some time, this game seems to understand that and managed to find its audience.
Although its not the type of game I’d play or want to make, it does beg me to keep asking that question everytime i am working on something new in my own game: simplify, or complicate? Will teh complication make a difference for my audience, or just add more work for nothing?
You’re forgetting that indie games: fun > graphics. Goat simulator is plenty fun (well, for a while).
Why does it offend you if a fun game is also successful?
Its not all about graphics, we are in the games industry not the graphics industry They have clearly prioritised gameplay and ended up with a decent gameplay loop that pulls users in, couple that with low price of entry and a good approach to marketing and you have a success
They didnt just get picked up by all these magazines and news outlets by chance, it takes a lot of pre-emptive work to get noticed by journalists across the board like they have and they have obviously focused on what matters, gameplay and getting the game out there and noticed. Graphics etc are nice but entirely secondary when you are on a small budget, limited skillset and small team.
I’ve heard it’s a straight up clone of Magic Survival mobile game. So that’s your success phenomenon - take an already successful game from a different platform, clone it 1:1 with a new coat of paint and vaguely similar sounding name and then launch it on Steam for a price of a coffee.
It is similar situation like with modern art.
There are talented painters that are creating a works of art and gets not much from it, and on the other side of the spectrum you got some modern art “artist” whose splats on a canvas sells in millions of $.
Apparently it has the same weapons, XP progression and leveling system but is better looking and more polished gameplay wise. So it might not be 1:1 clone, but it’s pretty close.
It’s not my fault that some of you guys have been living under a rock and didn’t read any recent gaming news. Polygon, VICE, Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku, Destructoid, IGN, and basically every other major gaming news/review website out there are buzzing about it. The game has got 30k+ 99% positive reviews on Steam in one month, which already qualifies it as one of most successful launches in the history of video games. Do you really think it needs some additional “shallow marketing” from me or anybody else?
Good strategy though. Mobile has a lot of well liked, succinct and addictive gameplay loops with vast player bases that don’t have Steam alternatives.
These games already have hundreds if not thousands of reviews that point out things to improve. So find one, adapt it to desktop and add some polish on top and you’re golden. A lot of the risk is mitigated since game design is pre-validated. You just need to nail the theme and generally execute it well.
I don’t think this explanation really explains anything. For starters, Magic Survival you mentioned never was a truly popular mobile game. 1+ million installs in over 2 years (it was released in October 2019) for a free mobile game is nothing to brag about, it is just enough to pass basic survival threshold in mobile market. Nowhere close enough to guarantee that any games based on the same idea will become successful. Neither that game had stellar 99% approval ratings to explain positive reviews for Vampire Survivors we are seeing now.
Also, many developers have tried to do exactly what you suggest for way more popular and way more pre-validated mobile concepts. For instance, there are literally hundreds of clones of Flappy Bird floating around Internet, with a few dozens of those being released on Steam. Despite the original game being gone and thus creating an empty niche to be taken, none of those clones ever achieved even 1% of popularity of original Flappy Bird.
So I think it takes something else than just cloning an addictive and pre-validated mobile concept and releasing it with some polish and re-skinning.
1 million downloads is a hell of a lot more than 0. It might not be a smash hit, but clearly something is there unless it was pushed there by some big publisher money. Reviews also aren’t bad, most of the negative ones seem to be related to device specific technical issues due to Android device/OS fragmentation.
And as far as I can tell from my quick reading on these games - weapons, XP and Level progression systems are near identical between both of them, so what Vampire Survivors bring to the table is adaption to desktop and general polish.
I definitely don’t suggest chasing the 0.1% hits like Flappy Bird which get instantly cloned by dozens if not hundreds of other trend chasers. That’s a recipe for failing more often than not.
But I guess there are a few successful/semi-successful Minecraft and Terraria offshoots that jumped on the trend early enough if not in mechanics then at least in visual identities and I bet there are multiple Magic Survival/Vampire Survivors clones already in development. Perhaps some will gain traction if the formula is improved enough, only time will tell.
Plenty of Battle Royales are still successful even if none of them made Fortnite money. And there are several Stardew Valley inspired games in the works that are highly anticipated - Chef RPG, etc. The thing about trends is that if you’re early enough and good enough, you can still grab a piece of the pie. Players usually look for more content that they like. This time is no different.
Ideally, you’d be a trend setter like Vampire Survivors. And there was nothing quite like Magic Survival on Steam until Vampire Survivors as far as I’m aware. So my suggestion was to look for fun experiences on mobile that don’t have Steam alternatives but also aren’t the 0.1% hits that already have dozens of clones on all platforms in existence.
Yea, you need to place some points in Luck and Timing stats. And/or unlock Precognition skill. I don’t believe there’s some secret sauce here besides an easy to get into and solid core loop with apparently great execution published at the right time for the right price. There is a lull of AAA news/releases around this time of year.
They have clearly prioritised gameplay and ended up with a decent gameplay loop that pulls users in, couple that with low price of entry and a good approach to marketing and you have a success