Editorials
Why ‘Vampire Survivors’ is 2022’s First Breakout Horror Game Hit
Looking at screenshots of Vampire Survivors, the first surprise breakout hit of 2022, it’s very easy to be completely confused by what you’re seeing. From a glance, you can clearly see the Castlevania inspiration dripping from every pixel, but that’s about it. Much like the bullet hells that inspire it, you can easily get lost in the large number of enemies and projectiles that clutter the screen. But once you get your first round in, while you won’t understand a lot of the higher-level systems at work, reading the screen becomes second nature.
The pitch for Vampire Survivors is a bit of a strange one. On the surface, it’s most reminiscent of a twin-stick shooter with one key difference: you’re not in control of when you attack. Instead, each of your attacks is automated on a cooldown. As you level up during your session, you can either add new attacks to your arsenal or enhance existing ones.
The rush of going from someone who starts just attacking horizontally with a whip once every few seconds to a whirling dervish of lighting, holy water, and magic bibles is an absolute joy to watch. And while it may sound like it may get too easy as you become an automatic monster slayer, the sheer amount of enemies the game throws at you is more than enough to keep you on your toes.
At first glance, the game seems deceptively simple, but it’s built on a series of incredibly smart design decisions. When starting, I was perplexed at the choice to make the attacks automated, but then I realized it simplified one of the biggest challenges I have with bullet hells. In a normal twin-stick shooter, you have to split your attention between trying to dodge incoming attacks and aiming to destroy enemies. By taking attacks out of your hands, it frees you up to solely focus on navigation and dodging. Enemies don’t shoot, they just walk directly towards you at a constant speed, but it still captures the spirit of a wild pattern of projectiles in a bullet hell that you need to weave in and out of.
This focus is made doubly critical by forcing you to walk over crystals left behind by enemies to gain the precious XP you need to upgrade your character. It incentivizes you to run into the enemies or find clever ways to double back on areas you’ve passed through in order to collect, keeping you from just constantly trying to retreat in one direction to survive.
Equally important as your dodging reflexes in Vampire Survivors are the decisions you make with your character build throughout your session. You’ll start with some basic stats depending on which character you start with, and each time you level up you’ll get a chance to select one of three randomly chosen weapons/items to add to your character. Selecting a new weapon will add that attack to your cooldown rotation, diversifying your methods of attack, but picking one you already own will upgrade it, enhancing it in various ways including more projectiles or extra damage.
Getting a wide variety of weapons can be important because they all operate in meaningfully different ways. For example, the knife will shoot out in the direction you’re walking, while the lightning ring will call down lightning on random enemies. There doesn’t seem to be any one combination that’s overpowered, and it’s always thrilling to find a new combination in Vampire Survivors that feels satisfying to wield.
The art style takes clear inspiration from old Castlevania titles, filling the screens with pixel art ghosts, skeletons, and all manner of supernatural creatures. None of the designs stand out as overly gorgeous or inspired, but the game is very importantly readable. For a game that has so many enemies on screen, they are all visually distinct, allowing you to quickly recognize them and know how tough they will be to kill.
Overall meta progression in Vampire Survivors is handled through a combination of objective-based unlocks and one purchased with coins that give permanent upgrades to whatever character you select. It’s a very smart choice to not overwhelm the player with the wide gamut of weapons, forcing them to be familiar with the starting ones before adding complexity to the game. The coin-based unlocks can feel a bit slow as the costs are high for starting players, but once your runs start getting longer you’ll be unlocking upgrades at a fairly steady pace.
If this feels like a rather systemic breakdown of the game, it’s because it’s easy to explain the nuts and bolts of Vampire Survivors, but hard to capture the feeling. All these elements are very familiar, but the way they meld together into a unique experience needs to be felt firsthand. There’s wonderful zen of watching your character progress up that power curve, but even when you’re in the zone one slip up can make it fall apart in seconds.
It’s still in Early Access, so I’m very curious to see how adding additional weapons, items or characters will create new synergies during play. If you’re someone who’s usually wary of Early Access games, this one has a low barrier to entry: the Steam version is only $3, and you can play it free in a browser on their itch.io page.
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In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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