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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Editorials
‘Bloodstone: Subspecies II’ Revisited: A Bigger, Bolder Follow-Up to Full Moon’s Vampire Cult Classic
Horror sequels are a peculiar thing. In most cases, follow-ups to scary movies tend to retread the same formula with different victims and more over-the-top scares. This is because audiences tend to be more interested in the antagonists of these pictures than anything else, with even main characters becoming disposable when the time comes to produce a sequel.
That’s why some of the most memorable horror sequels are the ones that actually manage to hold onto interesting survivors from previous films while also pushing the story forward instead of having the same thing happen again to a different group of people. From Scream 2 to Dream Warriors (and arguably even The Exorcist III: Legion), there are quite a few of these innovative sequels to go around.
However, if there’s one franchise that deserves more attention when discussing bigger and better continuations that make the most of episodic filmmaking, it has to be Ted Nicolaou’s Subspecies.
The Full Moon classic spawned an indie horror icon, but bizarre sequel Bloodstone: Subspecies II is even more beloved than its predecessor.
Building a Bigger Vampire Saga
While the film itself takes place almost immediately after the events of the first movie, Bloodstone only entered production a couple of years after the release of the original as both Charles Band and Nicolaou weighed the pros and cons of returning to Romania to continue the series. In an effort to maximize efficiency, the team decided to invest in a trilogy where parts II and III, now fully written by Nicolaou, would be filmed simultaneously over the course of a single grueling shoot.
Much like the first Subspecies, Bloodstone’s low budget meant that the filmmakers once again had to cut corners and re-use as many of their resources as possible. Thankfully, the process was much easier this time around as Nicolaou, with the help of Romanian cinematographer Vlad Paunescu and his wife Oana, became more acquainted with local customs and made new friends. Shooting abroad still came with its own unique set of challenges due to a lack of translators and the occasional safety concerns, but the crew managed to make things work by filming things guerrilla-style and setting up shop in abandoned caves and real medieval ruins.
The director’s newfound contacts, coupled with the relative success of the first movie, meant that he was basically given free rein over an assortment of shooting locations usually considered off-limits for indie horror. That’s why Bloodstone features insanely ambitious lighting and effects work even during scenes shot in the middle of a bustling Bucharest. The filmmakers went so far as to project Radu’s Nosferatu-like shadows over local monuments as if he were a Romanian boogeyman, an idea that was actually encouraged by local cinephiles.
In fact, many of the more elaborate scenes here had originally been planned for the first movie before being discarded due to the lack of available resources. It was only with the support of Romanian fans and filmmakers that Bloodstone was able to give Radu a chance to be even more menacing the second time around.
Michelle’s Transformation Takes Center Stage
However, when it came to the American part of the crew, not everyone was able or willing to return for another round of Romanian adventuring. That’s why Radu’s human-loving half-brother Stefan (Michael Watson) is unceremoniously killed off at the beginning of the film while the role of Michelle had to be recast. Denice Duff took over for Laura Mae Tate, with the character now being joined by her sister, Rebecca, played by Melanie Shatner (yes, that Shatner).
In the finished film, we follow Michelle as she awakens to her new life as a vampire and discovers that Radu has murdered her lover. Struggling with grief and her newfound bloodlust, Michelle contacts her sister overseas, with Rebecca soon travelling to Romania on an ill-advised rescue mission. Meanwhile, Radu (Anders Hove) reaches out to his undead Mummy (Pamela Gordon, underneath heavy layers of impressive makeup effects) and promises to deliver her the coveted Bloodstone artifact while also making Michelle his eternal consort.
Revisiting the movie, I was impressed with how introspective this story is when compared to the original. The sequel assumes that you’re already familiar with the previously established characters, so the story wastes no time in exploring the immediate aftermath of the previous film’s events. From Michelle’s reluctant transformation into a creature of the night to Radu’s obvious mommy issues, Nicolaou is way more interested in pushing these characters into new and uncharted territory rather than recycling existing plot points.
Practical Effects and Gothic Atmosphere Still Impress
Yet, much like the first film, it’s Romania itself that makes the movie worth watching. The ruins of Castle Vladislav are even more majestic now, and visiting the moody streets of Bucharest with its surprisingly punk-rock nightlife made for a nice change of pace when compared to the original film’s quiet village setting. Once again, the abundance of interesting locations makes the movie feel much more expensive than it really is, with the filmmakers surrounding our characters with a living, breathing environment that would be impossible to recreate in a studio.
The increased freedom also allowed Nicolaou to flex his filmmaking muscles and tackle more ambitious blocking/composition in the sequel. The low budget and tropey script mean that the visuals don’t always work, but it’s consistently clear that this neo-expressionist style could only come from a passionate team attempting to pay homage to the shadowy horror classics of yesteryear. If the retro atmosphere isn’t enough for you, there’s enough practical gore here to satisfy even the most demanding of horror hounds!
Radu himself is also far more interesting now that Hove is more comfortable working alongside an international crew, with the actor having gone on record explaining that, while he spent more time drinking vodka than working while shooting the first movie, the sequel was a much more creatively satisfying experience for everyone involved. The character’s relationship with his abusive Mummy is also a highlight of the expanded mythology, especially since the practical effects that bring her to life are just as freaky now as they were back in ’93.
My only real gripe with the horror elements of the picture comes from the glaring absence of the diminutive stop-motion minions from the first film, though I guess the surprisingly entertaining addition of Professor Popescu (Michael Denish) and his archeological antics mostly make up for that.
Bloodstone: Subspecies II is obviously the middle chapter of a trilogy, with the ending feeling a lot less definitive than its predecessor as several plot threads are left to dangle in the wind, but I appreciate how the flick explores new ground while remaining faithful to nearly all the ideas that made the original such a good time. While I don’t think it’s as big of an improvement over the first movie as some fans make it out to be, Bloodstone is definitely worth revisiting if you’re a fan of old-fashioned vampire yarns.
Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion to this initial trilogy, Bloodlust: Subspecies III!
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