If there are two things that I’m absolutely exhausted by seeing, it’s deckbuilders and roguelikes. That said, Poncle, the devs behind the indie sensation Vampire Survivors are back during Steam Next Fest with their new dungeon crawling roguelike deckbuilder; Vampire Crawlers.
It’s a demo I went into absolutely hoping I would dislike because I selfishly want Vampire Survivors to keep being their sole focus. Unfortunately for me, Vampire Crawlers is both a ton of fun and extremely addictive.
The premise here isn’t terribly far off from Vampire Survivors, you crawl through dungeons, ultimately looking for secret relics and vampire coffins, and busting up light sources and eating floor chicken all along the way.
As you progress, you unlock more of the Survivors (Crawlers in this game) and each character has their own strengths which determine how you choose new cards for your deck.
One thing that really charmed me is that the deck expands as you find cards, so you don’t go into a run with a massive advantage.
Conversely, you won’t find yourself completely screwed because you forgot to bring a certain type. This makes each run feel unique and fun.
One thing that still needs a little bit of polish is the combo system, as you are rewarded by playing cards based on their mana cost. Each card played grants a bonus to the next card in sequence, but be aware that the combo resets if you go back to zero or if you don’t continue with a higher card.
Wild cards help to bridge the gap, allowing you to go from a three or four back to zero without breaking the string, but it would be nice if combos could be continued by newly drawn cards if you’ve already played all the cards available at the start of each turn.
My best successes in the demo came with going all in on certain themes. For my first win, I chose to have Imelda stack armor cards and augmented my cards with armor gems, opting to tank as much damage as possible while slowly burning my way through with Magic Wand and Hellfire.
After I unlocked a few more Crawlers and powerups, I found a ton of fun playing Antonio with banked casts of pummarola and stacking copies of Bloody Tear, healing both on damage and subsequently after each battle.
Everything about Vampire Crawlers is whimsical for an old guy like me. I’ve always enjoyed the retro graphics, but including the old RPG borders that reminded me of Wizardry or even classic EverQuest hit me right in the nostalgia feels and I was hooked at first glance.
It’s still very much a work in progress, but I’ve already spent five hours in this demo and I can’t wait to spend about 50 more in the full game once it’s released.
Vampire Crawlers is in development for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PS5, and smartphones with a release set for the first half of 2026.
