How to defeat Death and survive over 30 minutes in Vampire Survivors

polygon.com:

Vampire Survivors is all about surviving in a sea of classic movie monsters. But once you reach the thirty-minute mark, the game ends with Death swooping in and killing you instantly. However, there is a way you can survive this encounter, and even defeat the grim reaper.

In this guide we’ll teach you how to survive for over 31 minutes in the Inlaid Library to unlock the Disco of Gold Arcana and defeat Death to unlock the secret Red Death character.

For both surviving Death and eventually defeating him (the latter being the much harder task of the two), you’ll need to have already spent a lot of gold on upgrades and power ups. If you don’t have enough gold to buy most of the upgrades, this is probably a task best saved for later in your Vampire Survivors journey.

If you’re ready to take on Death, though, purchase all the power-ups except for three: Growth, Curse, and Magnet. If you’re low on gold, you can also ignore Greed for this purpose. (Note that you can easily refund your gold if you’ve already invested in the three power-ups listed above).

When your power-ups are set up, select the Inlaid Library map, turn hyper mode on (and hurry mode off), and select Clerici as your character (whom you unlock by regenerating 1,000 health total).

Now, start the run.

Once you load in, select the Awake or Slash Arcanas before you start. Once you have control of Clerici, you need to move fast.

Walk up and to your left. Grab the green gem to instantly level up once and grab Runetracer. If Runetracer doesn’t appear in your options, reroll until you get it or quit and restart — Runetracer is mandatory for this strategy.

Once you have Runetracer, quickly run around the table to your left and walk up into the little cubby. Place