Slaying monsters in Vampire Survivors is like walking through a casino

theverge.com:

Vampire Survivors is an Early Access roguelike on Steam that has completely sunk its teeth into me.

Each round starts simply: you have just one weapon to take on a few baddies. The weapon autofires, so you only have to worry about moving your character to avoid enemies and scoop up experience gems. But as you level up, get more weapons, and fight more monsters, your screen quickly becomes filled with a smorgasbord of magical weapons and fearsome enemies covering nearly every inch of the screen. Like so:

The sensory barrage of colors and sounds can almost feel like being in an arcade or a casino — which is what Luca Galante, Vampire Survivors’ developer, was going for. Galante previously worked as a software developer in the gambling industry, and that experience informed his perspective when it came to making a more traditional game.

“Slot games are very simple,” he tells The Verge. “All the player has to do is press one button, and the game designers have to find a way to push the player to press that button. [The player] is actually spending money every time they press it, and because of that, there’s a huge attention to detail on the sounds, the animations, and the sequences, because you have so few elements to work with. Basically, [the designers] try to maximize the importance and impact those elements have on the player. I just absorbed that knowledge basically just by being in the industry. And so when making a game, I have automatically applied it to what [I’ve been] doing.”

That’s all reflected in Vampire Survivors. Starting a game immediately drops you into the action, and the only controls to think about are moving your character and picking upgrades. You don’t even need to press a button to use your weapons.