This is the best Vampire Survivors-style game I’ve ever played

digitaltrends.com:

Vampire Survivors finally has some real competition in Fiveamp’s Nimrods: GunCraft Survivor.

Poncle’s Vampire Survivors game was a revelation when it launched a few years ago, redefining the shoot ’em up and bullet hell genres. It made attacks automatic, with its focus on accruing XP and powering up until you’re the attack-spewing entity that enemies should be afraid of. It popularized the “bullet heaven” shoot ’em up subgenre, which has become immensely popular in the indie scene.

Just take a quick look at Steam’s Bullet Heaven Fest lineup, and you’ll see how many Vampire Survivors-likes there are. Some are spinoffs of preexisting games like Temtem, Achilles: Legends Untold, or Despot’s Game. I’ve played quite a few of these, but none have been able to recapture the magic of Vampire Survivors; they all feel too derivative of a game that already nailed the formula and has years’ worth of DLC and additional content. That is until Nimrods came along with its ingenious idea to have players build up an uber-powerful gun throughout a run.

I’m a survivor

The narrative isn’t that important to a game like Nimrods; all you need to know is that you’re fighting off hordes of aliens while building and testing guns for an unnamed weapons manufacturer. On a core level, Nimrods functions as I’d expect a game inspired by Vampire Survivors to. I choose a character with a special ability and gun to start with and then begin a run. I move around and automatically shoot enemies, collecting the XP they drop to level up. That’s where Nimrods gets a lot more interesting.

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Rather than leveling up my character, I’m leveling up my gun. Each new attachment and augment offers some unique bonuses. These start