Vampire Crawlers Review | This $10 Deckbuilder Will Hijack Your Plans For the Week
Addictive, Repetitive, and Worth Every Penny
REVIEWS
Woody Wood
6/1/20265 min read
At first glance, Vampire Crawlers barely looks like something worth paying attention to. The visuals and audio are pulled straight from the 8-bit Nintendo era, and the only redeemable thing about it is its bargain price tag.
In fact, if it weren’t for fans of Vampire Survivors posting on X about this latest entry into the series, I probably wouldn’t have paid it any mind.
But those Vampire Survivors fans knew something I didn’t – Poncle doesn’t make crappy games. And truly, presentation doesn't make the title because Vampire Crawlers turned out to be one of the most addictive games I’ve played this year.
Whereas many deckbuilders focus on complicated setups, Vampire Crawlers takes the opposite approach to deliver a fun and fast-paced experience.
Makes You Feel Powerful Fast
The basic premise behind Vampire Crawlers is incredibly simple. You move through multi-level dungeons while fighting waves of enemies and grabbing power-ups.
That’s why the formula works so well.
Vampire Crawlers doesn’t make you spend hours memorizing cards and discovering synergies. Red ones deal damage, blue ones block damage, yellow ones buff your character, and purple ones restore the mana you use to play more cards.
The key is learning how to build up combo multipliers.
Any two cards can be chained together, as long as the second card’s cost is one higher. The longer your sequence goes, the larger the bonus applied to the next card you play. That’s it! You don’t really need spreadsheets or guides to start tearing through enemies.
That instant gratification is what makes the game so hard to put down.
As I worked my way through it, I would unlock more items and artifacts to help me chain together longer and more powerful streaks. Eventually, I reached a point where I would sometimes melt bosses without them even taking a turn. That just made me want to figure out how to do it bigger and better.
The early and constant reward is what makes Vampire Crawlers shine.
Surprisingly Deep
I’d hate to make the game sound shallow. It isn’t. Even though the gameplay loop is easy to pick up and understand, Vampire Crawlers balances things out with deep progression.
Your hub starts off with a Tavern and a shop. The Tavern lets you recruit NPCs (Crawlers) that join you on your adventure, while the shop lets you buy stat upgrades.
Although some of the upgrades are really important, the Crawlers give you big stackable bonuses when you summon them in battle, and they trigger abilities each time you play cards of a certain color. Some abilities restore your mana or draw additional cards, helping you chain big combos together.
And that’s just skimming the surface. Most cards have gem slots that add modifiers or change a card’s effects. Some gems reduce its mana cost or multiply its damage. Some alter how it combos with other ones. This lets you customize your deck as you travel through a dungeon.
You eventually unlock a blacksmith shop in your hub that lets you add more gem slots to cards you’ve discovered and improve each gem’s drop chance.
If that weren’t enough, you later unlock tarot cards that provide strong passive bonuses, and there are over 200 achievements in the game that each reward you with new gems, crawlers, and artifacts.
The end result is that there’s always something else to experiment with to incrementally improve your chances of survival. That mixing and matching element is really satisfying to play around with, and it gives you a good reason to keep diving into dungeons.
Repetition Sets In
The biggest weakness with Vampire Crawlers is that eventually, you’ve kind of seen everything it has to offer.
The core loop stays fun for a long time because progression is so rewarding, but the actual content doesn’t evolve very much. You’re still fighting through the same dungeon layouts, playing the same cards, and relying on the same combo strategies every time.
That became more obvious to me at certain points where I couldn’t break through the next difficulty level. I had to grind to afford more expensive upgrades, which drove home that I was just going through the motions.
Vampire Crawlers doesn’t have much of an end game, either.
The main post-game challenge is to beat the Red Death, a boss that kills you in one hit after you clear each dungeon. To beat it, you have to figure out how to survive its brutal attacks and deal massive amounts of damage in return.
That can keep players going for a while, but there isn’t much incentive to keep going once he’s defeated.
Still, it’s hard to criticize Vampire Crawlers too harshly given what it is. This is a cheap, barebones indie game built almost entirely around gameplay with cool retro 80s-inspired graphics and sound.
The Price is Right
It’s tough to argue with the price point too.
At $9.99 USD, it feels like a steal all things considered. The average player will get around 15 to 20 hours out of a normal playthrough, while completionists could easily push closer to 30 or 40 hours depending on playstyle.
That’s a lot of value for money!
The game is even more attractive because it will be available on pretty much every single platform – which makes sense given that it can probably run on an original NES to begin with. It isn’t currently available on mobile, but it’s expected to launch later in 2026.
So, yes, Vampire Crawlers eventually runs out of content. Yes, it can get repetitive at times. Yes, the graphics and audio are dated. But the rock bottom price makes all of that so much easier to digest.
Verdict
Vampire Crawlers is proof that great gameplay matters more than flashy presentation. Despite its uncompromising retro flair and repetitive structure, it manages to pull you in and keep you engaged with its addictive combat and customization systems.
At $9.99 USD, it’s an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys deckbuilders or wants to jump into the genre.
