The Making of Vampire Survivors - Documentary 

It explains many of those slot-machine effects when you pick up the treasures.

the damn song when opening a chest so good

totally, and it only needs players participation for it to take its effects

I always rant and rave about the genius behind a lot of subtle game mechanics that make it so good, and now I know how that happened.

like genuinely took the right lessons from designing gambling games, doesn't happen often enough.

Yea I first balked at the puppet, then loved it.

Or sent the puppet to Luca and have him use it while talking.

@@hansolowe19 If you look closely, you'll see that the puppet was actually done by Danny himself after the interview was recorded. I can't find the clip, but I believe when he was younger Danny wanted to be a professional puppeteer and spent Hundreds of hours honing the craft. What you are witnessing in this video, is nothing less than Puppetry Perfected!

@@franka4312 I know. I'm saying that would have been funny.

Totally 100% agree

And the game also lets you nerf yourself in so many ways. Once you unlock everything, you can be as overpowered or as weak as you want. Both are fun ways to experiment with the game and your knowledge of it.

You can be ridiculously over powered! so much that if you want to ever play your favourite character again your two options are nerf yourself or buy a new pc!

As a huge fan of Binding of Isaac, not being able to control attacks almost made me quit it early. I'm so glad I didn't.

As someone who played Holocure first, a game inspired by it but with a lot more "baggage" (to put it in the smallest amount of words I can think of RN), and only recently started playing this game on my phone, it is very nice but the first impression, playing with Antonio and having to become decent at using him, to unlock an easier character to play at the start is a barrier to entry. But at least it helps sell you on the vibe of the game. It is fun but loses a lot from being played on a big keyboard when it is that simple and you have nothing to do with basically one entire hand besides occasionally interacting with the level up or pause menus (why I like playing Holocure a lot more on PC, since you can aim your weapons one hand and also do some other mechanics, while moving with your other hand at all times), at least looking back at how I bought and refunded the game on steam back before it went up in price. Now with the silly yet entertaining Among Us dlc, and giving a longer try (with the game being free for the base game on mobile), I feel like buying it if only to show support, since as he says on the interview: "it is a game with low production value" (at least at the base of it, certainly with all the people working on it and the more elaborate stuff they've put into the game it isn't so true anymore) yet still does a lot with it to be entertaining and replayable. And I certainly wish to see what else the team can do both in this game and in future games.

Yep. Like, Doom wasn't the first FPS, but it was the best at the time, and it's the one that keeps kicking to this day. It was actually nice to hear the dev acknowledge that he was influenced by other games, instead of being pretensious about his ideas.

It just reminds me of Smash TV.

@@_ajweir I'd buy that for a dollar!

it litteraly is the genesis of the bullet heaven genre, earlier games was did not make it so far. i hope he does a shmup or a pinball next game anyway I hope we'll see more games from him.

@@_ajweirBIG MONEY; BIG PRIZES, I LOVE IT!

never say you're done with vampire survivors lol

Kicking myself for not listening to friends suggesting this game until recently. Once I finally sat down to play it I could not stop. It's only been five days but I've dreamt of it every night and wake up so excited to get a chance to play the new characters I unlocked or go after some relic! Last night I played it until I was falling asleep during my last run, and my eyes kept closing then pop back open and I'd be running straight into a pack of mobs and getting hit. I know one of the reviews said it was like crack so now I understand.

Me too - every update I binge until I unlock all secrets characters and unlocks like an addict 😆

I have 1k hours and about 70% of those hours were me afk gold farming 😅

Mine is 50+ hours with all achievements. Can not wait for couch co-op update

I played Magic Survival more than half a year before Vampire Survivor came out. Definitely was the inspiration for Vampire Survivor.

I still play Magic Survival. VS is just Magic Survival with a few more game mechanics (like goals and unlocking). The core game loop is completely identical.

He barely mentioned it though. Vampire Survivors was a complete knockoff of Magic Survival during the early days, like obviously stealing the ideas and game concept. Luca should pay the developer of Magic Survival because it was essentially stolen ideas that got VS to get popular in the first place.

@@darukineo How _does_ it work?

I don't know about *paying* the Magic Survival dev but I certainly think more mention of its influence should be brought up. I honestly didn't even know about Magic Survival being an inspiration for VS until just a couple months ago. I had honestly thought VS was unique and jump-started the 'survival reverse bullet hell' genre on its own.

yo dex :)

dex!

Give this man 1k+ likes

You look familiar. :P

You deserved to be mentioned as well Dex! I've had so much fun watching you dissecting every weapon, stage and character in the game :)

I think more than "gamers don't need fancy graphics" is "gamers don't need complex mechanics" Because there are a lot of pixel art games, trying to emulate "the good old times" but they have so many mechanics into them that for those wanting a casual gameplay really struggle. VS you just need to literally walk around! Most games nowadays you have to attack, special, jump, dash, parry, block, roll, switch weapons, switch skills, aim, combo and the list goes on...

​@@gabrieldias3479It's the opposite. Games need to have more depth and lessen being a movie.

Video games are a form of art you need all the elements to work in synergy and that's what makes a great game.

@@catzor4795 I think the industry has enough space for all kinds of games. Of course, VS is as simple as it gets, but a game doesn't need complicated mechanics for it to has depth. They are two separate things.

@@gabrieldias3479 Yeah, VS is great, but people too often think that when one thing becomes a success, everything else should be the same. This kind of trend starring is when caused the AAA games to be so shit. Accept VS for what it did, and don't stop making the games you wanted to make first, because that's what VS and all the other successes did.

You just said it, Pal. The main thing that still has me in awe about Vampire Survivors is that the only thing it asks of me is to play it. I feel like a teen again going going out of my way to look up guides and watch videos to know how to unlock/achieve stuff in the game. I really LOVE the old idea of video games made just to be played with and enjoyed without anything else but your time an effort. This game is just amazing. Have a nice day!

But maybe next time send them a decent mic first.

@@unvergebeneid I’m pretty sure it’s a zoom call. So that’s about as good as you’re gonna get.

@@JeffReams well I suppose they can record on their end. It's not always the easiest thing to coordinate when people are busy.

@@JeffReams not really, even with video calls, a good mic makes a huge difference.

lol id be a welcome one

This game is art, this comment is poetry

Same here. First time i heard of VS was in Splattys channel. Great channel and great game

When you see Splat plays a game, no matter how hyped he is when he plays it, if you can feel the frustration or boredom underneath (even if it's a sponsored playthrough), you can bet a game isn't worth the time. But if he sounds like he's kinda having a blast, no matter how he's trying to hold it down (for whatever reason), you can tell the game might be fun.

Love it, huge hug to Splat for sharing it, and Luca for producing it! The whole thing started such a huge wave of so many new games produced in this style, pure magic.

I don’t know much about art or history, but I think this idea was the main idea of the impressionist art revolution. Impressionist art was critiqued as nothing more than a sketch, but in reality the impressionists’ goal was about painting outdoors and quickly capturing a moment of time, of which it’d be impossible to do at a high level of detail, focusing more on replicating the color, lighting and a sense of movement. By building a game with lower quality assets, the developer can focusing more of his effort on creating more content, creating better gameplay, and crucially this workflow allows him to be fast enough for the game to grow up with its players. He can react in real time to how the players are playing his game and use that to influence his next update.

It reminded me of early dos games for IBM PC. Top down pixel games that start simple but get tough later on, whilst being simple controls.

@@cattysplat Agreed man!

I imagine it as like "Oh hey, Vampire Survivors is up on iOS!" *Taps download* "I've... made a terrible mistake"

yeah shouts out to magic survival that game slaps

shoutout to crimsonland from like 2003 for being a really good arena shooter with levelling up and picking perks

@@Revalopod Hey if we are going back that far we should mention the Boxhead flash series as well lol. Top down zombie shooter on flash. Used to play it on Newgrounds

@@WageringWaffle I vaguely remember that

It's kinda disgusting how VS was basically a complete knockoff of Magic Survival in the early days. It wasn't Lucas touch that made VS good, it was the stolen gameplay and concepts from Magic Survival that people loved, and Luca just themed them with an asset pack (that also violated copyrights..)

Nothing so special for me actually with have move content spells and levelling mechanics, the game is actually tower defance game without the towers

​@@midnightblue3285You are the tower

It also taps into some critical psychological elements. Slot machines (which VS basically is) are SUPER compelling and addictive due to the fact that it takes advantage of some very strong evolutionary drives.

you mean, it has “every” business to be as popular as it is. This was a game made to be fun and addictive without having actual evil or evil intent like it’s gambling roots.

@@tl1326 I meant what I said. It has no business being as popular as it is because he's using marketplace assets and it's a very low effort game. His words, not mine. The game also has no actual gambling roots, he based his game on Magic Survival, which also features level up choices. So even that concept wasn't new.

It's so DAMN STYLISH AND COOL

It's a dopamine receptor fryer, games like this are the scum of the industry

Retro games ?

@@MEICKK You want to kill more and level up, come back and play again, deffinetly a money grap marketting technique

It was really a great job. Congratulations

I would watch gladly a 2 hours cut of this documentary...

It not just Asmongold. Freaking Pekora among most of Hololive played the game as well, contributing to its popularity.

@@Mewseeker I learned the game from Sodapoppin.I think he was the earliest to play it in January

Whilst that's crazy magic survival was similar, though I think it's biggest popularity spike came after vampire survivors I remember for a long time it teetering around 10k downloads

this genre started in the 80s with NES

​@@Samtino20what was it called?

GB?

I didn't watch yet, do they talk about the mobile game where they copied the idea from?

​@@akseli1093Yes, they mention it explicitly.

Yeah Luca literally mentions the game and says that he got the idea from that. Are you trying to be edgy?

@@boobosao Edgy how? Thought it was weird people were still crediting him for creating the genre if they did talk about where it was copied from

Best way to use ads for a mobile game honestly

"Hey, it's only $3." Famous last words before you drop 100+ hours into it - _-