The success of the 2022 roguelike shooter Vampire Survivors took everyone by surprise, but none more than its creator, Luca ‘poncle’ Galante.
Galante began developing Vampire Survivors in 2020 while unemployed. It draws inspiration from his Magic Survival for his games on mobile and his Galante past experience developing flashy graphics for his slots machines. He never set out to make his Vampire Survivors big. He just wanted to create something fun and manage a small community around it.
Vampire Survivors enters early access in December 2021. Now, almost exactly one year later, Huge Steam Concurrent Player Takeoverfull release, DLC, Mobile release with over 1 million downloads in a week, critical acclaimwas nominated for the Game Award for Best Debut Indie Game.
Galante had previously been interviewed about the unexpected success of Vampire Survivors at launch, and months later he told IGN that the constant accolades were “as expected all these months as it was in the beginning.” It was outside,” he said. That sale allowed him to start a company and hire other people to help him work on Vampire Survivors as well as other potential projects. I achieved my personal goal for Vampire Survivors much sooner than I originally expected. This includes bringing it to more platforms and adding more content. In fact, version 1.0, released in October, contains more than double the content Galante originally planned for him.
Award nominations and wins are recent successes for Galante. Of course he’s thrilled that his project is on the same stage as his games like Elden Ring and God of War, even if it doesn’t seem a little positive.
“It was absolutely incredible to be nominated for The Game Adverts. [sic] Along with all other appropriate developers. Over the past year, every time we thought we had reached the peak of absurdity, something new came out on top of the previous one.
“It is very difficult for me to believe that [Vampire Survivors] I’m glad I got it because it’s remarkable and shows that literally anyone can make it. I’m saying this out of selfishness, I’d love to see more and more Celestes, Undertales, Powerwash Simulators, Wandersongs, and Short Hikes get the spotlight they deserve!
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But in the midst of all that success, Galante is still at a loss to explain exactly. why People love vampire survivors as much as they do.
“I don’t know, I’m really scared!” he says. “Since launch, I’ve tried not to get too carried away, especially not to look at what’s going on online or the numbers. With my head down, I keep working on the game and the company, and relying mostly on player feedback. We were completely focused on Discord and the Steam forums.What I’m sure made the difference was the community manager did a great job of keeping communication open with players!”
He later adds that he believes the growing audience playing the Steam Deck contributed to Vampire Survivors’ success. The aspect ratio of the deck is also perfect.
Vampire Survivors received its first paid DLC, Legacy of the Moonspell, adding 13 new weapons, 8 characters, and a new stage. Galante says there were no plans for DLC at first, but the early access success of Vampire Survivors made him want to give something back to players. It stems from his memories of playing Fantasy Tactics and Valkyrie Profile, perhaps getting demo discs with magazine subscriptions and wanting to pay a little money for more stages and characters.
“So, as a player, I’m totally addicted to the idea of being able to keep getting content from the games I love, but these days DLC is more about monetization, not better service to players. It often feels like it was designed for,” he says. he says. “I had a negative preconceived notion of DLC, so I was very hesitant to create it, but I also couldn’t keep adding content. [Vampire Survivors] For fun while having company to think about. And here comes the DLC! My biggest hope is that players will love it and have a fair deal. It’s nice to see me in the store as a player. ”
I spoke with Galante shortly after Vampire Survivors was released on Xbox and mobile, so naturally I was interested in other platforms such as Switch (which he had previously hinted might be in development) and PlayStation. was. However, we were coy about whether we would finally see any of these releases in the future.
“We’re always thinking of what’s next and we usually go with the flow. The advantage of being independent is that you can do pretty much anything as long as everyone on the team is on board,” he said. increase. “Unfortunately I’m not allowed to say specifically about other platforms as our marketing team might disagree with me… Really, who cares? Someday Vita Please let me know what you would like to launch on!”
Galante has been equally shy about his plans for future games. Right now, the focus is entirely on Vampire Survivor, and despite the name and updates and DLC, it still doesn’t include a single vampire.
Is it?
“Our marketing team said they couldn’t answer that, but who cares…” said Galante, later adding that he loves the game’s marketing team. “The problem is our legal team said the same thing. Also, what is a vampire?”
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. you can find her on her twitter @duck valentine.
