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Yeah I was thinking of mobile games but you’re so right about all of those! People are so weird about them just because they “don’t require skill” or whatever

As someone with aging motor skills (I am old) I am enjoying games like this. Didn't think I would enjoy this type of genre, but here we are.

Good article but damn Loop Hero does not deserve catching strays like this. That game rocks

So why should anyone care about your opinion on an article you didn't even read? You have nothing to contribute to the conversation, you just want cheap likes for reposting the same stock phrase you've seen on a thousand articles you didn't read. Why are you so proud of being ignorant?

I just hate to see people making braindead comments when they didn't even read the article they're commenting on

Why would anyone read this dumb shit?

get therapy or something man, jesus

Now a take about how there’s too many grim-dark soulslikes that aren’t actually hard but just grind simulators until they are easy enough to finish, is one I’d agree with. Easy mode with more hoops.

name 1.

I already knew that, but VS merely utilizes the same principles of engagement without the predatory element, making it harmless. And what does AI have to do with it? VS wasn't vibecoded, it was made before LLMs reached that level. Who cares if a game design is theoretically easy to vibecode?

At the risk of fighting everyone everywhere at once, i would compare it to my love of classic jrpgs (tap x, grind, pay attention elsewhere).

???? do you understand what your post means? you're insisting that criticism is only a weapon to be leveled at those deserving of being on the pointed end of it. but in reality, if something isn't worth criticizing, it's not worth your time at all. because it's not worth thinking about.

All art and artists are worthy of cricticism. You saying that vampire survivors is better than those others is an act of criticism, even.

art criticism is an important part of engaging with something as art. You could say that one of the defining features of art is that it can be subject to critical evaluation.

All art has always been and should be criticized.

I'm not sure I understand where the line for an auto game even is here -"me no shoot" includes Rogue, right? And the start (and puzzles) of VS require active play, is the problem that it becomes easy? The Radical in Ball x Pit is fair, but I took that character mostly as a punchline

I ask my self now if a game feels like jingling keys in front of a baby, and if it does then I stop playing it because I am not really getting anything out of it besides wasting time. Vampire Survivors and Balatro felt that way to me.

this is exceptionally embarrassing.

It's like two reply gals hahaha. Friends of the writer or site I'm sure.

hell fucking yes

They weren't even fun so much as satisfying. But the need to pay that precise attention, the focus and knowledge of my own actions to such a minute degree, the work that it took to get there, are the greatest pleasure I have gotten from games and can only get from games.

its putting players into a similar mental state, not that they're literally becoming slot machine players

I see this the exact opposite way Any time I'm like, "hm, it might be fun to go down to the casino and play some slots" it occurs to me that Vampire Survivors was five dollars, and will give me the exact same dopamine rush i do not get why people play slots when these games exist

Probably because half the time the power-ups (while free) I find to be lame or unhelpful, and that doesn't excite me like a paid slot machine might... Such as those "Ante ups" found in a 2K games or "Ultimate Team" loot boxes in EA Sports games (both can be bought with actual money by children).

but its worth saying that is also not entirely novel what with most free to play games (and paid now-a-days) have used psychological manipulation to encourage addictive behavior for many years before

Video Games have had gambling as a core mechanic since arcades existed.

"turning players into the addicted cattle feeding money into casino machines" Pretty fucking hostile attitude for a non-attack.

Oh my bad! Yeah there was a video a few years ago from a developer conference or something in Finland where they were talking about targeting gamers with addictive personalities (whales) and it's stuff they taken directly from the gambling industry. The moral vacuum of some people is astounding.

Shame this observation has brought out all the ☝️🤓 folks with the 'um actually arcades...', 'um actually dark patterns...' I worked in a slots and casino studio for 10 yrs, I think you're right, games like vampire survivors and balatro lean into the same kinds of overt exploitation.

There’s a natural end point to playing Vampire Survivors, it does some highly experimental things with art, presentation and narrative and the DLC has a deep appreciation for the old games it features. I think this is off base

If we are gonna be binary about it, game have always been slop.

As someone who sank some time into vampire survivors, I completely agree with this. It really does take so many cues from gambling machines that it feels gross and manipulative

you have a skewed idea of the intention here, and while im not arguing he absolutely pulled it off, authorial intent is extremely unambiguous in this case moreover, the argument there is "no artistic intention beyond selling copies" is ridiculous. there's much better ways to interrogate the efficacy

Rogue was automated in 1981 with the creation of Rog-o-matic

I'm gonna do the radical thing of just read the headline but then Agree with you instead.

Then your input is not needed lol

Sorry that was rude. I appreciate the playfulness of the article but it's just bad form to say that an entire genre of game is bad just because it's, uh, too easy? Write pieces of predatory game mechanics all you want but all the games you listed are just breezy delights that did nothing wrong

People are really going to bat for a genre that isn't really worth anyone's time in these comments wow Like cookie clicker is pretty comparable in interactivity

very funny to me how many people are getting their britches in a twist about this good article

What's the point behind you

That’s simply not true though! There’s a lot of game design in VS and a ton of different ways to play it. its fine if you didn’t like it, but bullet hail games were around before Vs and no one was writing shit like this about them.

not going to lie, this does feel more like "this game isn't what I expected it to be" than anything else.

I get where the article is coming from but i dont think these games should go away. New games in the style are always innovating on it like any genre. Besides, they are fun.

imho basically VS and other similar games are not just bullet-heavens: they’re bullet-management games. They have some sort of automaton going on, especially later in the game, but they’re usually far from being self-playing.

"I don't like this thing, so people who do should not play it".

cookie clicker doesn't deserve the implicit slander here

its a common 'amateur gamedev' issue in general. roguelites where you fight the same enemies in same areas with slight incremental progression on stats... again, boring. now, since Vampire Survivor is first 'bullet heaven' it atleast has bunch stuff to unlock.. but i prefer Novelty over Content

I'm not gonna pay to read your ragebait

No, no it really isn’t anything like that?

Damn it Deletes My Blog about action movies.

lol, shut up dork

If you don't like something, just don't engage with it. It's not hard.

Genre directly attacks people prone to gambling addictions + helps them form When people come to their senses and notice the wasted time they tend to swing hard against the tricks because the only healthy way for them to engage with it is to avoid it completely I haven't seen a movie like that yet

Let's be really clear: It's 100% fine for a writer and a critic to not like something and still engage with it in this manner. You might not agree with the premise or a specific example but this *is* an example of "doing the work." This is engaging with it.

Everything you've written is the very antithesis of "decide for yourself." How is someone supposed to know they don't like a thing if they don't engage with it? Why should they then hide their thoughts if they didn't like it?

critics have made trenchant and valuable criticisms of film as a medium. There is nothing that makes a genre immune to criticism, nor should there be. criticism of something you personally like or enjoy is not actually a personal attack on you.

if you don’t engage with stuff you wouldn’t know if you like it or not. it’s good to engage with something that’s not your cup of tea and it’s good to be able to form your own thoughts it. also good thing is to be able to read past the headline.

Thanks for letting us know you're a joke of a video game journalist site

Nah, VS rules.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

This is an ignorant conversation when you don’t discuss how content rich the games that have this feature are, that this feature is completely optional, and usually that it is only achieved after a long amount of gameplay. Death to the ignorant discussions

The replies to this

criticism of art has nothing at all to do with the people who enjoy it or the degree to which they enjoy it. You can call something an artistic dead end but acknowledge that people (or even you yourself) derive pleasure from it, which the author of this piece does

Wow, is this really the caliber of writing you expect to get people to subscribe to you with? It's fine to not like a style of game. It's not fine to say it should die because they don't like it. All this has done is ensured I will never subscribe to you at all. Good job.

Brendan “why does Pathologic 2 have survival mechanics” Caldwell

Y'know I disagree with this spiritually, but agree with it literally. Well written.

lamenting the lack of meaningful gameplay decisions in this jigsaw puzzle I'm putting together

Nah. Loop hero in particular is an incredibly strategic puzzle. There are actual games out there training kids to gamble actual money on predatory loot box systems, but this ain't that.

Damn, I wish I could finish reading this. I have conflicting thoughts in the direction of the genre, even as I am actively developing an “action incremental” game myself.

The problem here is that games with movement, dodging and builds already existed - and this game's unique trait is removing certain elements those other games had. Crimsonland (2003) also has all the movement stuff going on. But it also has aiming and varied gunplay.

Vampire Survivors and other games with this issue are good for drinking and conversation with friends.

VS wasn't bad when it was progressing "get to the point of being a broken character" Now it's nigh impossible to not be insane under 10 min into a run, and the only progress is using cryptic walk-throughs for the next unlock that means nothing. Bullet Heavens lost the plot.

I mean, do you think people who have aquariums should get rid of them?

We also know from mobile game design that these types of games also reinforce a behaviour pattern, you open the game, you get the reward, you spend the currency, repeat. It's not something intrinsic to auto-play games, but it has become an often utilised design pattern which doesn't smell right.

Fine. I took the bait. There’s your 6£. It’s an okay article. I agree with some of it, but also feels like it takes a fairly myopic view of certain kinds of games. What’s next, turn based games are bad because you don’t move your party? Also… the sphere grid was from FFX not FFXII.

L take. Just play what you want and quit kvetching about stuff you don't want to play. There are functionally infinite options in any genre you can think of.

Absolutely i just dont see the point of playing a dual joystick shooter game but with the interactivity of a choose your own adventure book

For one thing: build crafting and progression are typically not systems thst exist in shmups, so it's not like vampire survivors is breaking things down to base mechanics, it's more like an idle game with some of the trappings of a shmup.

"People are having fun in a way I don't like" Eh. I don't see me subscribing

Ooooooh it's one of those "I hate thing and you're shit if you don't" kind of articles. Ok not worth reading.

Really had high hopes for this Auto battler version of Grand theft everyone’s so hype about, but from the leak it really looks like you gotta do A LOT pffffff 😞

Would a traditional shoot em up be considered a self playing game? I guess not - but what if you turn on auto fire? So all you are doing is moving, avoiding enemies and making some power up choices. In essence that's what you're doing in vampire survivors.

Hey, somtimes you want to listen to a book more than you want to play a game. These are amazing for that!

Attention Bluesky, You are allowed to have opinions. You are also allowed to dismiss opinions. Carry on, watch Witch Hat Atelier. Unless you think it sucks, then watch it twice, Dweebenheimer!!!!!