Vampire Survivors Review (Max Planck)
I watched a bunch of my friends playing this, and a handful of streamers. Every time I watched I thought "what on earth could possibly be fun about this? It looks so incredibly dull." Then, a friend finally convinced me to drop the literal $3 to try it before I judged it any further. I booted it up, and start into a game. In the first few seconds I realized that you don't even click or anything to attack. It's all auto cast. I generally hate that kind of thing, so we're off to an even worse start.
Then, about a min or to into that run, I got to something like my third or fourth level and suddenly hit a synergy between a couple of my skills and it mowed down a huge wave of enemies and carved a path for me to escape. The dopamine hit was hard and surprising.
Now, here I am, 8 hrs later, playing it on my deck any time I have a few minutes of spare time like a fucking addict. It just keeps getting better and better. It's the perfect balance between zone-out clicker and strategy, with an awesome between-game progression system that keeps me coming back over and over. This is one of the best games I've played this year, and it was $3. You really cannot go wrong.