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What’s the genre name for “Vampire Survivors-like”?
This type of game seems to be the new hotness right now, and there are now enough that I feel like they’ll need their own genre identifier.
Is there a broadly accepted one? If so, is it good?
And, if not, what do you think games of that type should be called?
I’ve see a few suggestions here and there, but none of them have felt right to me. I’m interested in almost theorycrafting the optimal genre identifier (in the vein of “procedural death labyrinth”). What are the unifying traits of games of these types, how do we best identify them without simply stringing together other genres (e.g. “reverse bullet hell idle action roguelike”), and what can we use that has “stickiness” as a term?
Bullet Heaven has been tossed around as a counterpart to Bullet Hell.
I've seen the genre called "Reverse Bullet Hell" as well.
Personally I would describe VS as a single-stick shooter (as opposed to a twin-stick shooter).
If you want something a little more descriptive, single stick shooter works pretty well, since it's pretty arcade-y, and evokes Binding of Isaac, and how those runs can get out of hand. Maybe Single Stick Snowball(ing Shooter?)
I like your "snowball" identifier. It captures an aspect of the games that "shooter" or even "(reverse) bullet hell/heaven" doesn't.
That's hilarious; I love it
I always just thought of them as "bullet hell." The only major difference is the bullets follow you.
I haven't played this game, only saw it on YouTube. Isn't it a "top-down shooter"?
Calling it a shooter is a bit misleading since the player doesn't actually control the shooting. Your character's attacks are automatic so the gameplay consists almost entirely of moving around or (eventually if your attacks level up enough) just standing still.
By that definition nearly every game is a "shooter".