I used to hate it when I’d see Vampire Survivors clones. I unashamedly loved that game and its lo-fi, fidget-spinnery brilliance, and I cackled when it displaced games hundreds of times its size in awards ceremonies. Look at this outrageously basic pretender getting all of the attention – it was anarchic and exciting. But because it had such a bright moment, copycats inevitably followed, slavering over their imagined piece of low-investment, high-return pie. That they would lick even crumbs from the plate irks me still; they offered nothing but greed.
Karate SurvivorDeveloper: AlawarPublisher: AlawarPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC (Steam)
That’s the mindset I watched Karate Survivor arrive with: a narrow-eyed martial arts scowl. Here’s a game brazen enough to ape even Vampire Survivors’ name – has it no shame? But I’ll tell you what: it’s great. It absolutely uses Vampire Survivors as a base but it does so more than that, too, and shows this sub-genre still has interesting things to offer when approached with the right mindset.
So how do you build on the Vampire Survivors idea? Simple: you introduce Jackie Chan. Not literally – I imagine that licence comes with a hefty price tag – but you riff on the same kind of late-80s, early-90s prop-flinging kung-fu action films Chan is famous for. Think Police Story or Rumble in the Bronx. Think Chan tumbling around kitchens while grabbing pots and pans and whacking people around the head with them. Think Chan clambering up ladders and then using the same ladders to spin around and wallop people with. Think overwhelming odds and yet, somehow, Chan succeeds.
Karate Survivor, a sort of beat-’em-up re-thought with an auto-attack system Vampire Survivors, and coloured with a bright, stone-wash-jeans 90s aesthetic. It’s full of ridiculous roundhouses and stuffed with every kind of prop you can think of to hit someone with, a bit like the Yakuza and Like A Dragon games. You can run up and somersault off walls, tumble over tables, boot cement mixers, buckets, and destroy scenery – even spin around on office chairs to do a lazy kind of hurricane kick. Nearly everything you see, you can do something with.