Maybe Dracula’s gotten a bad rap. Conventional wisdom is that he swans around at night looking for virgins to feed on and sneaking on to boats to England. But according to ReVamp, the latest game from Digital Sun, all he really wants to do is to stay in his castle and be left alone. Relatable, frankly.
You might recognise the developer from previous titles Moonlighter and Cataclismo. It’s calling this game a “tower-defensvania”, which in practice seems to mean a tower defence game with roguelike elements. Playing as Dracula, you get to build your castle room by room, and place all manner of monstrous guards, before being besieged each day by the forces of humanity.
While most of the fighting is done by the werebears, skeletons, ghosts, and more in your employ, as a vampire lord you can of course also join the battle yourself, unleashing melee attacks and blood magic—and harvesting the life essence of defeated foes to unlock new rooms and items.
Thematically, it all seems very inspired by Netflix’s Castlevania animated series, casting Dracula as a tragic figure tortured by the loss of his true love. Visually, though, it goes for a more chunky, painterly aesthetic that looks great in motion.
The game doesn’t have a release date yet, but the Steam page is up, so if you’re intrigued just add it to your wish list for updates. It definitely seems promising to me—Digital Sun has already shown off a creative flair for both roguelike mechanics and tower defence in its previous games, so it seems a fair bet that these two great tastes will taste great together. I’m getting hints of oft-overlooked roguelike classic Dungeon of the Endless from the trailer, too.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some early practice in by turning all the lights off in my house and being very rude to anyone who comes to the door.
