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There’s something about vampires that calls creators in all mediums to the cooking pot of ideas. Whether it be hunting them, befriending them, or doing whatever Twilight was, vampires are a staple of entertainment and have been for aeons.
One of the latest entries in the vampire histories is this interesting little puzzle game, V-Hunter Puzzler DX. Once again, I wish video game developers would find a sense of brevity, but it seems today is not that day.
V-Hunter (which really doesn’t feel good writing down) is an isometric rhythm (of a sort) game that relies on you planning out your moves before making them. Each enemy has a timer above their head indicating how many moves before they take an action, it is up to you to plan your way around the board, killing each enemy whilst also leaving yourself a path to the door to the next stage.
There is a decent variety of enemies, mixing together to create a decent challenge that if you’re not paying attention will catch you out. The key is that you only have a single heart in your health bar, this can be added to on occasion but most of the time you are perilously close to death. Levels are simple in design, occurring on a 10×10 board most of the time, so your movement around the board when most of this is occupied by 10 moving enemies is crucial.
The element of challenge here is good and only increases as the levels progress. In addition, because each level is so small it is unlikely you’ll spend very long on each. The game’s Steam page promises over 60 levels across 5 different environments meaning that things don’t get stale and just as you’re sick of fighting rats, the game introduces skeletons and so on.
Graphics-wise, V-Hunter (still awful) has adopted a pixelated style, emulating an arcade-style feel. This is especially pertinent given the fast nature of the levels, and the immediate retries you will probably need before the end. The game’s overall look is fine if a bit boring, but your mileage may vary.
The music and sound design are also fine, very ominous, and full of church organs and synthesizers. Very vampiric I suppose but after the first few minutes the repetition gets old fast.
I’d love to write more about V-Hunter Puzzler DX but the game itself is very short and outside of an additional ‘hard’ mode that gives you a timer to make each of your moves, the game itself is somewhat simple. Not to say that its bad or anything, to my mind, the things V-Hunter is looking to achieve, it does perfectly, I only wish that there were more things in the game.
