Pathogenic and TerraTech Legion are two recent “vampsurvs”, games that Steam calls “bullet heavens” and I call “a lot like vampire survivors”.

One change to the vampsurv formula that Pathogenic and TerraTech Legion both make is creating builds that physically change your avatar. In Pathogenic, you assemble a bacterium with defined external (weapon or movement) slots and internal (buffs, special abilities, and mitochondria to charge them) slots. In TerraTech, you are snapping together Lego bricks to make car with weapon and buff blocks. Both games change how you move, attack and receive buffs based on the physical placements made after levelling up.

I spent probably 30% of my time in a recent TerraTech run arranging blocks. I enjoyed it. I placed blocks for symmetry and appeal, even though it would be faster to slapp on things whenever I saw the first connection. I picked up pieces and rotated them around to attempt for the densest configuration with the most bonuses and sauciest looks. Progress through the game rewards with more parts and bigger platforms to fit them on. Seeing a preview of a well-shaped connector block or a massive megaweapon sets me planning my next truck. My experience of TerraTech is, in both time spent and joy received, mostly the joy of designing your perfect Mad Max Lego truck.

Pathogenic’s builds are not as fine-grained. You only have slots to work with, not the ability to disassemble your avatar down to its frame and reform it arbitrarily. Each selectable avatar has a different initial configuration of internal utility slots, external weapon slots, and connections which carry buffs between the two. Every few levels you get an “evolution” choice, and you can swap around the shape of your germ to change the number of nodes for your internal slots, external slots, and their connections. If you have a single strong utility buff like triple attack, you might choose a form with a central utility slot connected to all of your weapons. If you’ve been collecting lots of weapons, you might choose a form which puts all those external slots in the front to allow your weapons a better angle of attack. Picking and choosing slot configurations, abilities and their ideal placements is a heady task and the game offers plenty of previews and UX hints to guide your choices. An ideal build stacks multiple bonuses together for absurd combinations, like adding bouncing lasers which split off additional lasers with triple attacks triggering at each hit.

I experience vampsurvs more as a checklist games than a shooter. Metaprogression unlockables promise new and novel combinations, and are gated behind conditions gated by constructing specific builds. Planning and executing to achieve those conditions is something I enjoy.