Discover everything you need to know about the best beginner guide for Vampire Crawlers, including the best tips.
Vampire Crawlers is a roguelike dungeon-crawling deckbuilder spin-off of Vampire Survivors. The hook is the TurboTurn system, where you chain cards to create massive combos. The game gets stronger because enemies scale each floor, requiring better combo chains. The gameplay mechanics in this new title have changed, leaving more players confused. So, we bring the best beginner guide for Vampire Crawlers to help you learn the mechanics and some advanced tips.
Understand the Gameplay Mechanics
Unlike the previous title, Vampire Crawlers is not a reflex game – it’s a turn-based deckbuilder dungeon crawler where planning matters more than speed. You explore the dungeons, fight enemies, gain cards, level up, and beat the boss. You move through first-person, grid-based dungeons. Movement is tile-by-tile, and each run is a multi-floor dungeon crawl with increasing difficulty.
Understand the Gameplay Mechanics
Combat switches to turn-based card battles when you dive into action against the enemies. Make sure to use cards for damage, defense, and special effects. Balancing the offense and defense is key to surviving fights. You must play cards in ascending mana order, and each correctly ordered card multiplies the next card’s powers. This system rewards planning and sequencing.
Leveling up lets you choose new cards and improve your deck during a run. Your deck evolves into multiple builds like combo-focused builds, damage-based builds, and defensive builds. Just like Vampire Survivors, cards can be upgraded or evolved. After each run, you return to a hub and spend gold on better stats, permanent upgrades, or new characters. Below is the gameplay loop in Vampire Crawlers.
- Choose a character
- Enter dungeons and explore different rooms
- Defeat enemies using the cards
- Build combos and level up to improve the deck
- Eliminate the elite enemies or the boss
- Return to a hub and upgrade
- Repeat the process
Master the Combo System
The combo system in Vampire Crawlers is centered around TurboTurn, which is a Mana chain combo. You play cards in ascending mana cost order, like 0 → 1 → 2 → 3. Your next card gets boosted by following this order. This lets your damage and effects scale quickly. Each card increases the power of the next card in the chain, like the following.
Master the Combo System
- 0-cost → next card x2
- 1-cost → next card ×3
- 2-cost → next card ×4
- 3-cost → next card ×5
There’s no combo if you play cards randomly. Playing the strongest card can waste the damage. A combo is basically a continuous chain of correctly ordered cards. They only work when the sequence is correct. A combo meter builds up as you chain cards, increasing the damage and effects. The combo system lets the weak cards turn into combo starters and turn strong cards into powerful finishers. Some mechanics allow longer chains like Wildcards, Card Draw, and Combo relics.
Pick the Right Starter Character
Choosing the best characters in Vampire Crawlers is essential to dominate the enemies and build a perfect build. The game offers 21 characters to choose from at launch, and more can be added in future updates. Each character comes with a starting deck, a unique passive effect, and a card-color synergy bonus. This makes choosing the best character challenging, as each has unique effects. But you must first unlock them during a run to play them later in a run.
Pick the Right Starter Character
Arca Ladonna, Suor Clerici, Pugnala Provola, and Lama Ladonna are the best characters in the game due to their passive abilities. Arca Ladonna is the best overall choice because she has the ability to improve mana flow and combo chaining. This makes TurboTurn combos easier to execute in the early and late game. Suor Clerici is the best survival pick due to their high healing or sustain capability. This character is great for beginners and long runs if you struggle to stay alive.
Pugnala has balance damage and card draw for smooth combo gameplay. Poe Ratcho has an extremely high combo ceiling and can loop decks infinitely with armor synergy. Pick Arca if you want the best character, and Clerici for safe gameplay.
You can check our Best character tier list guide to learn which characters are worth playing during a run.
Keep Your Deck Small & Focused
Keeping the deck small is one of the critical strategies in the game to improve the combo system. A smaller deck means a higher chance of drawing the correct sequence. Chances of drawing your combo are slim if your deck contains 30 cards. The other benefit of a small deck is that they reshuffle faster, letting you see the best cards repeatedly.
Keep Your Deck Small
Combos depend on the correct order, and a big deck can break the chains. Extra cards allow more useless draws and can ruin the combo flow. I recommend avoiding bloating your deck with every flashy pickup. 12-14 cards are the standard size for consistent runs in Vampire Crawlers. You don’t have to pick a card every level, so prefer skipping it if it doesn’t fit your combo plan.
Make sure to focus more on the combo engine, a finisher, and a support card. Remove cards that do not support chain or evolution plans during a run. It’s best to use the Burn cards to thin your deck mid-run because they remove themselves after use. Wildcards help combos, but more cards lead you to weak damage draws.
Spend Gold on Permanent Upgrades
Upgrades are more important than lucky drops between the runs in Vampire Crawlers. Prioritize Green for more Gold and Might for extra damage. You return to the Village hub after each run and spend gold on upgrades for meta progression. I recommend spending gold on the Power-Ups shop, Town Hall, and Blacksmith for permanent stat boosts, new characters, and card upgrades.
Use Gold on Permanent Upgrades
The Power-Ups Shop should be your main focus early because they give permanent stats like Damage, Health, Mana, and Gold Flow. Spend gold on Health for more survivability, making it useful for beginners. Below are some of the best utility upgrades to focus on for more consistency and scaling.
- Duration: Allow the buffs to last longer
- Reroll: Better card choices
- Magnet: Get gold faster
- Cooldown: gives faster plays
Don’t waste gold early on the Blacksmith because they’re expensive and don’t help as much as stats. You can respec anytime without facing any penalty. Make sure to focus on a few strong upgrades first and avoid spreading them.
One Evolution Early
Evolving the weapons in Vampire Crawlers allows you to gain huge power spikes. This is basically combining cards to create a much stronger legendary weapon. The base weapons are transformed into an evolved version to gain much higher damage and unique effects. You combine a weapon card and a matching item card for a new evolved weapon. Combine Knife and Bracer for Thousand Edge or Garlic and Pummarola for Soul Eater. Meeting all conditions at the same time triggers the evolution.
Weapon Evolution
- The weapon you want to evolve must be in your deck.
- Your weapon must have an empty gem slot, or else the evolution is blocked.
- Each weapon should have a specific pairing item, as evolution doesn’t trigger without it.
Filling the gem socket locks out the evolution trigger; try keeping it free. Gem Station, Evolution Statue, and treasure chests are used to activate the evolution. Pick a weapon and its matching item. Make sure not to fill the weapon with normal gems and open a chest or reach a gem station to trigger the evolution. You get an evolution option to accept it to transform the weapon when the conditions are met.
Destroy Objects on the Map
Objects you encounter during a run drop gold, small resources, and other useful resources. Breaking objects adds small but consistent gold, helping you with permanent upgrades and smoother progression. Crucial loot can be obtained from boss chests and exploration rewards. I recommend smashing every object you find to fill your pocket with useful items.
Destroy Objects on the Map
Candle, braziers, and chests are all scattered around the dungeon floor, so prefer breaking them. Eating the chicken too early is not recommended unless you’re low on health. Make sure to go out of your way to farm objects and ignore enemies to break them. Chests and exploration events are the main sources of powerful items in Vampire Crawlers.
Learn the Map Layout
The map is built like a classic dungeon crawler where you explore in first-person view. Each run is divided into multiple floors, and each floor contains enemies, loot, chests, and a final boss. You must clear floors step-by-step to progress in each run. You can see the entire floor layout from the start, as the map shows enemy locations, items, and the position of the boss. This lets you plan your route and choose what to fight first.
Learn the Map Layout
You must move tile-by-tile through corridors while choosing which node to go to. Maps are partly randomized, but some secrets have set locations. You don’t always get full map UI immediately, requiring you to get a relic (Milky Way Map). Unlocking this can let you open the full map and see all markers clearly. Some maps include special mechanics like Turbo Zones in areas with higher enemy density and faster movement.
Choose the Best Cards
Using the weak cards against the elite enemies can lead you into trouble and can even get you killed quickly. Choose the best cards to deal massive damage to enemies and make progress fast. Below are the five best cards I recommend using to dominate opponents when they least expect it.
Choose the Best Cards
- Multi-Shot: Increase the projectile output to clear large enemy waves.
- Expanding Void: Creates a growing AoE damage zone, making it perfect to use against mobs and bosses.
- Haste Aura: Increase your movement speed and deal passive damage around you to boost your survival.
- Vampiric Touch: Converts damage into healing to keep you alive in tough encounters.
- Garlic: Allows you to deal constant AoE damage and becomes stronger when evolved.
Choose the Best Gameplay Settings
The best gameplay settings are about fast turns, UI, deck size, and permanent upgrades in Vampire Crawlers. Slow pacing can break the combo flow, and turning off UI info makes it harder to track the combos. Ignoring permanent upgrades makes the progression very slow. Below are the best gameplay settings I recommend if you want an immersive experience.
Best Gameplay Settings
- Enable smooth gameplay flow for smooth movement between tiles and faster input.
- Keep UI elements like cards and mana to track mana order and buff duration.
- Use Instant Movement to mitigate slow dungeon traversal.
- Keep the difficulty balanced because the game progression is based on permanent upgrades and deck building.
- Prefer Damage, Health, and Reroll to improve gameplay experience.
Always play cards in an order to activate the TurboTurn combo system.
