We need to decide on a genre name for Vampire Survivors-like games before a really terrible one sticks

Bullet Heaven

This is the one I always hear these days.
- I heard it from the Castle Superbeast podcast.
Yup, this is the one.
Bullet Heaven is an old bullet-hell game playable here. Naming the genre that is stupid.
- Wait, It's a new grounds game? So not even something that's been published?
  "Somebody somewhere used that name for their hobby project 13 years ago so now it can't ever be used for anything else"
- No two things can ever share a name
- Projectile Nirvana

Garliclike

lol saw this on a Steam Review and it is my favorite.

It's an autoshooter isn't it?
Vampire Survivors would be a rogue-like autoshooter.

Like Backpack Battles is an autobattler.

Edit:
As raised in the comments, actually a rogue-lite as VS has meta-progression.

I've also heard Autoshooter. Seems as good of a genre name as any.
I don't know why people keep calling it rogue like. Rogue-likes have a lot more randomness than an easily manipulated item drop system. I don't know that a random map is a necessity but it certainly needs something along those lines.
- Rogue had you start from scratch with a new character in a random map every time.
  Rogue-like games initially meant you start from scratch in a new random world, but you incrementally improve your experience by small buffs you can buy, or changing your starting equipment / skills (sometimes by changing out which character you start as).
  Rogue-like has slowly changed to mean "start over regularly but slowly unlock new items/buffs/equipment/characters/etc to help you further explore a world which may or may not be random"
  So it applies to games like Risk of Rain (and 2), Balatro, Dead Cells, and Rogue Legacy, just to name a few examples (though 3 of those are 2d platformers with randomly generated worlds if I remember right...).
  But yeah it seems to have morphed into a broadly used term for games where you get better over time through purchasing permanent buffs and whatnot (as well as natural skill), but are forced to restart any time you die.
  Vampire Survivors and other similar style games have you constantly restarting when you die so I think the term fits as a partial descriptor.
  Maybe we could adopt the idle/clicker game term Prestige, but that's more of a voluntary restart when you hit a wall and can't progress, so I don't think it quite works.
- They call it a rogue-like because there is meta-progression even though you "start over" each run.
Yep definitely is. I guess OP hasn't heard of brotato and deep rock survivor either.

Bullet heaven is likely what will stick. If you don't like that it's also the name of a game, consider that metroidvania contains the name of two games.

Metroidvania is a stupid name and always has been. I say this with those 2 series being 2 of my favourite and metroidvania being one of my favourite genres.
Bullet heaven isn't too bad though.
- Metroidvania is a stupid name
  It´s a perfect fit for games like Dead Cells though, isn't it?
- I like "search action" instead of Metroidvania. Credit to Tim Rogers.

I thought it was already considered a reverse bullet-hell. But I do like Bullet heaven as well.

I've heard from at least one smaller channels that it's a bullet heaven. That's at least what they call this style of game.

They're already called reverse bullet hell?

I didn't know that, but it fits. That or bullet heaven.
- Bullet Heaven is the name of an existing game, don't clobber it with a genre name.
What in the heck is a reverse bullet hell? If a bullet hell is "so many bullets" then I have to image it's like... Not many bullets at all. That sounds too easy.
- Normal bullet hell (Touhou): the enemies shoot a hell of bullets at you. And your job is to avoid it. Reverse bullet hell (Vampire Survivors): you shoot a hell of bullets at the enemies. And your job is to shoot even more, bigger, stronger bullets.
- Just like Vampire Survivors!
- It should be more in inverse bullet hell: it's hell, but not for you.
- I didn't come up with the name, that's just what people have been calling it for as long as I can remember.

Other comments said it but I think bullet heaven is perfect

I've heard "reverse bullet hell", it's decent.

I only heard bullet heaven

MOBA - massive onslaught bullet arena

FPS- Frantic Progression Survivor
- RPG - Running, Progressively Gaining

Let's just stick with survivor, or survivor-like. It works fine for roguelikes and soulslikes. No need to force a genre name.

Survival games are already a thing, though.
- So? SurvivAL is not the same as survivOR.

Survive Em Up

I like my shootemup games personally

Too late it's Vamvor.

Vampvore
roots in voreaphilia
Vampier
Survivor

Digital crack

Dragon chaser

Freebase gaming

Addiction "simulator"

passive swarm shooter

Sucky N Fucky

Based

Swarm shooter, reverse bullet hell, or enemy hell

Yea it’s always been reverse bullet hell.
- Which is why it's always been bullet heaven

Walking Death Simulator

Twi-like

Attack-Evader

Pew Pew Woosh.
\ Epilepsy-vania
\ GPU Fryer.
\ S3: Survive and Shoot the Swarm.

Survive-em-up?

Survive-em-up?
Seriously I fucking loved the name.
This one makes so much sense I’m surprised it’s the first time I hear it.

I always thought of it as a Hord game

I thought it was a survivor-like?

I've always heard Arena Survival

I thought they were auto battlers?

I think the fact that you move the character around during the battle precludes it from that genre. Auto battles usually have two phases, a shopping or building phase and a battle phase. You prepare for the battle in the former but have no influence on the outcome in the battle phase itself.
- Yeah, I remembered Super Auto Pets and immediately realized I'd made an enormous mistake.

This post made me install Vampire Survivors on my phone and it felt like an old flash game I used to play on miniclip during IT classes in school. Some of the assets are completely stolen from OG Castlevania too (I'm sure this has been pointed out before).

Anyway, like 45 mins passed and I have no idea where the time went. I can see this game being good for public transport, waiting rooms, etc.

Haha, it is very similar, but I think robotron is a twin-stick shooter since you control movement and the shooting.
Its one of my favorite games though, my grandfather had the actual arcade cabinet.

Isn't it already Arena?

I call them circle spawners. The enemies spawn in a rough circle around you and close in. I think you can modify that with other terms depending on the specifics of what the game adds in.

The genre is ASS games. Can't go wrong with that.

You should also crosspost on !vampires@lemmy.zip

I've just been calling them exactly that: vampire survivors like. It's a mouthful, so I'm open to the alternatives.

We've established a name already in the indie space for these. It's a "horde survival shooter" damnit.

Not to be confused with the plain old "horde shooter" like your helldivers 2 and what not

It's a horde survival shooter with upgrades

Distilled roguelite

Boring after 20 minutes type games?

Its a passive horde survival game.

The game play is rotating the stick in a rough circle so you keep moving that you can do without even having to look at the screen while you hoover up tiny pellets that make you stronger to survive more blobs of color on the screen.
Have any of you ever tried risk of rain or heck even cuphead? You can have rapid gameplay and a point to it. This feels like the modern bathroom book as a game. Fun but just enough to be over when you have finished something more worth your time.

This feels like the modern bathroom book as a game. Fun but just enough to be over when you have finished something more worth your time.
Sometimes that's just what you need. Vampire survivors is my go to for when I burnt out from work and don't want to think anymore but need something to do.
- Oh for sure. I actually discovered vampire survivors after finding its mobile clones and liked them all but for 20 minutes at a time.
  Once I tried to play the OG I just couldn't help but think of it as a passive game though and it lost my interest for long term play sessions. I think it's an import point that they are passive.
- No I didn't request anyone else to stop having fun I am just pointing out my interpretation of the games and the name I use for them.
  Why does my opinion on it make you think that I am demanding you stop playing unless you care what others think about your own free time?
  I just like it differently and am voicing that. Your take as an attack means you feel a need to defend it preemptively, and over assume I care about you playing it.