Riding the wave: how Game Smithing managed to surf on the success of Vampire Survivors

Proper sport, proper time. Soulstone Survivors arrived in Steam Early Entry simply as the wave of hype for Poncle’s Vampire Survivors was peaking in 2022.

When gamers had been casting round for related video games to Poncle’s shock hit, Soulstone Survivors was ready, prepared to obtain them.

Practically three years on, Soulstone Survivors has simply emerged from Early Entry. Now that the hype has subsided, the participant counts are nowhere close to the place they had been throughout that explosive 2022 debut – however they continue to be extremely respectable nonetheless. And the sport has bought over 1 million copies in whole, garnering greater than 21,000 Steam opinions in the course of, together with a Very Optimistic score.

Allan Smith, the founder of Soulstone Survivors studio Game Smithing, talked GamesIndustry.biz via how he was efficiently in a position to leap on a pattern – and the brutal effort it took.

Origins

Smith is predicated in the UK, however initially hails from Brazil. “My father is British,” he says, by manner of explaining his untypically Brazilian identify.

He is been in the business for round 13 years, beginning recent out of faculty. “I studied sport design, and at the time in Brazil, discovering a job in video games was not simple,” he says. “So we received no matter little financial savings we had, and began making an attempt to make cell video games.”

Smith helped to discovered Fireplace Horse Studio in São Paulo, and his workforce spent the subsequent six years or so in cell. “Not as a result of we liked it, however as a result of it felt like the solely possibility for us,” he says. “The entire freemium mannequin is a bit soul crushing.”

In 2018, he moved to the UK to work at Bossa Studios, a few 12 months earlier than the closure of their formidable MMO, Worlds Adrift. After that, he ended up at one other mobile-focused firm. “However then they determined to pivot to crypto video games, and I believed, ‘That is the line I do not need to cross’. Nothing improper with it, I suppose, nevertheless it’s simply one thing I am not all for in any respect.”

So, he determined to arrange one other studio. “I used to be like, ‘Okay, it is time I attempt once more now I am extra skilled’.”

Given the sharp contraction of the video games business in 2022, it won’t have been the most sensible time to begin an organization. However Smith wasn’t fascinated about that. “The transfer for me was, actually, very based mostly on emotion,” he says. “It was simply what I wished to do.”

Whereas nonetheless working full time, he started growing an motion roguelike known as Rogue Soulstone throughout his evenings and weekends. “It was like, I like roguelikes, I like Danger of Rain, I like so many video games like this: is there a world the place I could make a quite simple model of that […] that I can full just about on my own in just a few months?”

“I simply wished to attempt to hold it so simple as attainable, to attempt to make a sport as rapidly as I might”

Allan Smith, Game Smithing

“I simply wished to attempt to hold it so simple as attainable, to attempt to make a sport as rapidly as I might and go to market, and simply see how it goes, and be taught from the expertise.” If the sport carried out nicely, he reasoned, then he would add to it later.

This technique stemmed from his unfavourable experiences again in Brazil. “We caught for therefore lengthy with so many tasks, like three, 4 12 months growth timelines, after which the product would launch to see nothing, to see so few downloads,” he remembers.

“And it made me be taught that it isn’t essentially simply the sport, it is seeing how the public responds, proper? It is actually exhausting to predict. It would not matter how good you assume the sport is. Possibly it isn’t that good. Possibly it simply would not resonate.”

Riding the wave

Smith says he had a Steam web page and a primary prototype for Rogue Soulstone prepared after a month, and he put out a demo a pair of weeks after that. Inside three months, the sport had been wishlisted round 1,500 instances.

However he was frightened the sport’s scope was turning into too massive, too formidable. He frightened whether or not he was on the proper path.

“That is when Vampire Survivors was all the rage,” he says. “And I believed, you already know, possibly I can attempt to play one thing extra in direction of Vampire Survivors and see how that goes. Possibly if I take my [code] I’ve right here and make a fast prototype… Let me attempt, you already know, let me not be married to my first thought.”

By reusing code from Rogue Soulstone, Smith had the first prototype of Soulstone Survivors prepared inside a pair of weeks. “And I had rather a lot of enjoyable with it. It simply felt proper. The unique sport felt like we wanted to enhance this or that, however this simply felt good from the starting. And that is after I began to really feel like possibly there’s something right here, you already know, possibly that is what the sport is meant to be.”

“We received the demo on Steam in a month, and that was once we noticed the magic taking place.”

He remembers placing the demo up on a Wednesday night time, pondering he would begin selling it the following day on Reddit and Twitter. “And I awakened the subsequent morning, and there have been like 1,000 CCU [concurrent users] on the demo. And I used to be like, ‘What the hell?’ I had no thought how. Clearly that comes from the pattern, proper, from individuals searching for different Vampire Survivors video games, and there not being rather a lot of them.”

He thinks the pace of growth was essential to catching that pattern. “This was seven months after Vampire Survivors actually hit it off. So it isn’t prefer it was instantly, nevertheless it’s nonetheless not rather a lot of time.”

It brings to thoughts the seven-month hole between PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds launching into Early Entry in March 2017 and the debut of Fortnite: Battle Royale in September of the identical 12 months. If Fortnite had been later to market – launching in 2018, maybe, at the identical time as a deluge of different Battle Royale contenders – would it not have change into the behemoth it’s at the moment?

Brutal hours

However Soulstone Survivor’s pace to market got here at an amazing private value. At the begin of growth, Smith was working 20-hour days.

“It isn’t an exaggeration,” he says. “It was actually insane hours, insane hours. I do not advocate it, nevertheless it felt prefer it was what was crucial. To be actually trustworthy with you, the manner I felt, and I nonetheless really feel at the moment, is I knew how fortunate I used to be to have this opportunity, to have this many gamers searching for my sport, and it felt like I owed it to them, you already know, I wanted to do the greatest I might in the time I had. I bear in mind the previous couple of weeks I might go three days with out sleeping.”

Smith was nonetheless working at his day job throughout this time. Even when Soulstone Survivors began to blow up, he did not really feel like he might give up and abandon his co-workers right away.

“So there was this era the place I used to be doing my greatest to assist them, however at the identical time I might log off from work at 5, 6pm, and that is when the journey begins – it is one other eight hours after that.” That sample went on for 5 months.

In the meantime, the sport took off like a rocket. “I might see the numbers in disbelief. Like, how is that this even attainable? And that made me work even more durable.”

“My spouse, I inform her she was single for a 12 months. She did not have a husband, as a result of it was insane.”

How did she really feel about that? “She actually helps me. She knew how a lot it meant to me, how a lot I had labored earlier than to attempt to get right here. This was the dream – nonetheless is, to be trustworthy. So she was very supportive, I would not have been in a position to do it with out her.”

Dangers of originality

Smith’s strategy of leaping on a pattern is the reverse of the technique lately espoused by writer Kepler Interactive, of championing extremely authentic titles like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 so as to stand out in a crowded market.

However Smith questions the goal of at all times making an attempt to provide you with a “genius thought” that nobody has ever accomplished earlier than.

“That is undoubtedly one thing attainable, nevertheless it’s additionally not solely very exhausting, however very dangerous. It is a lot riskier to attempt to do one thing nobody has ever accomplished than making an attempt to assume of a system that you’re already aware of, that you simply like, that as a developer is one thing engaging to you, and placing your personal twist on it.”

Smith says Soulstone Survivors places its personal spin on the Vampire Survivors idea by providing complicated character builds, in addition to drawing inspiration from bullet hell shooters and the frantic boss fights of World of Warcraft.

The sport’s success is sort of fully down to natural progress. “Steam was the foremost supply of visitors by a mile,” says Smith. “We might take a look at the numbers, and it was just about 95% Steam.”

As the preliminary demo gained traction, it attracted increasingly more gamers. “It’s totally, very a lot a optimistic suggestions loop,” Smith says. “The higher you are doing, the higher you do.”

Game Smithing was additionally “tremendous energetic on Discord” so as to have interaction with the sport’s viewers, says Smith. “We had this very distinguished hyperlink inside the sport to Discord, and I used to be making an attempt to actually construct this neighborhood, making an attempt to actually present the gamers that we’re for actual.”

“I feel it was simple for gamers to really feel prefer it was simply an asset flip or only a crappy sport or whatnot, so I wished them to know there was a human behind it.”

A lot of the publicity got here from streamers who stumbled throughout the sport, serving to it to amass greater than 300,000 Steam want lists.

It was all down to that optimistic suggestions loop, Smith says, “the place this man performs, after which the different man sees and he performs, and another person performs, and that undoubtedly is what carried the sport to the place it was at the time.”

The wave has crested

The success of the Early Entry launch prompted Game Smithing to goal consoles as nicely. The studio did the porting to PS5 and Xbox Sequence X/S in home, says Smith, “as a result of we wished to be taught the course of”, however for publishing on consoles, they introduced in Digital Bandidos (now dwelling to former GamesIndustry.biz editor-in-chief James Batchelor).

Smith says he wished a companion that might make the console publishing course of a bit simpler, as a result of “there are such a lot of necessities of the certification, and the entire course of is a bit elaborate”.

The total model of Soulstone Survivors launched on PC and consoles on June 17, 2025. However Smith says the 1.0 launch was nothing like as massive as the Early Entry one. The hype wave has lengthy since crested.

“It has been two-and-a-half years, proper? The sport is already identified for lots of individuals. It seems like an outdated sport, I suppose, in some methods. The style is not what it used to be, as a result of there are such a lot of video games in it.”

“So though the sport is one million instances higher now than it used to be, it would not entice as many individuals because it used to.”

Influencers who performed Soulstone Survivors throughout its peak are not . “They’ll say, ‘Oh, no, sorry, however I do not cowl these video games anymore’,” says Smith. “So some doorways are literally closed as a result of of the saturation, though individuals get pleasure from the sport.” The streamers are busy searching for the subsequent massive factor.

“Some doorways are literally closed as a result of of the saturation, though individuals get pleasure from the sport”

Allan Smith, Game Smithing

Game Smithing, too, is wanting forward. Smith seems like the work on Soulstone Survivors is just about full. “We developed extra stuff than I feel the sport wants,” he says, noting it has 22 characters and greater than 500 abilities. “We get feedback now saying that the sport is bloated.”

The success of the sport has allowed Game Smithing to broaden to 12 individuals. Proper now, they’re largely targeted on post-launch help for Soulstone Survivors, however Smith says there are plans to revive Rogue Soulstone once more.

“It is nonetheless a mission I actually love. So now now we have extra individuals, now we have extra information, we realized a lot from Soulstone Survivors, I feel we’ll find a way to make a a lot better sport now than we might have in the starting.”

Whether or not that sport will attain the giddy heights of Soulstone Survivors’ success is one other matter. However then, who is aware of? Possibly there will be the probability to catch one other wave.