Vampires are back in style (although I suppose the argument could be made that they were never out.) With the success of games like Vampire Survivor and V Rising, there’s a market demand for the pale-faced bloodsuckers now more than ever. V-Hunter Puzzler DX from Yatch Studios is hoping to meet that demand by letting you take control of a hunter searching for the vampire named Alric. Along the way, V-Hunter will have to slay all forms of monsters from rats to mummies.
The gameplay of V-Hunter Puzzler DX is simple. You move one block at a time with each move taking one turn, and your goal is to kill all the monsters in the room without dying. Every monster has a number above its head which shows the number of turns before it attacks. This means that instead of just running in for the attack, you have to time your moves correctly and outmaneuver the enemy.
Another thing to consider as you tackle each room is that each monster has a different attack radius. While rats can only attack one block around them, other baddies can move around, such as vampires who move like rooks and can attack as many blocks horizontally or vertically as they want. Additionally, you’ll need special items to kill certain enemies. For example, looking at the vampires again, you need to pick up Holy Water in order to kill them. All this works together to make V-Hunter a challenging puzzler that requires forethought and patience, especially if you want to fully clear its five stages.
If that sounds too challenging, then you’ll enjoy the fact that there is an undo button. At any point, even after death, you can press Z to move back as many turns as you’d like. In a few rare instances, I was able to cheese my way to a victory with the undo button because of how enemies reset from the action. But for the most part, undoing works as advertised, letting you take a few steps back to re-evaluate and alter your plan of attack.
Accompanying the simple but challenging gameplay are fittingly retro-styled visuals and a repetitive background score that doesn’t add much to the experience. Over the last few days, I played V-Hunter Puzzler DX as I listened to some of my favorite podcasts and because of that, I often silenced the music track completely. It’s not to say any of it is bad, but just not necessary to enjoy the experience.
My only real gripe with V-Hunter (along with the aforementioned hiccups with the undo button) is the general presentation outside of gameplay. When you first boot up the game you see the main menu with the usual lineup of buttons to load into a stage, change settings, view stats, and more. As you play the game you will unlock new costumes for the hunter. These unlockable looks are accessed through a second tab on the stats page. However, if you want to actually equip one of the costumes you unlocked, you have to do it in the options menu. These are small quality-of-life things that I hope to see Yatch Studio improve in their future projects.
I don’t have a whole lot more to say on V-Hunter Puzzler DX. It’s a simple but challenging turn-based grid puzzler and if any of what I described above sounds good to you, I would recommend giving it a go. The game is set to release on Steam on May 15 and there is currently no price tag on it, but looking at the content on file (60 bite-sized levels), I don’t expect it to be too expensive. There is a demo available as well if you want to test out the gameplay. A code was provided by Yatch Studios for review.
