The Daily Demo: Beatdown City Survivors significantly improves the Survivors formula, but it could use tuning
Beatdown City Survivors reveals a problem with taking a popular concept and combining it with other genres. On paper, Beatdown City Survivors is Vampire Survivors except in the city and it’s melee focused. You’re punching and kicking thugs, police, giant rats, small rats, sludge creatures, and other ridiculously ugly specimens that would roam the sewers in a child’s imagination. You’ll collect different items like knives and 4x4’s that are automatically hurled at your enemies. The formula fundamentally works in this format, but it’s a mix of unique ideas that should be implemented in every Survivors game going forward, and a few elements that dull the approach.
A few dichotomies surface with this genre blend. One of them is I don’t feel the punch. Classic beat ‘em up-style games like Streets of Rage 4 perfected making every punch feel like it hurts. In Beatdown City Survivors the punch feels like slap-boxing and your enemies basically melt, I suppose beating them to a pulp. I’ll be fair: I’m not sure how one would solve that problem. The choice is functionally appropriate. The action is fast. Where is there room to accentuate the hits? But it’s undeniable that part of the fun of beat ‘em ups is feeling the hits connect with the enemy and seeing them agonize. That’s not here.
The other dichotomy is the licensed music. I’m glad black developers are uplifting black artists. I wouldn’t want the developer to ever change this approach. It’s hard enough for us as it is. The trouble is the song selection doesn’t uplift the action. It just feels like a Spotify playlist playing in the background. It’s even presented that way with a “Now Playing” with the song name and artist appearing in the top right corner. It’s clearly an intentional choice, perhaps meant to mimic walking the streets with a radio—a soundtrack of the neighborhood—but we are playing a game. My theory is that everything in a game should serve the experience, and few songs strengthen the frenetic action. I’m not referring to quality. The songs are good. I’d listen to them without playing the game. But the best game soundtracks, licensed or otherwise, blend with the game, not simply become background music.
These minor objections don’t dilute where the developers of Beatdown City Survivors clearly spent a lot of time perfecting: the environment. The environment plays a critical role in success or failure. There’s a liquid system where blood, toxic waste, sludge, gas, and water all contribute to your fight in the streets. If it gets on enemies, they drag it around. If it gets on you, you drag it around. All of the fluids do something detrimental to you except water, which can washes everything off. But even water can turn into an electrical current by knocking down street lights and busting up air conditioning units. That’s the other part of Beatdown City Survivors that works really well. You can destroy different parts of the city to uncover cash or food for health. This should be the standard for Survivors games going forward. And if not, there better a good reason for not utilizing the environment.
Including the environment does make this game one of the harder Survivors games. It’s difficult to earn money for upgrades, and it’s hard to survive. It’s fair as it simply requires more runs at lower levels, but it opens the door for weariness to creep in. Good Survivors have solid pacing, and that’s hard to come by in this game.
Another element I love is designated spots for upgrades or health. Food trucks are city staples, and Beatdown City Survivors makes them a part of the experience. The food trucks are randomly placed around the map and clearly marked. The feeling of knowing you’re low on health but there’s a food truck nearby increases the tension that goes beyond the number of enemies flooding the screen. It’s well-implemented choice.