20 Minutes Till Dawn cool game Review – An imperfect competitor to Vampire Survivors

20 Minutes Till Dawn is a simplified horror roguelike, clearly inspired by the notorious Vampire Survivors. I spent more than a dozen hours in vampires, so I have a special interest in the hero of this review - I'll try to find out how exciting the title turned out to be, whether it is very similar to Vampire Survivors or is it a completely different cool game.

I got to know 20 Minutes Till Dawn before it debuted on Steam with version 1.0 (which is considered the release date) - the cool game originally appeared on mobile platforms and, apparently, was at the stage of early access. In that state, the title did not really captivate me, but with the release I decided to give it a second chance.

The question of whether this is a different cool game than Vampire Survivors disappears after the first launch - the title uses the same concept of survival with hordes of monsters for a while, but changes some rules and has more diverse content.

Survive here is not 30, but 20 minutes, as you can guess from the name. In addition to the normal mode, there are two more - accelerated (10 minutes) and endless, which will end only with the death of the character. There are 3 maps and 15 (!) difficulty levels to choose from, but before we get to them, we need to choose a hero and a weapon.

There are 12 characters in the cool game at the time of release, all of them are female. There are only two boring heroes, who simply have one of the indicators increased - the developers have worked hard on the rest. These characters have unique abilities - for example, Hina can summon an attacking shadow, and Dasher transforms into an invulnerable deer with increased damage every 10 seconds.

After reading, you want to see unusual talents live, already at the stage of choosing a hero, it is clear that 20 Minutes Till Dawn has a high replay value.

But the setting does not end there, because the hero also needs to be equipped with weapons, which has become one of the main differences from Vampire Survivors. 10 guns are presented, the starting one is a six-shot revolver, but I recommend opening the rest as soon as possible.

Here the authors also stood out - in addition to the flamethrower and grenade launcher, there is a batgun that shoots bats, a magic bow and even a watering gun, from the shots of which plants with deadly spores grow.

As a result, even before the start of the first cool game, it is easy to calculate that there are more than a hundred unique builds in 20 Minutes Till Dawn. The developers promise to add new heroes and weapons, so this number will increase significantly.

However, at first, the choice will be reduced to only one basic hero with one gun, so before you know the variety, you will have to go through more than one night with monsters.

The gameplay is in many ways similar to Vampire Survivors, but 20 Minutes Till Dawn is more like horror - we will survive at night, fighting off hordes of monsters from the pages of Lovecraft's works. A significant role in the perception was played by graphics - monochrome, slightly pixelated, with an emphasis on red.

I can’t attribute the picture to the merits of the cool games, since it turned out to be too dark in my opinion, but I won’t name a disadvantage either - the authors maintain a style that is rare.

The character does not attack on his own, as in vampires - 20 Minutes Till Dawn resembles a top-down shooter. The player is more involved in the gameplay, the cost of a mistake is higher, because each miss can lead to the loss of precious health.

During survival, the hero picks up experience and quickly gains levels, each of which allows you to choose one of 5 power-ups to choose from. Skills are tree-like, unlocking one leads to the appearance of other similar ones. Conventionally, power-ups can be divided into “projectiles” and “summons” – the former enhance the part of the gameplay associated with weapons, and with the help of the latter, you can call for help a flying scythe, a ghostly helper, a dragon, and other allies.

There are no restrictions on the number of power-ups, you can collect at least a dozen - but it is not a fact that they will be combined. There are synergies in 20 Minutes Till Dawn, but they are hidden from the player's eyes in the menu and have a poor description, which makes it difficult to understand something. You can survive without them, so the synergies in the cool game need to be improved.

As for the monsters, I would like to see more variety. For example, on the first map I remembered only 3 types of enemies, the situation is similar in other locations. There are bosses, on the contrary, I want to praise them - they not only shoot at you in the hope of hurting you with a hitbox, but also use various types of attacks that you have to dodge, like in an action RPG.

The cards themselves turned out to be frankly boring and monotonous. The same vampires have destructible objects with bonuses, secrets and consumable items that can save you in the most hopeless races. In 20 Minutes Till Dawn, this is not the case, and even more - if you touch the tree, the character will lose health.

Surviving 20 Minutes Till Dawn isn't hard, but you can't relax either. As for the balance, here I did not see any flaws - the characters have weaknesses and strengths, you need to be able to handle weapons, and rash assembly will bear fruit closer to the middle of the race. Not the last role is occupied by skill, since you have to attack manually.

After surviving the night, we get in-game currency that can be spent on characters, weapons, and abilities. The latter are presented in the form of two tables 3 by 5, in each line you can pump all the skills and get access to the next level, but you can only use one skill in each line. That is, it will not work to make the hero omnipotent, you will have to think about abilities and choose what you personally lack.

20 Minutes Till Dawn is somewhat worse than Vampire Survivors - indistinct synergies, empty maps, monotonous enemies. Better in some ways - more diverse characters, builds and items, top-down shooting with various weapons, a horror atmosphere, interesting bosses.

This cool game has room to grow, but it is definitely a worthy representative of its genre, which, with time and with the help of the developers, will be able to surpass its competitor.