Wanderburg is a delightful twist on Vampire Survivors

Have you ever looked at a castle and thought...what if it had wheels? Or do you look at rolling green fields and imagine how fun it would be to stampede your castle across those great green spaces and gobble up that hamlet over yonder? Well, do I have a video game for you: Wanderburg.

Wanderburg is a Vampire Survivors-style game where you pilot a castle on wheels, driving over archers, pickmen, cavalry, and, yes, hamlets. At the start of each level, you choose a starting weapon, including archers, cannons, and a ram. As you drive around the countryside, you'll gobble up enemies, absorb their coins, and then turn that currency into power-ups or new weapons.

Oh, and your castle has nitrous.

I have always struggled to enjoy Vampire Survivors, those beginning minutes always felt like a prelude to the fun. When you think of how fun Vampire Survivors is, you're probably thinking of the buildcrafting part where your Garlic and Wand start to synergize into something great, but in Wanderburg, the fun starts from the word "go." Sure, there seems to be a good amount of buildcrafting in the latter minutes of each session, but the squirrely controls, the delightful animations, and the speed at which the game plays get you into the fun immediately. Steering your castle is hilarious: the towers and archers are always teetering on the edge of toppling over if you turn too drastically.

As fun as moving around the world is, Wanderburg also makes it immensely clear that there is always a bigger fish castle. At pre-defined moments in the level, a "boss" castle will appear, chasing you down incessantly, until you defeat it or, more likely, explode. You'll need to bob and weave across the landscape to pick up as many coins as you can to stay alive, upgrade, and defeat these monster castles. But, if you explode or get munched by a roving Neuschwanstein, jumping back in is as quick as you want it to be.