Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard is one of the most-played games on Steam this week. Here's how to build your own version — turn-based deckbuilder, dungeon crawl, snowball combos and all — without writing a single line of code.
Why everyone is suddenly making deckbuilders
Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors launched on April 21, 2026 and crossed a million players in its first week. It's the rare spin-off that lands a completely different genre — turn-based card combat — without losing the addictive snowball that made the original a phenomenon.
For game devs, that's a giant flashing sign: there's appetite for more. Card-driven dungeon crawlers, roguelite deckbuilders, combo engines you can break in interesting ways. If you've ever wanted to build one yourself but didn't know where to start, this is the moment.
The good news: you don't need Unity, Godot, or a CS degree anymore.
The shortcut: start from a template, not a blank file
We built a Vampire Crawlers-inspired game on Rosebud AI as an open template. You can play it in your browser, then fork it into your own project and start changing things.
👉 Template: https://rosebud.ai/p/crawl-or-die-1
What's included out of the box:
- Turn-based card combat with a stacking combo system
- A dungeon-crawl loop with floors, treasure, and progression
- Roguelite structure (deck-building between runs, level-ups, evolving cards)
- Pixel-art styling that nods to the genre
- Working code you can read, learn from, and rewrite
Starting from a template that already works is dramatically faster than starting from scratch. Most of the hard architectural decisions are made — you can spend your time on the creative parts.
How to remix a Vampire Crawlers-style game in 5 steps
1. Open the template and play it
Go to https://rosebud.ai/p/crawl-or-die-1 and play a couple of runs. Get a feel for what's there — combat, deck management, dungeon flow.
2. Fork it
Click the Rosebud watermark in the bottom-right of the game, then "Remix this game." A copy lands in your My Projects dashboard. It's now yours to break.
3. Decide what you're keeping vs. changing
Pick a vibe. Some directions to consider:
- Setting swap: sci-fi space hulk, haunted Victorian mansion, deep-sea horror
- Combat twist: real-time card play, hand-of-three poker mechanics, dice instead of cards
- Tone shift: cozy and cute, gothic horror, slapstick comedy
- Genre blend: add visual novel scenes between dungeons, base-building, romance options
The more specific your direction, the better Rosie (Rosebud's AI assistant) can help.
4. Talk to Rosie
Open the chat panel and describe your changes in plain English. Things like:
- "Replace the dungeon walls with a glowing crystal cave aesthetic"
- "Add a new card type called 'Curse' that does damage to me but draws 3 cards"
- "Make the boss on floor 5 a giant clock that ages cards in my hand"
- "Add a tip jar so players can support me"
Rosie writes the code and applies it live. You watch the game update in real time on the right side of the screen.
5. Publish and share
Hit publish, get a link, post it. Players can play instantly in any browser — desktop or mobile. If they like what you made, they can remix yours, and the chain continues.
Where most people get stuck (and how to avoid it)
A few hard-won lessons from people who've shipped games on Rosebud:
- Don't try to design everything before you start prompting. Make small changes, see what they do, iterate. The platform rewards play.
- Use the Screenshot button when something looks wrong. Sending Rosie a picture of a glitchy wall with the message "this is too tall" works better than describing it in words.
- Save Checkpoints often. If a change breaks something, you can roll back instantly.
- Steal shamelessly from your own ideas. If a cool combo emerges by accident, lean into it — that's how Vampire Survivors itself was designed.
The case for building now
Vampire Crawlers proved there's a hungry audience for the deckbuilder dungeon crawler. The big studios are slow. The Steam discovery algorithm is impossible. But a remixable browser game you ship in a weekend, link to from a TikTok, and let people remix on their own? That's a different game entirely — and the timing is exactly right.
👉 Start from the template: https://rosebud.ai/p/crawl-or-die-1
👉 Or build from scratch at rosebud.ai
Rosebud AI is a no-code platform where you make 2D and 3D games by describing them in plain English. Over 2.4 million games have been built by the community so far.
Andi Bucescu
Andi is the Head of Marketing at Rosebud, where she writes about the intersection of AI, creativity, and brand storytelling. She explores how generative AI is reshaping marketing strategies and creative workflows, with a focus on making complex technology accessible and cutting through the noise of modern campaigns. Her perspective is informed by undergraduate research on effective social media content and consumer psychology.