As we close out one of the biggest years in gaming so far, it’s great to see the evolution of everything that we’ve been playing on all fronts. The rebirth of the 2D Mario franchise with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the epitome of Western RPGs found in Sea of Stars, a kind of decent Cyberpunk 2077 DLC, and so much more that I’m certain I’m forgetting. For developer Flanne, the fruition of their mobile game 20 Minutes Till Dawn saw a big launch into the main stream of gaming, moving from the App and Play Stores to Steam and, for me, Nintendo Switch. This self-proclaimed take on Vampire Survivors makes some bold claims as it moves into the zeitgeist, but, ultimately, it can’t quite hold a candle to the imitation it seeks.

Like the aforementioned single-stick roguelike, 20 Minutes Till Dawn puts the player into the shoes of one of several gothic-adjacent characters to fight off the forces of evil for the duration of twenty long minutes. Enemies come, some are stronger than others, you have to kill them…you get the gist. If you’ve spent any time with Vampire Survivors, Brotato, Crimsonland, or any game where you try not to die, you probably have a good idea of your ideal state of being (not dead). As you kill enemies, you pick up experience and, on leveling up, choose one of five randomly selected attributes to either add to your character or improve. Synergies exist, some things work better than others, and a successful run can unlock almost all unlockables right from the very beginning.

20 Minutes Till Dawn brings a lot to the table in terms of unique world building for who and what participates in the fight for survival. The different characters are great, and I appreciate the variety and talents of each. Moreover, I also appreciate that their talents are locked behind each character: beating the game with Luna doesn’t bring her black hole summons into the others hands. While this was a fun bit of synergizing in Vampire Survivors, it did create a massive bit of complexity and overloaded the pool when it came to trying to get specific builds.

That same level of unlock availability also extends to the weapons, which need to be selected before each run. While you can do just fine with the starter pistol, you’ll want to experiment with the shotgun, the grenade launcher and the dual SMGs before finally realizing the cyclone sword is the best damn one. The weapons each are affected by the same kind of passive abilities, so it doesn’t matter if you’re using a bow, a kunai or a regular revolver, you’ll still be able to inflict curses (increased damage) ice freezing, lightning strikes or caustic burns with the best of them. The way the passive effects extend to each weapon equally is a smart bit of balancing that encourage players to experiment more.

If you’re looking for something to rival Vampire Survivors in terms of complexity and details, you might be disappointed at this current stage of 20 Minutes Till Dawn. In spite of a good amount of upgrades and characters, what you see is what you get. The maps are more akin to Brotato’s limited area, with no incentive to wander far (and, in the case of the Pumpkin Patch map, no place to wander at all). If you manage to get to the end of the twenty minutes with any character, you’ll get enough runes to to purchase either all the characters possible or all the weapons possible, with a bit left over to get a couple from whichever category you neglected. Finishing the two side maps (Temple and Pumpkin Patch) gives you the final characters to unlock, which, I argue, aren’t great: sorry, but Hastur is cool and severely underpowered compared to Dasher or even Lilith.

Also, it’s evident the devs really wanted to create a combat situation where the player has more “control” over things, which means the inclusion of directionality, firing and sometimes extra attacks. However, this is the opposite of what I look for in games like this. We already have a ton of twin stick shooters, many which do an excellent job, so asking players to now have more responsibility in the game feels counterintuitive. Granted, you do have the opportunity to toggle on autolocking to at least remove the need to aim, but firing still asks you to at least hold down the ZR button, which isn’t the most comfortable situation. Given that ammunition is unlimited and only contingent on you reloading, I would have liked the option to either make autofiring a thing OR to map the trigger to another button. Give players a sense of comfort one way or the other.

The soundscape of 20 Minutes Till Dawn is also all over the place. On the one hand, the scoring is fairly decent, with a mixture of menacing whimsy for the title screen and some pretty dynamic electronica for the stages themselves. If there was just the music, it’d be a really solid soundtrack. But the interjection of the sound effects for when enemies are killed – especially in a game where you’re killing hundreds if not thousands of mobs – makes this cacophony that becomes wildly distracting. It doesn’t help that the sound of a kill feels silly, almost cartoonish, which creates the sensation that someone edited the sound in post production, like it’s a joke. 

The visuals are decent and might hit better for some than others. Vampire Survivors has a lot of color and Christian influence from top to bottom, especially with all the different stage variations. 20 Minutes Till Dawn takes place in the dead of night, so everything’s black except a couple of circles around you. The enemies are all greyscale, but that actually works out very well when hostile projectiles get in the mix, as those occupy the color red. Your character also has a splash of color, so the stark nature pops pretty well on the Switch’s screen. The portraits for character selection also showcase a bit of design talent for the avatars, so I appreciate the detail added where it’s purely for visual spectacle.

What gets me about 20 Minutes Till Dawn is that the beats all feel the same between character runs. If you can get past the first two minutes and get some decent upgrades, you’re set till the halfway mark, and then you just need to focus on building up on single mob targeting talents. Mass effect talents like Glare or Smite are crucial to surviving the large onslaughts, and this can be mitigated with appropriate passive talents, like Dasher’s deer transformation. Barring that, it’s just strap in and blow through enemies, increase the difficulty if you’d like and call it a day.

Like I said, almost everything can be unlocked from two successful runs (four if you’re determined to get the two bonus characters), so upping the difficulty and making the mobs harder is only incentivized by the player’s own ego. I really want to have reasons to keep diving back in, but they don’t exist outside of the Everest “because it’s there” mentality. While achievements might push players to keep running on Steam, the lack of additional content or treats makes a game with no story very unappealing to revisit time after time.

Having said that, 20 Minutes Till Dawn is a solid bit of enjoyment for the player who doesn’t mind a bit more mental investment in a “bullet heaven” title (I don’t love the moniker but it’s what appears to be taking off). Playing around with some of the abilities is fun, mixing and matching weapons is entertaining and the potential for more future content will keep this on my radar.  Whether you’re rounding out 2023 or blasting into 2024, there’s no reason fans of the genre shouldn’t give this little slice of darkness a try.

 

Graphics: 7.5 Dark tones and blackened pixels works well to evoke the time frame, but the omnipresence of emptiness can strain the eyes after a period of time. Good use of splashes of color to inject importance or danger.	Gameplay: 6.5 Tried and true dodging and attacking are hampered by requiring players to engage more with targeting and shooting. It’s made worse by the idea that you can do much better when it’s automated, but the developers choose not to allow it.
Sound: 7.0 Music: fantastic, no problem. Sound effects: like a weekday afternoon cartoon, they feel almost inappropriate in the gothic backdrop. Recommendation: listen to Welcome Oblivion and craft your own aural narrative.	Fun Factor: 8.5 Gripes aside, it touches the fun button in the back of your brain and gets you to run and rerun with more and more finesse. Weapon selection and character choices are excellent, and building up the risk/reward from the tomes is worthwhile. Absolute value for price versus time.
Final Verdict: 7.5

20 Minutes Till Dawn is available now on Steam, iPhone, Android, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.