--- title: How Vampire Survivors became Vampire Crawlers: Six... description: Andreas Firnigl, CEO of Nosebleed Interactive, shares six lessons learned while developing Vampire Crawlers, a card game spin-off of Poncle's Vampire... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-vampire-survivors-became-vampire-crawlers-six-lessons-from-building-a-game-based-on-another-dev-9nuvvnbii twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How Vampire Survivors became Vampire Crawlers: Six lessons from building a game based on another developer's IP | daily.dev og:description: Andreas Firnigl, CEO of Nosebleed Interactive, shares six lessons learned while developing Vampire Crawlers, a card game spin-off of Poncle's Vampire... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-vampire-survivors-became-vampire-crawlers-six-lessons-from-building-a-game-based-on-another-dev-9nuvvnbii og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/9nUVVNBiI.png og:image:alt: How Vampire Survivors became Vampire Crawlers: Six lessons from building a game based on another developer's IP og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How Vampire Survivors became Vampire Crawlers: Six lessons from building a game based on another developer's IP **[GamesIndustry.biz](https://daily.dev/sources/gamesindustry)** · 8 min read · 8 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Andreas Firnigl, CEO of Nosebleed Interactive, shares six lessons learned while developing Vampire Crawlers, a card game spin-off of Poncle's Vampire Survivors. Key takeaways include: demonstrating deep IP understanding to your partner (not just having it), keeping some team members deliberately ignorant of the source IP to balance onboarding, abandoning prior assumptions about how games should be made, prioritizing face-to-face communication over async tools, focusing on the intent behind design decisions rather than the literal implementation, and giving the whole team genuine ownership of the shared vision. A notable example: a lunchtime video call with Vampire Survivors creator Luca Galante late in development led to the addition of the Gems system, significantly improving the final game. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What are the key challenges of developing a game based on another studio's IP? Key challenges include demonstrating IP understanding to the licensor (not just having it), balancing familiarity for fans with accessibility for newcomers, and knowing which elements of the source IP are non-negotiable versus flexible. Nosebleed Interactive found that early builds of Vampire Crawlers had solid game mechanics but failed to visibly reflect the Vampire Survivors IP, requiring a focused sprint to align names, stats, and feel before Poncle approved further development. _Teams navigating licensed game development track hard-won lessons like these on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Vampire Survivors Creators Are Now Working on 15\+ Projects](https://daily.dev/posts/vampire-survivors-creators-are-now-working-on-15-projects-tew4durtp) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Authenticity Over Convention: Lessons from 16 Years of Solo Game Development](https://daily.dev/posts/authenticity-over-convention-lessons-from-16-years-of-solo-game-development-4qxiavukb) · InfoQ · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Lessons from going indie after a decade at id Software](https://daily.dev/posts/lessons-from-going-indie-after-a-decade-at-id-software-6db9f7vdr) · Game Developer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#game-design](https://daily.dev/tags/game-design) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-vampire-survivors-became-vampire-crawlers-six-lessons-from-building-a-game-based-on-another-dev-9nuvvnbii) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How Vampire Survivors became Vampire Crawlers: Six lessons from building a game based on another developer's IP","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-vampire-survivors-became-vampire-crawlers-six-lessons-from-building-a-game-based-on-another-dev-9nuvvnbii","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-vampire-survivors-became-vampire-crawlers-six-lessons-from-building-a-game-based-on-another-dev-9nuvvnbii"},"datePublished":"2026-08-10T15:22:32.273Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T06:53:36.786Z","description":"Andreas Firnigl, CEO of Nosebleed Interactive, shares six lessons learned while developing Vampire Crawlers, a card game spin-off of Poncle's Vampire...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/cbb39b0b49db5e248884c63b28298037?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/cbb39b0b49db5e248884c63b28298037?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"GamesIndustry.biz","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"GamesIndustry.biz","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/be1a78592d5340248e5204f8007b82be","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/gamesindustry"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-vampire-survivors-became-vampire-crawlers-six-lessons-from-building-a-game-based-on-another-dev-9nuvvnbii","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":8},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"game-development,game-design","timeRequired":"PT8M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"GamesIndustry.biz","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/gamesindustry"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How Vampire Survivors became Vampire Crawlers: Six lessons from building a game based on another developer's IP"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-vampire-survivors-became-vampire-crawlers-six-lessons-from-building-a-game-based-on-another-dev-9nuvvnbii#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What are the key challenges of developing a game based on another studio's IP?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Key challenges include demonstrating IP understanding to the licensor (not just having it), balancing familiarity for fans with accessibility for newcomers, and knowing which elements of the source IP are non-negotiable versus flexible. Nosebleed Interactive found that early builds of Vampire Crawlers had solid game mechanics but failed to visibly reflect the Vampire Survivors IP, requiring a focused sprint to align names, stats, and feel before Poncle approved further development. Teams navigating licensed game development track hard-won lessons like these on daily.dev."}}]} ```