The new cheats menu in Vampire Survivors makes me wish they had more games

Vampire Survivors' new 0.10.0 update adds a cheat menu, and after using it to unlock a few things, I very much wish more games included one.

Vampire Survivors, in case you haven't heard of it, is a delightful game about leveling up and destroying thousands of monsters at once. I'd describe it as roguelike-ish; You choose a starting character with certain characteristics and a specific weapon, and you'll beat enemies to level up that weapon, other weapons, and other items as you collect gems. Your weapons fire automatically, so you have to worry about collecting experience and items while avoiding most of the baddies.

The game launched in Early Access on Steam late last year, and it's received regular updates that add things like new characters, weapons, power-ups, stages, and special items, though you'll usually get some requirements. They have to be unlocked by completing them. The game is an absolute blast, but unlocking everything can be challenging and time-consuming. I've already put 40 hours into Vampire Survivors, but the in-game menu tells me I still have 26 things I can unlock. When I look at that list, I sometimes get demotivated and choose to play something else.

The new cheat menu — in the game, it's called the "mystery" menu — could solve that demonetisation in a big way. It accepts characters, special items ("relics"), and codes ("spells") to unlock stages, which means I can now choose which ones I want to unlock myself and who to cheat. I want I still really want to unlock most things by meeting the requirements, but there are some things I just don't want to bother with, and thanks to this mystery menu, I can easily get to what I'm less interested in. Is.

Cleverly, the developers at Vampire Survivors also opted to make the Secret Menu unlockable on its own. You won't be able to find the item that unlocks it unless you have a good grasp of the game and have already unlocked a few other things. If you've got it, I'd argue that you can make a choice about what cheats for yourself, and I wish other games took a similar approach.

I'm playing Death Stranding right now, and while I love the story, the moment-to-moment gameplay is so slow. I wish I could trickle down to a truck with infinite health, battery, and some kind of hover ability so I could easily deliver and watch the game's story, but I find it takes hours of frustrating traversal to learn. Will have to face what happens next Sam Porter Bridge.

The Vampire Survivors Secrets menu isn't just unlockable; There's also a magic to spin the UI, which I can appreciate for being silly, even if it's not fun at all. In the 0.10.0 patch notes, the developers say they are working on more spells, so hopefully there are more off-the-wall ideas to come. (Big Head Mode, maybe?) I'm not going to spoil how to unlock the Secret Menu or what codes do what, but in case you want to know, here's a GameFAQ guide.

Vampire Survivors is available in Early Access on Steam for $3. It generally works quite well on Steam Deck, where it's one of the most popular games on the platform, though I haven't been able to enter any cheat code spells on a handheld gaming PC - I can't find it on my MacBook. Had to type code a breeze.