Vampire Therapist: An Introspective Experience Among Immortals - Review

Vampire Therapist is not a game in the strict sense of the term; in fact, the definition of game is probably unsuitable to describe it. Little Bat Games' work falls into the category of Visual Novels: interactive stories, entire narratives that unfold before the user's eyes, giving them the role of protagonist and leading them to make decisions. However, unlike true choose-your-own-adventure stories, a Visual Novel tends to keep the plot moving forward regardless, leaving the player's choices with only a marginal or deepening role. Specifically, Vampire Therapist is a "story collector": as a vampire psychotherapist, the "player" will have to help other children of darkness come to terms with centuries, or even millennia, of cognitive distortions. Let's see how.

• The Main Plot

• The Experience

• The Production

• Final Comment

My Name is Sam Walls: I'm Your New Therapist

Samuel “Sam” Walls is a vampire: this cowboy's heart stopped beating two hundred years ago, and in life and death, he's been through and committed all sorts of things, especially those of dark and bloody hues. Then something happened that led him to reflect on his existence, on responsibilities, and on contact with reality. Deepening these reflections, Sam comes into contact with an Andromachos – Andy to his friends – a 3000-year-old vampire who invites him to his establishment in Leipzig and, after a brief interview, proposes that he put his empathy, wisdom, and intuition at the service of other vampires in the role of Psychotherapist.

Sam is initially very hesitant, as is easily understandable: he will have to interact with people who have lived for centuries – even millennia – in historical and social contexts about which he knows little or nothing: a grumpy scientist, a Renaissance noblewoman, a Shakespearean theater actor, and even an 1800-year-old Irish witch with the appearance of a fifteen-year-old. He can always count on the help, guidance, and experience of Andromachos, as well as the support – and appetizing veins – of the patrons who frequent the bar.

Vampire Therapist: The Game in Practice

As mentioned, the product is a Visual Novel and as such is 99% composed of dialogues, with those between Sam and the patient of the moment making up the majority. The goal of the experience is to identify in the counterpart's stories and reconstructions the various cognitive distortions, i.e., false beliefs, reasonings, or ingrained lies that cannot hold up when faced with the reality of facts. Patients might take on excessive blame or conversely project it onto others, or apply labels to themselves or others to demand that they fit into that specific archetype. Sam's goal will be to associate each distorted thought, highlighted by a red aura, with the correct distortion.

To do this, Sam will come to the session with a set of five cognitive distortions: initially these will be fixed, then the pool will expand up to 10, forcing the player to choose the most suitable ones based on the subject; consequently, it may happen that the patient expresses a fallacy but Sam cannot challenge it because, not having prepared it, he decided to focus the session on something else. However, it is not possible to make mistakes, fail, or "get stuck" [and this is why we don't feel it's appropriate to call it a "game"]: if an incorrect choice is made, Andy will intervene telepathically to give a hint, and one way or another, you move forward.

Occasionally, we will find ourselves choosing a line of dialogue through a menu, but even in this case, it is a fake choice: sometimes all answers lead to the same point, other times only one is the correct one, and if one of the others is selected, the error is explained to us, and the question is then re-proposed without that option. Some mini-games that we sometimes have to face are a bit more interactive, such as correctly biting a vein or passing a meditation session: once again, it is not possible to "fail" but at most lose a little time trying again and again.

Vampires of All Kinds

Vampire Therapist is a totally two-dimensional experience and, with the exception of the mini-games, also substantially static: the character portraits have multiple poses and expressions, but they do not move. However, we must remember that we are not in the presence of a dynamic interactive experience, so the choice does not constitute a problem, especially when the art direction is generally good. A bit more difficult to digest is the choice of fonts in certain screens, for example, the "handwritten" one in Sam's notebook: since this is a product where texts are fundamental, and moreover entirely in English, greater readability would have been appreciated. The voice acting is truly excellent, featuring a top-notch cast including Matthew Mercer, Francesca Meaux, Sarah Grayson, Kylie Clark and Cyrus Nemati, who is also the lead designer. The soundtrack is very good and adapts according to the patient and the situation.

Vampire Therapist: A Different Experience Than Usual

Vampire Therapist is certainly a peculiar product: the narration and dialogues allow for an often lighthearted and humorous exploration of deep and important aspects of the human psyche, analyzing various situations with the critical eye of an expert. A major disclaimer presented at the beginning of the adventure guarantees that the situations and the application of cognitive distortions were created with the consultation and approval of authentic psychotherapists; the same disclaimer warns users about the realistic use of crude language and references to sensitive topics such as war, murder, death, sexuality, or even alcohol, drugs, imprisonment, and enslavement. Minors and individuals sensitive to these topics should absolutely stay away.

On the other hand, the adventure manages in about ten hours to transmit to the player – if we want to continue calling them that – the fundamentals of cognitive-behavioral therapy, illustrating the nature and facets of various cognitive distortions, providing examples and indirectly [but intelligently] leading the subject to question their own cognitions and how many of these distortions might personally affect them. Obviously, all this cannot replace a real psychotherapy session [and the disclaimer also clearly warns us of this] but it certainly offers a profoundly different experience compared to any other product: a true textbook application of playful dissemination with a few sprinkles of gamification.

Therefore, while Vampire Therapist is not exactly a game, the time dedicated to it is absolutely pleasant, intriguing, and "challenging," not in the playful sense but rather in the introspective one. If you then add that the console version also comes with three DLCs – Couples Therapy, Spanish Nights, and Tavern Talk – you can understand why the purchase is certainly recommended to anyone who finds this kind of entertainment interesting. But if you are looking for "a game," obviously, look elsewhere.