Preview: Vampire Therapist shows that both the living and the dead need to go to therapy sometimes

Living a life as a vampire is, seemingly, glamorous and freeing. Why should you have a care in the world when you’re immortal? Vampire Therapist, an upcoming game, shows the darker side of vampirism and how they can learn to cope with trauma, addiction, and being a blood-thirsty “monster”.

Everyone needs a therapist. We all deal with various impacting moments or situations throughout our lives that we just sometimes have to figure out how to deal with. That’s why, when you’re a vampire, it’s great to learn that people like Sam exist.

When an undead cowboy wants to atone for his sins, he becomes a therapist.

Sam, our protagonist, comes from an era of cowboys – you know, rootin’, shootin’, and high noon standoffs. During that time, he became a vampire and ran with a gang of murdering bandits. For the past couple hundred years, though, he’s learned how to cope with his past and has decided he wants to be a vampire therapist.

The Vampire Therapist preview isn’t super long. But, it does show Sam’s journey in the modern world to achieving his goal. The game starts off with exposition. If you aren’t into visual novels or storytelling games, this one is a bit wordy. In context, that makes sense, though.

Sam details his past and that he’s been using the computer to talk with another Vampire, Andromachos. Andromachos, or Andy (because Sam can’t say his name easily), is an ancient vampire who owns the hottest goth nightclub and has a penchant for therapeutic knowledge. Sam is invited to come learn from him.

As you arrive, Sam meets various characters who may be recurring in the main game when it releases. The bartender, Crimson, for instance, is Andy’s blood partner and is also a mortal. I don’t want to spoil too much of how the story goes thus far, but Sam is invited to stay in the club and learn more over time.

Vampire Therapist uses advice from actual therapists to help the supernatural.

For the gameplay of Vampire Therapist, you’re tasked with various conversational pieces to help your current client through whatever their struggle is. Initially, you come into the game with some loose concepts that Sam has crafted, vaguely based on real therapy ideas. 

Andy helps him shift his thought process into real terminology. The game’s developers, Little Bat Games, worked alongside real therapists to help make the therapy feel as real as it could when you’ve got the undead involved. While it isn’t a replacement for real therapy (unless you’re a vampire), the concepts and directions of conversations feel like a real therapy session.

During therapy sessions, you’re tasked with digging deeper into the psyche of each client, while also calling out the “cognitive distortions” that cloud each vampire’s mental state. This is a large part of the preview demo.

The demo I played gave the first real therapy session with our first patient, Dr. Drayne, a vampire scientist with an addiction. I won’t spoil too much, but he’s already making progress.

No heads were actually shrunk during the making of this game.

Vampire Therapist excelled in making me want more of what I’ve already played and more types of responses.

I really like the simple gameplay of choosing answers based on the situation. However, it also felt so on the rails that my choices had no consequences. It didn‘t matter if I chose a response incorrectly; the game would lightly push me to the correct choice.

From the finished game, I hope to see a little more of a challenge level where you can mess things up. But, I also want to see more response types. For the short-term demo, it was fine. But, offering more gameplay archetypes may help break up so much of the same.

All in all, though, I really enjoyed this unique premise. The humor kept me laughing, the terms and vocabulary within the therapy sessions had me nodding from my own experience with therapy, and the characters are generally interesting and make you want to learn more about them and their world.

It’s clear that the developers pulled inspiration from What We Do In The Shadows, as well as some of the more modern humorous visual novels out there. It’s definitely not kid-friendly, so take that for what it’s worth.

I’m excited to see what they have in store for the full game, set to release during Q2 2024. No price is available yet. But, we can expect to hear more very soon.

Editor’s Note (5/3/2024): We have been given an official release date of June 18th, 2024 by the developer. We’re excited to have something so soon to sink our teeth into!

If you’re a fan of visual novels, I also reviewed The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, set in the world of the blue blur and includes lots of detective work and deduction. It’s also free to play.