I am enjoying so much the now very popular indie game Vampire Survivors that on each new patch released I hurry to check all the new content. Today, after finishing unlocking all characters and items, and obtaining all current achievements, I decided to try to kill the grim reaper.
Why? Because in one of my early runs in the library level, reaching the 30 min mark Death appeared, but got stuck in a scenery library block. Around 90 seconds later another Death came (also got stuck), and another 90 more seconds past a third one came from a different direction and finally killed me. In the process, I noticed that I was damaging them, so I thought that somehow, should be possible to kill him/they.
After many failed attempts and different strategies tested, I decided to go the game hacking way, and along the way found two other small easter eggs.
UPDATED 2023-04-20: Savegame editor (get coins & remove "bad eggs")
I created a small proof of concept of a savegame editor for the game. Follow the instructions at the GitHub repository on how to use it.
It will give you a lot of coins, and remove the "bad eggs" from all your characters (currently only curse ones).
Tested with game version 1.4.
Using the Konami Code
In the main menu, type using the keyboard (directions meaning the corresponding cursor keys):
up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, ESC, ENTER.
You will receive a small amount of gold, and unlock the skeleton character if you didn't already had unlocked him.
Unlocking Exdash
In the main menu, type:
x-x1viiq
And you will unlock a secret extra character.
Unlocking Red Death
I had read that the game is a Javascript application bundled with Electron (and using the great Phaser game framework), but the Webpack bundles are not inside the binaries, so checking and modifying the contents is quite easy.
First, navigate to your Steam folder, and inside to steamapps/common/Vampire Survivors/resources/app/.webpack/renderer. Once there, open the file main.bundle.js. I use Visual Studio Code and then right click -> "Format Document" because the file is minimized and otherwise quite hard to manipulate.
Now, search for XLReaper_0 (make sure that has nearby the line textureName: "enemies"). You should find 4 occurrences, so for each one change the following values to 0x1: level, maxHp, speed, power. This will make Death (and its "siblings") die instantly whenever appears and comes near you.
Finally, save the file (you can save it "formatted" to ease future editions, anyway any new patch will override it).
Now you're ready to open the game, do a normal playthrough and reach any level "end". Once Death appears and you kill it nothing will happen, you'll be left alone in the level, so just bring the menu and "Quit". You will now have it available to purchase for a small amount in the character selection screen.
PS: After my game editing session, I learned you can also glitch-kill it, but looks harder to accomplish.