About This Game

From Folklore to Gameplay: Meet the Real Vampires

Real Vampires is a narrative-driven adventure game that blends dark humor, eerie poetry, and authentic Slavic vampire folklore into a unique interactive experience. Developed by Those Eyes, the Copenhagen-based studio behind the award-winning Cosmic Top Secret, this game invites players to explore real stories of fear, death, and transformation—told through the eyes of both vampire and folk.

Inspired by Dr. Łukasz Kozak’s haunting anthology With Stake and Spade: Vampiric Diversity in Poland, the game breathes (undead) life into real historical accounts of vampirism. Kozak is the protagonist, leading you through chilling tales rooted in local beliefs, from plague burials to devoured shrouds, and be forced to ask: who are the real monsters?

But this isn’t just a walk through the graveyard.

Each level features inverse mechanics that flip traditional gameplay on its head. Progress through failure, question your actions, and see the world from both sides of the stake. Because in Real Vampires, failure is not the end, but the beginning of a greater understanding.

Along the way, you’ll dig, slice, chew, bake, and bleed through surreal mini-games that challenge your assumptions—sometimes literally. Humor and horror go hand-in-hand as you unearth buried truths and encounter undead beings that are frightening, absurd, and oddly relatable.

Key Features

Dual Perspectives on the stories as both vampire and folk.

Replay levels with original inverse mechanics.

Artwork and animation inspired by Slavic art and Monty Python-style absurdism.

Inspired by real accounts of Slavic folklore, respectfully adapted in collaboration with cultural experts.

A narrative tone that balances dark humor with historical depth.

A cross-border collaboration with creatives and folklore scholars from Poland and Denmark.

The game is supported by: The Danish Film Institute, The Danish Arts Foundation, Creative Europe & Adam Mickiewicz Institute.

Uncover the Real Vampires—if you dare.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Real Vampires contains stylized and humorous depictions of mature and folkloric themes, presented in a theatrical collage style reminiscent of Monty Python animation. Early in the game, a topless female character appears in a symbolic scene involving decapitation — depending on point of view, the player may either attempt to decapitate her or help her avoid being decapitated. Other scenes include the removal of fingers, fingernails, and genitals from deceased vampires, presented in a non-realistic medical illustration style.

The game also features surreal humor around themes of desire and death, including a scene where a vampire offers flowers to his half-naked wife, implying intimacy and resulting in the birth of vampire babies. While the game explores dark topics, it does so through satire and symbolism, not realism or shock.