Have you ever bought a front-page Steam game just based on the cover artwork alone? I did that with Grind Survivors and I’m so glad I did.

The survivor-like genre has become a new favorite of mine and Grind Survivors has taken that love to the next level. Between the art style, music, gameplay, and progression system, I’m absolutely hooked.

For the uninitiated, a “survivor-like” is a game based on Vampire Survivors’ playstyle, where players must survive overwhelming hordes of enemies for a set amount of time. Player characters come equipped with a main weapon and have opportunities to add different attacks, powerups, loot, and more throughout a run.

Grind Survivors adds upon this formula with various roguelite elements, like a talent tree and an expansive armory system. Players can upgrade their guns to improve their passive abilities, reroll their stats, and upgrade their rarities by sacrificing other guns of the same rarity.

For more variety, the game offers four playable classes and three maps with three difficulties each. The higher difficulties offer more powerful guns and more materials than the lower ones. I’d love to tell you if the other maps offer anything new but — I’ll admit — as of the writing of this article, I haven’t gotten good enough to clear the first playable area, keeping everything else locked. I’m trying my best to clear the first map on the hardest difficulty, I promise!

The gameplay loop is simple yet endlessly addicting. You spawn into the map, the hard-hitting metal soundtrack begins, and you start blasting. Enemies trickle onto the screen and before you know it, you’re a small gray dot amongst a sea of creatures trying to rip your head off.

It’s not complex but it’s endlessly entertaining to me. I think it’s because these types of games tickle the same part of my brain that bullet hell shooters occupy, with precise movement coupled with the unending desire for the level to finally end, whether that’s through depleting the enemy’s health bar in bullet hell games or the timer in Grind Survivors.

Each run feels like a new opportunity to finally get over the hill and survive until the very end — and the game’s soundtrack certainly helps in motivating you every time you zone in. I just can’t seem to get enough of Grind Survivors and if you’re a fan, I implore you to try it out.

Grind Survivors is developed by Pushka Studios and published by Assemble Entertainment. It is available now on Steam and Xbox for $12.99.