Megabonk Might Destroy Your Marriage
- Roguelike with 20 oddball characters, wild upgrades, and swarms of stacking enemies.
- Solo dev Vedinad made it in a year; fans praise its chaos and “toaster-ready” performance.
- Many suspect Vedinad is secretly Dani of Karlson fame.
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Non-Stop Bonks
Megabonk is a roguelike survival game with a frankly ludicrous amount of enemies, upgrades, playable characters – and the potential to ruin relationships if the solo developer, Vedinad, is to be believed. It’s out now on PC.
Players can choose from 20 characters, each with a unique ability, from a nineties’ styled hoverboarder to a knight who can surf on his own sword. Vedinad has been active on social media and YouTube over the last six months, taking suggestions from gamers as to what to add to his game, as well as what to do about its release.
“I was gonna release my game today, Megabonk, which is a roguelike with tons of crazy builds and upgrades, kinda like Vampire Survivors on steroids,” he said in a video posted to his socials on Sept. 18.
“But we have a big problem. Everyone has been warning me not to release my game today because my game launches in the middle of other massive games. Basically, I have to delay my game…is what I would say if I was a little b—. I don’t care! Boom! Megabonk is out right now.”
10/10, No Notes
Vedinad worked on Megabonk for around a year, with occasional YouTube updates including the reveal that he wanted to try creating something with the simple auto-shooting mechanics and “crippling gambling addiction” of Vampire Survivors, combined with Risk of Rain 2 gameplay.
Players have already made note of these comparisons via reviews, as well as praised Vedinad for creating a game that runs on a toaster, and possibly dissolved at least one marriage. “I left my wife, my children, my job, just for this GOTY 2025,” said one gamer. “I put over 100+ hours in the demo and somehow the full version of the game is 100x better,” added another.
It may also be the only game out right now that has an endorsement from one of its own characters: Monke, a chilled-out monkey wearing shades. “After I started playing Megabonk my life fell apart. I lost my wife, house and dogs. Good game, 10/10.”
Sick Flips, Dude
Other playable characters include a fox wizard, robot cowboy, ninja, and Calcium, a skateboarding skeleton wearing shades. They can all be upgraded with the same kinds of powers and weapons, such as a bananarang (a giant banana boomerang) and a barrage of rockets.
Upgrades are unlocked via XP, which comes from defeated enemies. These range from slobbering disembodied heads through to towering bosses, like a giant tree, and Egyptian god Anubis. Maps are procedurally generated too, ensuring that each run feels fresh in its lunacy.
As colorful as the playable characters can be, it’s enemy behavior that helps Megabonk stand out from the army of Vampire Survivor clones. Enemies can literally stack on top of each other as they flood towards the player, creating a terrifying mass of writhing bodies (or heads, as the case may be).
Vedinad revealed that this behavior is a “happy accident” of coding, in a devlog video earlier this year. The same video also included Vedinad testing the game with 20,000 onscreen baddies, which unsurprisingly leads to severe jank. But, he didn’t necessarily stop the game from doing this so players might find themselves fighting far more enemies than they expected to see.
The King is Dead, Long Live The King
There is a whole other layer to this, though, and it’s that many gamers believe Vedinad is actually another dev known as Dani. They’re both Norwegian, colorblind, and share the same sense of humour and a similar game art style, although some fans believe the former’s name being ‘DaniDev’ backwards is simply a fan reference itself.
Daniel William Sooman is a young Norwegian game dev who rose to prominence through YouTube videos that highlighted his obsession with milk. This led to Dani working on a game called Karlson, a stylish parkour FPS speedrunner in which the player is after, yes, milk.
Karslon attracted a ton of attention and helped Dani’s follower count balloon to 3.56 million on YouTube, with over 140,000 on X, 19,000 in a dedicated Reddit channel, and over 186,500 in a Discord server. However, with the extra attention came extra stress, leading to Dani disappearing for a few years to recuperate.
His community and fans have maintained their support, however, with a pleasingly wholesome common refrain being that people hope he’s okay and doing well. His last appearance was on X in July this year, where he reappeared to offer a friendly reply to a fan posting artwork about him. When asked when he was coming back, he said “Sooon…..? When I finish the game I’m working on.”
Although it’s not clear what “soon” means, fans were quick to respond with comments such as “Glad to see you’re alive, take your time, king,” to “HOLY SHIT!!!!! Take your time man, I’m sorry the internet caused you so much stress in years prior,” and “I’m just happy you’re okay bro, take all the time you need.”
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