Blood Dungeon Review – Bring On The Blood

Blood Dungeon is a game called Blood Dungeon. Much like its attention-grabbing name, Blood Dungeon is a title that commands the players’ eyes and doesn’t let go. It’s a “bullet heaven,” the new genre term describing roguelikes that thrive off of excess, countless circles of bullets and weapons staving off waves and waves of enemies, where all the player needs to do is avoid damage. But in a genre that’s almost been entirely defined by it being “second-screen content” – games that don’t command enough of your attention so that you can divide your attention to listening to a podcast or doing chores – Blood Dungeon stands apart.

The difference in attention is mainly due to Blood Dungeon’s genre mashup, which many are citing as Vampire Survivors mixed with 2D platformers like Spelunky. The loop starts when a “poorly drawn” character is deposited into a perilous 2D platforming area filled with spikes and overhangs, where the objective is to kill enemies with automatically firing weapons. After collecting enough blood, the player has a choice between a few options to upgrade weapons and add buffs to the character, and take on more waves of enemies as they grow in number and damage output, and then get more upgrades, and so on and so forth.

Gravity is the key difference between Blood Dungeon and other bullet heavens. In games like Vampire Survivors, the player-character only needs to worry about not walking into an overpowered enemy. In Blood Dungeon, the main enemy is accidentally falling into a pit of spikes, an overpowered enemy, or an in-map choke point where there’s no exit between two opposing hordes of enemies. It’s gravity that made me extremely careful with my movement, and had my eyes glued to the screen instead of a casual glance.

Despite its goofy, MS Paint-esque art style, the gameplay systems in Blood Dungeon are surprisingly intricate. To compensate for the 2D-platforming playing space, Blood Dungeon allows the character to climb on any surface (save for spikes). Scouring the maps is borderline essential, as players can encounter enemies that hit harder and are harder to kill, but drop weapon upgrades. Enemies come in waves, and as the player progresses through five or so waves, it spawns a boss. Examples include a bone snake, a floating mummy head, or another serpentine creature that chases you around the map until you kill it.

Blood Dungeon becomes a balancing act of racing around a given map, avoiding damage, and selecting the right upgrades for a given moment. If you’re lacking damage output, upgrading weapons like a sword, machine gun, or a grenade might be the best option. If you’re filled out on damage, adding on charms that freeze an enemy 2.5% of the time or turn them into a harmless zombie 10% of the time could be a nice addition. But the key thing for players is that they must pay attention to the ground. Mobility is a huge part of this game, and part of the reason why the upgrade to jump height is 10,000 coins is that it’s the biggest boost (literally) to a given run.

I had a great time with the first few hours of Blood Dungeon. But after I unlocked the first few areas and weapons, like in most of these games, progression grinded to a halt. It’s not game-breaking, but the key aspect lacking in Blood Dungeon was the variety of weapons and charms to equip. Beginning every run felt too familiar: equipping the same weapons and charms, running to the same corners of the map to kill powered-up enemies, and choosing the same upgrades. It feels like this experience should have about 500+ more items to choose from, and if not that, then adding combinations of weapons together to make each run feel interesting beyond the initial few minutes.

It’s only a slight dip in the overall experience, as there is so much charm in the art style and sound design of developer Messhof’s latest venture. The thumping drum and bass that plays in the background of each run makes it that much easier to keep going, and the designs of the enemies aren’t just “floating enemy #1” but each one has a unique image and movement pattern.

In essence, Blood Dungeon manages to carve out its own path in the bullet heaven genre by reverting to simplicity rather than excess in almost every aspect of its design. Considering that having a trillion bullets and enemies on screen is an integral part of bullet heavens, it almost doesn’t work. But aside from each run feeling a bit the same across countless potential hours of play, it manages to hit the mark. Go spill some blood for yourself.

Jack reviewed Blood Dungeon on PC with his own bought copy. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.