Quick review for a quick game.

Blood Dungeon is the latest from Messhof, of NIDHOGG and Wheel World fame, but… this one is more like uh… not Wheel World. That game was clearly an anomaly, it was a good and cool anomaly, but it was a way bigger game compared to either NIDHOGG, and came from a much larger team. Blood Dungeon goes back to basics and it rules.

Messhof’s vibe has historically been crunchy grungy graphics that look like they escaped from an alternate timeline where Atari just kept making consoles that were juuuuust slightly better than the previous ones, paired with simple but compelling gameplay. NIDHOGG is a 1v1 dueling game where the winner gets eaten by a giant worm. Blood Dungeon is Vampire Survivors but also a platformer.

It has an art style that I can only describe as placeholder-core. All the sound effects appear to be mouth-noises. All the sprites are weird little jiggly guys, feverishly pulsating through their 3-4 frames of animation while they inch closer to you, while you try to navigate a simple but complex-enough maze.

All the Vampire Survivors games are focused on navigating through typically wide open spaces and kiting mobs and eventually building up to a setup where you just set the controller down and wait for Literal Death to appear and end your run. This is not that. This game’s moment-to-moment gameplay is nuts. Yes, you’re killing mobs, collecting xp, collecting cash, leveling up, getting perks, etc. But the actual moment-to-moment gameplay is bouncing around an insane jungle-gym of platforms and ladders and water and spikes and just all manner of horrible death. You’re confined to the platforms, and some of the mobs are, but most of them can just disregard the walls making it easy to corner you.

The game is wonderfully hectic, but if I have one complaint, it’s that while most weapons and solid platforming skills can get you through the first of three bosses per map, you really need to dig for certain combos to take you through to the end of each map.

Also the flood map sucks out loud.

Recommended if you’re into this kind of stuff.