Not everybody bought into Vampire Survivors. The 2021 game popularized the idea of “bullet heaven,” a reversal of elements normally seen in “bullet hell” games, and made such a huge impact on the industry that some call this subgenre “Survivors-likes.” But while Vampire Survivors was a giant leap, it wasn’t a wholly satisfying one for some. Blood Dungeon, a new “bullet hell” from Nidhogg and Wheel World developer Messhof, runs with some of the ideas that made Survivors a hit, fleshing them out and helping define the future of the genre Vampire Survivors sired.
The chief hallmarks of a “Survivors-like” are automatic combat, hordes of enemies that get stronger with every wave, and the kind of randomized upgrades found in roguelikes. You see it in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, Brotato, and 20 Minutes Till Dawn, and there’s even a Breakout-inspired brick-busting riff called Ball X Pit. The RPG-style progression acts like a hook to keep you playing, but the fundamental passivity of their indirect combat, and the inherent unpredictability and impermanence of those upgrades, can be off-putting. And Vampire Survivors itself has an aesthetic that overtly evokes Castlevania, with very similar artwork and environments, which makes it look a little uninspired.
I know not everybody bought into Vampire Survivors, because I didn’t really myself. I had a fixation with it for a short spell in 2022, and still find it preferable to many of the games inspired by it, but ultimately it’s about as hollow as its biggest critics allege. If any game can be called a “walking simulator,” it’s this one, as walking is all you do–moving left, right, up, and down, with no tactility or physical friction–just endless swarms of monsters desperate to mulch you up as you glide around its wide-open, top-down levels. Its whole personality feels canned, prefab, as interchangeable as its Konami-aping art. Good for its developer that they struck gold with their work, but it never really hooked me, personally.
But Blood Dungeon has hooked me, and deep. It’s been all I’ve played for a couple of weeks now, without it even starting to get old. Blood Dungeon shows that, with a little bit of ingenuity, a strong identity, and a sense of physicality, a Survivors-like can be more than just a self-operating machine inside your TV that you barely engage with.
Instead of trudging around with only enemies providing friction, Blood Dungeon drops this style of auto-combat into a traditional platformer. You might not have to press a button to trigger your attacks, but you do have to tap to jump from ledge to ledge. This kind of platforming is crucial not just for navigating the game’s Pac-Man-homage mazes, but for avoiding the enemies that are constantly rushing toward you.
By making motion a little more complicated Messhof makes Blood Dungeon more interactive than the almost purely reactive play this genre’s known for. Add in extra wrinkles, like free-climbing on any vertical surface, and watery sections with a depleting oxygen bar, and you’ve got a game that’s simply more interesting to play than most bullet heavens.
The most important thing elevating Blood Dungeon, though, is its personality, as relayed by its art style and sense of humor. The game bears a hand-drawn aesthetic, as if these are doodles in a middle schooler’s notebook come to life, with characters ripped from sources that a 12-year-old would be familiar with–nature, pop culture, and mythology, to name the most common inspirations. It’s a game where sirens and centaurs coexist with mummies, vampires, rats, and big rushing dudes in helmets who look a little like football players if you squint your eyes.
The sense of being hand-made by a would-be tween delinquent with heavy metal posters on his bedroom wall courses throughout Blood Dungeon. At least two of the playable characters are always fully nude. One unlockable character is an ominous red-cloaked skeleton whose greatest weapon is lethal farts–complete with a loud BRRP every time he lets one rip. (I honestly turn the volume down when I use that weapon, because c’mon, I don’t want to hear that every couple of seconds.) It doesn’t rely on an instantly recognizable homage as shorthand, but creates its own whimsical style that perfectly fits the seventh-grade goofiness of the name Blood Dungeon. And that makes it as much of a joy to watch as it does play.
Even if you don’t necessarily like Vampire Survivors or the games inspired by it, you shouldn’t dismiss Blood Dungeon. It does something games in this genre often don’t: It gives you reasons to play beyond simply watching the numbers go up. It’s resolutely focused on establishing its own well-defined voice, which gives it an unmistakable humanity not always found among Vampire Survivors’ imitators. And in these increasingly artificial times, it’s that humanity that I appreciate the most about Blood Dungeon.
