Blood Dungeon review: DPS doodles

Messhof's latest is a roguelike platformer with a hyperfocus on high scores.

I have a complicated relationship with these “bullet heaven” roguelikes. I love Vampire Survivors, and I routinely play Brotato with my kid. I think The Binding of Issac is a classic. Yet I had people in my DMs on social media calling me a bad person for giving Ball x Pit a 6. What’s the difference? After playing Blood Dungeon, the latest game from Nidhogg developer Messhof, I believe I’ve fully cracked the code. Because while Blood Dungeon has effortless charm and fun core mechanics that could easily entice me to come back for years to come, it falls short for practically the same reason as Ball x Pit did. It’s all about the build-crafting. Or, you know, lack thereof.

Scribbled splattercore

Blood Dungeon is like an ADHD-rattled teenager’s math note doodles come to life. The stage is set in a vaguely retro video game world, with wobbly sprites that sort of resemble classic Atari or similar computer graphics of that vintage representing the heroes. And the heroes are bizarre, from a bold, nude, sword-swinging barbarian to a fleshy spider-like creature, to a literal baby, there’s weird stuff here. A nudity toggle making literal pixels disappear is the kind of gag you’d expect to see an Adult Swim license attached to, but here it’s just crass silliness for the love of the game. Anyway, these wobbly pixel brutes face off against all kinds of equally wobbly creatures, running the gamut from 80s Dungeons and Dragons cartoon ghosts and goblins to mummies, piranha fish, disembodied human hands, oddly-proportioned knights, and anything else a doodling teen could think of while bored to death at school. It’s a fun vibe, one we’ve seen before several times in games but particularly well-executed here.

The name of the game with these battles is a “yes, and” response to the Vampire Survivors school of “bullet heaven” roguelike action. The “and” part here is platforming. While a lot of these games have you walking around a flat plane and inviting all kinds of fun “autogame” discourse, Blood Dungeon wants you to work harder for your points and survival with multi-surface platforming. You can run and jump of course, but you can also cling to and scale walls, cling to ceilings, climb spider webs and ladders, and eventually earn double jumps and other ways to schmoove around each level. There’s even swimming! It’s annoying, but it’s there! The physics are fast and responsive, and sailing through spaces weaving around enemies as they converge upon your wiggling 8-bit anatomy while shooting and stabbing at them feels great.

Build bummer

The “pick three” of it all, and the meta progression, is much less creative than the rest of Blood Dungeon’s offerings. You get different weapons that automatically track and fire enemies, passive power-ups that govern things like fire rate and damage, and a few wildcards here and there like an item that gives you invulnerability for three frames when you contact a hazard. You can spend “bones” on permanent upgrades to things like your jump height, damage, and the number of weapons you can equip, and unlocking levels is a matter of surviving to the first of three bosses. On the third boss the level is over, and your score is tallied for the leaderboards.

The score chasing is the point, or at least it seems that way. There’s a floor, because no matter what the stage is over after the third boss, and you get defined score bonuses from taking each boss down. So anything higher than the minimum is all about the conflict between you, the random-ishness of your build, and the escalating enemy stats in the level itself. It’s fun to push yourself, especially if you’re reviewing Blood Dungeon ahead of launch and you spot your peers and pals holding top spots in temporary glory. But what’s problematic is the space between, and how Blood Dungeon’s math scales up after you take down a boss, and how that interacts with the way you can build your run.

No create, only damage

In making sure the loop is a challenge, in sticking to a rigid structure, and in severely limiting your time and options, Blood Dungeon left player expression behind. Much like Ball x Pit, succeeding feels like a glorified DPS check, rather than anything to do with how you put your build together. Weapons and power-ups don’t really interact or have synergy, and in Blood Dungeon’s case your individual item levels even have randomized effects. This can be especially frustrating when you roll super poorly, and most of your options give you bullet size upgrades instead of speed or power. And since time is short, you’ll never see the end state of whatever kit you’re working on. You might max out one weapon if you focus on it, but there’s no real defined outcome or anything interesting that happens when you hit that level cap. It’s all a mad dash for the biggest numbers. And if you don’t hit the numbers fast enough, you’ll just get backed into a corner and smooshed once the enemy waves turn into bullet sponges.

The result here is bland, optimal build strategy, runs that are either homogenous or wastes of time, and a total lack of satisfaction with what you’ve put together in the end. The first time I completed a run I felt nothing, which left a sour taste in my mouth the rest of the time I put in. It also doesn’t help that Blood Dungeon doesn’t really have a fun ending sequence or anything, it’s just back out into the hub to play more and chase unlocks and high scores. For all the flavor and sauce this game has in its visuals and core mechanics, it doesn’t really follow through all the way. Even Ball x Pit had a cool ending!

I keep going back and forth with how I feel about Blood Dungeon in its entirety. It’s fun to play, has a cool aesthetic, and its emphasis on score-chasing feels distinct in this genre. But its lack of interest in expression and build-crafting really hurts that momentum, and makes playing long-term feel more and more like a chore. These games sing when you can have fun with how you put your character together each run, and when they give you space to experiment and succeed even if you play outside the dotted lines a little. Such a rigid insistence on DPS optimization puts a limit on what you’re allowed to do, and makes me wonder why the “pick three” stuff is in there in the first place. No amount of wiggly genitals and twitchy platforming can fix that.

Blood Dungeon is available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. A PC code was provided by the publisher for this review.

Sign up for our monthly roundup of exclusive content, top stories, and updates from Shacknews - once a month, no spam.

Shacknews staff does not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their content. Shacknews strictly prohibits the use of its content for AI training or to generate text, including text in the style or format used for this publication. Shacknews reserves all rights to this work.

Review for
Blood Dungeon
7
Pros

• Fun scribbly aesthetic
• Platforming is fast and snappy
• Playable characters are silly

Cons

• Too much emphasis on DPS
• Build-crafting is barely relevant
• Enemies turn into bullet sponges partway through each run