Less than ten minutes into playing Messhof’s latest game Blood Dungeon, you unlock a new character in the form of a naked (dressed only in enormous black censor bars), cartwheeling kunoichi with a shotgun by the name of Skinja. Frankly, this is absurd, but it’s also delightfully Messhof: a studio known for synthesising their charmingly simple and often crude visual flair into a tight, addictive indie title. Veering off into a new genre (or, more appropriately, a kaleidoscope of genres), their latest effort is certainly no different.
Blood Dungeon is a platforming, auto-shooting roguelite bursting at every orifice with colour, blood, lasers, coins, keys and far too many enemies to count. Within about five seconds of booting up the game, you’ll be well within a dungeon doused in magenta bats and spiders, and tasked with (auto-)shooting them until they erupt into a cosmic orb of blood to be collected and feasted on for XP. Soon the cycle comes: decimating a swarm of vile gothic aberrations slapped by a neon-tipped paintbrush until they give you enough blood to get another upgrade, then a new weapon, and then a new toy to swallow up your time like it was never yours to begin with.
These types of games are simply dangerous to even posit playing – let alone during term times. Messhof displays an instant mastery of manipulating the ‘one more run’ philosophy into something more akin to a need than a want, barraging you in glee with unlocks and new trinkets to try out in each bite-sized dungeon foray. Just as repetition sets in, you’ll unlock a basketball that bounces around the map exploding every enemy it touches, or a pair of golden Deagles for your baby to wield (for some reason). That, coupled with the fractions of a second it takes to dive back into the pits again, makes this an instant member of your gaming circuit for anyone foolish enough to fall into its infectious grasp.
At first glance, though, Messhof’s decade-forged design confidence may seem at odds with the visual identity they chose for Blood Dungeon. Every frame from an outsider’s perspective is a barely discernible onslaught of colour and glitz that looks like the outcome of violently forcing a rainbow into a blender, or asking Alejandro Jodorowsky’s coke-fuelled “spiritual warriors” to design their Dune concept art in Microsoft Paint. It’s some crass cross between the appealing brutality of Nidhogg and the motley decal taped across its sequel.
This slapdash, seemingly incoherent visual design is actually very intentional: levels and environments maintain muted greens and greys, allowing the gonzo vibrance of the enemies, pick-ups and projectiles to be the only things that pop. No later than five minutes into a given run, the entire stage will become a puked-out haze of neon ghouls and splatter, so that deliberation in stage design becomes crucial to actually knowing what’s going on. “Mess” is literally in the studio’s name though, and I wouldn’t accept anything less.
What’s ostensibly less crucial is the character designs: seemingly a blend of old-timey medieval and fantasy creatures like centaurs and satyrs mixed with, again, babies wielding Deagles or cartwheeling shotgun ninjas. The only normal-passing character comes with an absolutely yoked neon-pink barbarian with sword magic, until you spot the enormous black censor bars at his crotch again. This nonsensical pastiche of everything daft or videogame-y is actually the perfect template for a game as hectic as this, dually forging playful fun with the mobs you erupt into blood and loot while further allowing you to distinguish yourself from the horde through considered design principles, rather than just camera placement and muscle memory. Those characters could use some more statistic variation beyond starting weapons and minor number deviations, but each of them in a small cast of nine still remains fun to play.
However, bullet heaven games like this do need some hook beyond just fun and scuzzy craftsmanship. Vampire Survivors had its oceans of content, co-operative play and cheap prices; BALL x PIT had its fusion of pinball with bizarro base-building mechanics (which recent genre staple Monsters are Coming! would then take on wheels), and so forth. Beyond its gloriously shambolic presentation, Blood Dungeon stands out with its platforming spin on the genre’s typical running-in-circles maneuverability. Climbing up walls, dangling upon chains and swimming through tight gaps while the mass of knights and Cacodemon-likes wraith after you through terrain is simultaneously terrifying yet awesome – a bold praise for a game that looks like it was made on an Etch A Sketch – and among the greatest vessels for skill expression this addictive little genre has had yet.
Thomas Hoey, returning from his collaboration with Messhof on Wheel World, created Blood Dungeon‘s aptronymically “dungeon drum ‘n’ bass” score, dynamically infusing entracing simplicity with acrobatic, feral breakdowns and chaotic jolts as the waves of bats and brutes increase in size or scope. It gives Blood Dungeon‘s move-or-die philosophy a groove to run for your life and shoot everything to, only destabilised by some awkward breaks in pace like the obnoxious (hopefully amended in future patches) pause that briefly rains on your parade after beating a boss, or the occasional frame stutters during big brawls.
For every innovation upon genre tropes or the simple addition of designer Mark Essen’s weird, era-blending and prismatic vision, Blood Dungeon isn’t a perfect game. It’s not quite able to capture the intense replayability of wider roguelites that have hundreds of hours poured into them over the course of years, but the charming, ephemeral sense of addiction it brings in spades makes it an undeniable recommendation at an eye-wateringly low price. Perfect for anyone who wants a quick ‘pick up and play’ game that lets them play as a baby with two Desert Eagles slaughtering thousands of rats and spiders, Messhof’s latest is a tour de force through their studio’s cavalcade of beautifully strange minds, and an exhilarating time while doing it. With some patches and content updates down the line, I can see Blood Dungeon‘s platforming mania be something that pulls me back time and time again, even just for one more run.
Blood Dungeon is available now on Nintendo Switch 1 and 2, PC, PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series X|S as an XBOX Game Pass title.
