My first steps in the Dungeons of Blood and Dream were confusing, to say the least. This is a strange game, make no mistake, but it’s also a first-person fantasy adventure imbued with charm and nuance.
Yes, the floors and walls dazzle and poke at the eye balls, the enemies look like PSX-era villains on acid, and the whole thing feels like a never ending first-person fever dream filled with death, magic, and experimentation. But it’s somehow all in good fun, you know?!
Welcome to the Dungeons of Blood and Dream
To the credit of developer Lori Vornoy, there’s a lot of interesting lore to unpack here, yet getting to the good stuff is going to require some digging and a fair amount of perseverance.
Dungeons of Blood and Dream casts you as a so-called blood wizard. That is to say, you have the potential to learn powerful new magical abilities. However, at the start of the game this magic isn’t much more helpful than a short burst of shield that can help you minimise incoming damage. That is during the early portion of the game, but things do eventually open up.
In your right hand you carry a broken sword, and it is with this pointy blade that you must duel with the denizens of the dungeon. Combat is tough, and I died – or was “harvested” – many, many times during my hours in these psychedelic crypts. This is the sort of game that wants you to learn its mysterious ways one horrible death at a time, earning your forward progress as you dodge spikey traps and whatnot.
The levels themselves, and indeed a number of other elements UI elements, are somewhat basic in their construction. This is a very indie game, and it’s clear that certain aspects have been kept simple in order to allow for mechanical complexity in other areas.
For example, your in-game hand might look like it needs a trip to the doctors, but the rings that you equip to it during play give you new abilities that can change the way you play. The last one I picked up let me open all doors, which would’ve been really handy had I lived a bit longer. I think the one before made my enemies drop more gold. You get the idea, though.
A tough dungeon to crack
I can’t claim to be particularly good at Dungeons of Blood and Dream, but I have found the challenge it offers to be quite compelling. Yes, I keep dying, but the deeper dig and the further I get, the more the different possibilities are coming into focus. However, I can tell that it’s not going to give up its secrets quickly or easily, and I think patient dungeon crawlers will get the most out of this particular RPG.
Of course, I’ve got this far without really addressing the audio-visual side of things, which is somewhat like playing through a fever dream thanks to the game’s bold colour palette and the arrangement of the levels. Yes, it looks archaic, with old school polygonal character designs and pixelated textures, but there’s a certain grim charm to the presentation that really resonated with me.
Dungeons of Blood and Dream is a tough not to crack, as they say. Whether it’s the clunky combat, the complex magic system, or even the slow reveal of its more interesting aspects, it took a while to peel back the layers and get a true sense of what it really is at its heart. And that heart is a twisted knot of death and pixels, so bear that in mind before you crawl this particular dungeon – only the bravest blood wizards need enter.
Dungeons of Blood and Dream is out now on PC (Win) and I played the game via access kindly provided by the developer.
