Blood Dungeon

When I sat down to play this game today, I wasn't sure what to expect. But I ended up putting over 5 hours into it and couldn't put it down. A reductive way to describe this game is: Vampire Survivors except the maps are side-scrolling. You have multiple characters to pick from with different starting weapons and they all feel a little different. Many of them are unlockable as you complete certain challenges, There's a shop with upgrades that will make your runs easier as well. Each map gets progressively harder as different waves of enemies come through, with occasional bosses. The levels themselves have completely climbable walls and ceilings that you simply stick to and can maneuver about. The background is sometimes also climbable. Enemies drop blood which is experience, and you level up, selecting from a random set of upgrades. It's a bit more varied than VS in that weapons can upgrade in number of projectiles, area/size or in other ways particular to their function. Some upgrades give a ricochet or piercing effect, or the Laser might get an upgrade that does more damage the longer it is touching an enemy. You can reroll your upgrades with coins, a currency you also accumulate with experience. Coins can also unlock locked chests on the map for more upgrades, and enemies will drop chests as well to give you even more upgrades on top of the ones you get from gaining blood/experience. There are some truly weird and fun weapons, like a bouncing basketball, a cloud of toxic gas, a damaging webbing (that you can climb on) or a turret. It's worth noting all the weapons auto-shoot their projectiles and they are not manually aimed (usually at the closest enemies). You seem to only be able to have two weapons at once, but you can have what seems to be an unlimited amount of support upgrades that rather come as unique upgrades to your particular weapons or just supplimentary. One cool support ability is a zombie ring that infect enemies to be on your side, and they go off and infect even more. Another upgrade lets you absorb HP from critical hits. In fact, increasing your luck synergizes with crit-based proc abilities like this, and many others. I've only unlocked a small fraction of what's available in my 5 hours of play, judging by the massive tome of abilities you can scroll in the game's library. The game gets pretty hectic and fun once you figure out how to survive long enough to see the later bosses of a level. I have to highly recommend the game if you like Vampire Survivors and side-scrollers, as this one feels particularly well-made (from the creators of Nidhogg 1 and 2!) On top of all this, the game has a silly sense of humor that fits well with its humorous but cool aesthetic