#BLUD
Credits
Exit 73 Studios - Dungeon Crawler - Steam, Xbox, PS, Nintendo
The Essentials
8.5/10 - Narrative/Writing
Save your friends, fight off the vampire apocalypse, and survive the horrors of freshman field hockey practice in #BLUD, a delightfully zany animated dungeon crawler that blurs the line between action RPGs and hyperkinetic 90s cartoons.
The game starts you off as Becky (Rebecca Brewster), a field hockey loving high school girl who loves the color pink. She’s joined by her best friend and tech wiz Corey, interesting classmates, and townsfolk in the city of Carpentersville. You follow Becky’s adventure as she goes from ordinary high schooler to town hero! Throughout the story Becky grows from timid and scared, to a confident and brave monster mashing machine! Even though there’s plenty of terrors, there were still plenty of emotional scenes between characters that made you feel and relate to the characters. I was able to pick out the exact character that I felt represented me well! The writing in the game is charming with multiple puns, jokes, and references to older cartoons that most people from the early 2000s would catch.
9.5/10 - Graphics/Performance
I love the art 90s cartoon style of the game! The enemies were all creatively designed, both cute and threatening. Things were a little more graphic & gorier when it came to deaths or blood. Still very cartoony, but blood spurts everywhere! Definitely not for younger kids as you might think at first glance. Animations were top tier and had so much variety that I felt like I didn’t even get to see half of what was actually available in the game. The gameplay was super smooth. I did have one slight bug with the graphics where things were layered on top of my player character, but that was resolved by a quick restart. The cutscenes made it feel like I was actually watching an interactive cartoon as a kid! Even without any dialogue or voice acting, it was easy to follow the storyline during the cutscenes.
6.5/10 - Mechanics
The dungeon crawler combat was really fun and engaging. It was even a bit challenging having to switch between weapons and learn to defeat the varied enemy types and levels. Finishing moves added a bit of flair & were different based on direction & items equipped, which was a nice touch! Hit boxes felt a little off though, as if attacks should’ve landed but didn’t. Both from an enemy and player perspective. With frequent auto saves & purchasable medkits, I never felt like there was very much to worry about while fighting.
Even the “social media” aspect of the game gives it a lot of character. It gives insight on what other characters are thinking through their comments. The best part was taking selfies with the enemies even though some of them were hard to catch! The smaller mini games around town were fun, and a nice break from the fighting. They were more challenging than I was expecting them to be!
In terms of movement the character feels a little too slow, especially with larger maps with fewer points of interest. Fast travel helped a lot, but I feel a skill or item to move faster would be nice. Menu navigation made sense, but I feel it could’ve been condensed to fewer pages or shown some type of order when pulling it up. Most of the puzzles in the game were fine, the crystal order puzzles were fun, but the sliding puzzles were a bit tedious.
8/10 - Music/Sound
The music for the game is very fitting and sets the tone really well. The soundtrack to the game gives a cute and calming feeling in areas of safety, and a very eerie feeling where there are potential dangers. You could tell something was about to go down once the music started rolling! However, there weren’t any tracks that specifically stood out to me as catchy or memorable.
Sounds were cute, and consistent with the animation and storytelling. They often used sound effects that could be heard from older 90s cartoons which were both funny and charming. The combat sounds also feel very satisfying, every slam, punch, and finisher all make you feel powerful. The game doesn’t have voice acting, but the sounds that they use for the characters voices are a nice addition & gives a good representation of how the characters should sound. While steaming it, I tried to voice them as close to their sounds as I could haha.
The Details
Audience Perspective
For $25 I would say this game was a nice challenge and provided 8-10 hours of entertainment! I think it has some replay value, but I’d say it’s pretty easy to finish most of the game in a single run.
Biases
Nostalgia Bias - I’m a 90s kid, so the cartoon aesthetics and sounds are very nostalgic to me. In many ways reminds me of my own drawing style that was inspired by cartoons as well.