Blood Dungeon and the Bullet Heaven Boom

The hosts of The Besties open their discussion of Blood Dungeon with an important question: "What is your favorite song from Blood Dungeon?" The answer, inevitably, involves "dick whips" — a reference to one of the game's more memorable weapons, wielded by the "Leech" character, who has "a two or three pixel long penis that is visible at all times." This sets the tone for a game that looks "like it was drawn fittingly in the back of a school notebook in the nineteen ninety" and comes from Messhof, the studio behind Nidhogg and Real World.

What Makes Blood Dungeon Different

Blood Dungeon is a "survivors-like" or "bullet heaven" game — the genre where you automatically fire weapons at hordes of enemies while dodging their attacks. But unlike Vampire Survivors or Halls of Torment, this one adds a full 2D platforming layer. You can climb any wall, hang from any ceiling, and navigate vertical spaces. This changes everything. As one host puts it, the platforming "requires a level of engagement and activity and like millisecond by millisecond kind of decision making" that other games in the genre lack. The level designs create real strategy: there's a pit level where you're motivated to pick perks that give "50% damage to any time you have the high ground," and underwater sections where you have to surface for air "like Soni