Review: #BLUD fuels nostalgia with a new IP

A little under a week ago (at the time of writing), Exit 73 Studios and Humble Games released a new game called #BLUDIO.

The game is an animated dungeon crawler available on Nintendo Switch, PC via the Humble Store (affiliate link), and Steam, PS4, and Xbox One (affiliate link) with an MSRP of $24.99.

Huge thanks to the team for providing me with a PC copy to review, which I played exclusively on my OLED Steam Deck. All thoughts below are my own.

In #BLUD, slaying the undead is just another day at school for Becky Brewster, newcomer to town and the latest descendant of an ancient lineage of spell-savvy vampire hunters.

Eradicate demonic infestations through the city’s vibrant social media and take selfies with demonic forces to analyze their weaknesses. Upgrade your trusty demon-bashing field hockey stick and enhance your latent magical abilities through grimoires and school supplies.

Become a master of the killing game with the help of an eclectic cast of hilarious characters and teach the vampires a thing or two about having fun at Carpentersville High!

#BLUE is, in my opinion, exactly the kind of nostalgia I want to see tapped into. It’s an original IP, but so much of it took me back to my childhood. In the early 2000s I remember playing a game on the Cartoon Network website (yes guys, it was a much bigger thing back then) where you ran around a summer resort helping various characters with a plethora of tasks.

Watching the trailer for #BLUD somehow it reminded me of that and that nostalgia persisted while playing. The gameplay is very different as #BLUD is about killing vampires and saving the world while the Cartoon Network game was mostly about fetch missions, if memory serves. I think I know what it is though.

The art style and animation reminds me a lot of Cartoon Network shows from the 2000s. The game isn’t set in the past or anything, but the art style evokes this nostalgia in me and I love it. A lot of the animation is over the top and it was a lot of fun to watch while playing.

The character designs look very expressive while remaining quite simple. The animation is perhaps my favorite aspect #BLUD. This is exactly what convinced me to agree to review the game.

Another piece that I love #BLUD It’s the writing and the humor. If the animation feels very 2000s, the humor and writing feels very 2010s. It reminds me of cartoons like Calm down, Scooby-Doo!, Gravity fallsetc.

There’s even a joke about how all women with a certain character model share the same name and it feels like it was directly inspired by one of my favorite jokes from The Indestructible Kimmy Schmidt.

I will say that I have not completed the main story of #BLUD yet, but after about 3.6 hours (according to Steam) of playing, the story became intriguing.

You play as Becky Brewster who has recently moved to Carpentersville and stumbles into the world of vampire slaying when she receives her mother’s old cookbook. I’m not sure how it all works, but I’ve established that there are two main villains: an ancient vampire named Dragur and the evil tech CEO Geoff Freya.

All of the characters have incredible personalities and the writing team clearly had fun writing their lines with lots of jokes and puns.

Now let’s talk about the gameplay. How I played #BLUD It felt both punishing and forgiving. Some of the fights are quite challenging as you try to figure out how to deal with certain enemies. However, if you die, you will return to where you entered the current map.

That said, all enemies respawn when you die. However, you will respawn with full health. The balance seems very well optimized. If you’re looking for a complex combat system or something, keep looking. The combat seems good, but it’s pretty basic with just one button for attack, a dodge, a projectile weapon (pencils), and then a couple of upgrades for your trusty field hockey stick like an umbrella that can shape the way you play.

I like how you can upgrade your weapon, but I wish the gems you collect were a little more common. I only have one gem, but I feel like I should have a couple more by now.

The main upgrades are tools like an umbrella that gives you a block or a shovel that lets you dig in specific areas to discover items or traverse the world.

Let’s talk about the less than positive parts of #BLUDIO Now. There were a few moments where I felt like the game maybe required a little too much precision, as it really seemed to focus on an 8-axis system and so I would look left to block, but they were attacking from the top quadrant left and so I got it. In contrast, aiming with bullets seemed more difficult.

I wish there had been some sort of reticle or something to help me see better where I’m aiming. I also wasn’t a fan of the fact that simply touching an enemy would hurt you and so it was very easy to try to dodge an enemy but then get hurt because I had just touched another enemy during my dodge.

At times I felt very frustrating. Also, when I got the shovel they didn’t make it clear what terrain could be excavated and it took too long to figure out that the points I thought would be used for a story point were actually the excavation points.

As I said at the beginning, I played #BLUD exclusively on my Steam Deck OLED. It ran flawlessly and the system requirements are so low that I would be shocked if your PC couldn’t run it. In my opinion, this game is absolutely perfect for portable gaming.

#BLUE it’s not a perfect game, but it’s a fantastic recipe for fueling nostalgia with a new IP. Others should take note. I had a lot of fun playing the game and will finish it after writing this review. In my opinion, you come for the animation and stay for the writing.