They Bleed Pixels
Spooky Squid Games Inc. · 2012 · Gore, Platformer, Difficult, Lovecraftian, Pixel Graphics
PC
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About They Bleed Pixels
✦ AI summary
They Bleed Pixels is a brutally difficult action platformer where you slash and kick eldritch horrors into hazards using a deceptively deep one-button combat system, earning checkpoints through stylish kills. Blending pixel art with paper-and-ink aesthetics, it tells the twisted tale of a girl whose nightmares are transforming her into a demonic creature while delivering tight controls, eleven massive levels, and relentless skill-based challenges.
They Bleed Pixels is a fiendishly difficult action platformer inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and classic horror. Rendered in a distinct visual style that blends pixel art with paper and ink textures, They Bleed Pixels is a singular mix of intense platforming and fierce beat-em-up action. At the core of its fighting system is a simple one-button combat scheme with surprising depth and versatility. Button mashing is discouraged while kicking shadowy monsters into saws, pits and spikes is rewarded, thanks to a unique system that lets you earn and place your own checkpoints through stylish kills. The fancier your kills, the faster you fill the checkpoint meter.
Story:
When a young girl arrives at the Lafcadio Academy for Troubled Young Ladies, she's unprepared for the violent nightmares that plague her dreams and transport her to other worlds. Worse yet, her dreams are intruding into her waking life, slowly altering her flesh into the demonic form of her night terrors. Can she destroy the mysterious blood-soaked book that appears to be the root of her troubles or will her transmutation from girl to clawed horror become complete?
Story:
When a young girl arrives at the Lafcadio Academy for Troubled Young Ladies, she's unprepared for the violent nightmares that plague her dreams and transport her to other worlds. Worse yet, her dreams are intruding into her waking life, slowly altering her flesh into the demonic form of her night terrors. Can she destroy the mysterious blood-soaked book that appears to be the root of her troubles or will her transmutation from girl to clawed horror become complete?
Key Features:
- Extra tight controls: One-button attack system favors skilled combat over complicated combos and button-mashing. Super precise platforming controls let you stop and start on a dime while pulling off gravity-defying dashes and double jumps.
- Eleven massive levels to fight through and explore, each with unique visuals and music. Unlock additional bonus levels and guest levels from indie game developers based on their own creations: They Bleed Ponycorns, They Bleed Stardust, exp.
- Unique checkpoint system rewards fancy kills with a save spot you can carry with you. Hold on to it for extra points or drop it right away to preserve your progress.
- Becoming a monster stabbing master with individual level rankings as well as 150 skill-based achievements. There's lots to aim for after you've completed the game.
- Standard and Novice difficulty to match your skill level.
- Record, playback and share your best playthroughs with online leaderboards for speed and high score!
- Lush pixel art motion comics tell the story a young girl haunted by eldritch nightmares.
- Original electronic soundtrack by DJ Finish Him (aka Shaun Hatton) composed with synthesizers, unconventional instruments and gadgets often not meant for musical use.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
[i]They Bleed Pixels[/i] is a brutally difficult combat-platformer with a maximalist approach to challenge (i.e. "more is more") that is best suited for the truly masochistic people who fondly look back at masocore, but perhaps less so for everyone else playing in this modern era. First and foremost, I was forced to limit its framerate to 30fps in order to play closer to its originally intended speed and my review is based on that experience, although I'm sure that it may have had unintended negative effects on the game. For general players, [i]They Bleed Pixels[/i] could be a serious challenge with its long sprawling +20 minute levels (but with plenty of checkpoint opportunities) to be finished once and moved on. In such cases, the contextual combat controls and sluggish 30fps responsiveness may be a slight nuisance but doesn't diminish too much on the challenge of it all. However its philosophy to just throw more enemies, environmental hazards, and platforming sections at you, it leads to increasingly common impossible to survive situations. So while checkpoints are plentiful, it definitely can start to sour the taste of victory towards later levels. Luckily it never gets so ba…
good
tis been forever but i still sometimes use the mc as profile pic so it seems to have stuck with me pretty good
TBP is an incredibly frustrating experience with later levels typically taking me over an hour to complete. As other reviews allude to, there is some jank physics and a questionable decision to map all different attack types to a single button when many buttons go unused but this isn't really why TBP is so difficult to complete; its unreasonable level design combined with floods of enemies that require impossibly consistent precision or the perseverance to get lucky. I give it a thumbs up because the game is beatable, there's no technical issues, and absurd difficulty is appealing to some. But potential players should be aware that this goes beyond a Celeste or a Super Meat Boy and, while there is a cool little silent story interspersed between levels, the game doesn't have much else to offer.
I really tried to like this but the delayed controls just feels bad
I don't like controls here.
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