Tomb of the Bloodletter

This game is REALLY fun. It takes a simple word game and turns it into a maddening (positive) puzzle - I have happily stared at a given turn for like 10 minutes just to figure out how to optimize whatever word I'm picking. The different upsides and downsides you can apply to your letters are consistently meaningful (that is, the game feels well balanced), the art is silly and cute, and the structure of the run even requires your skill to optimize your path, which I think is really clever. The UI feels nice and the tutorial is helpful. I accidentally stayed up super late playing this and can't wait to dig in further! It scratches some kind of itch I didn't know I had right between NYT Spelling Bee and Balatro.

Tomb of the Bloodletter is pretty fun ... until I encounter the enemy that locks away half my keyboard. I really want to like this game, however there are some design choices, or even oversights (?), that make my overall enjoyment suffer. Some of the combats are just plain unfun right now. These are things I believe can be ironed out, because the fundamentals are there and they are quite solid. I think my issues with the enemy I mentioned would be solved if the Magicks could only appear on the active half of your keyboard, for example. Being nerfed to less than half your power on turn 2 is VERY rough, especially if you encounter the boss version with 20 HP when you may only have one type of attack that does *1* damage. Not to mention that I think this enemy was not at all considered when making the Prophet. The lord should, in my opinion, not be able to demand you create a word that contains letters from both sides of the keyboard, when only one side is active.

I like this game quite a bit, although I agree with the points in some of the negative reviews. Positives: the art is charming and characterful, and *all* the mechanics serve to make the core gameplay interesting. You're trying to maximize some letters while avoiding others, and letter order often matters. This is the game, and it's fun! Negatives: Balance and variety are lacking. One magic is OP and can win runs by itself; a few enemies have a counter for it, but most don't. Other magics seem situational and underpowered. One character has special mechanics that don't allow the OP strat; he feels like a fun challenge mode. I think only one win with him is required for progression. After that, progression is just based on wins (with challenge modifiers, some of which do require changing tactics). Enemy variety is limited; different enemies share mechanics and can give you the same debuffs. It seems enemies can also appear anywhere in the three acts, which contributes to a lack of distinct identity for acts and enemies. But again, this criticism comes from a place of liking the game. I don't demand StS polish from a solo dev project asking $5 on sale. The dictionary could be imp…

Pretty good game overall. Thinking of words with the best combinations of letters is a good challenge.

If you're the sort of person who's enjoyed Wordle in the past then this a great roguelike for you that won't break the bank. A great aesthetic, joined by some great ideas and fun characters ties together this typing adventure that causes you to expand you vocabulary but not simply into big words, but ones that feel specific gaps. I have a written a much larger review here: https://backloggd.com/u/Psientologist/review/4524924/ Put simply, it's a recommendation from me even if the game is not quite in its perfect form.

Pretty creative with gameplay mechanics and has a lot of ideas. I like how all of the different characters function.