Getting Started in Blood Dungeon

Blood Dungeon is a bullet-heaven platformer from Messhof (the studio behind Nidhogg). Your weapons fire on their own — your job is to stay alive by running, jumping and climbing across walls, ladders, chains and grates while the horde chases you. Survive the waves, collect everything that drops, and spend it on getting stronger for the next run.

The core loop

Each run drops you into a survival arena — everyone starts in the Catacombs. Enemies arrive in waves (the counter sits at the bottom-left), your weapons auto-fire, and you move to dodge, kite and grab pickups. Your hearts at the top-left are your health; lose them all and the run ends. Your score and gold tally up at the bottom-right and top-right as you go.

Death ends the run — but what you collect can still feed the next one.

Blood, Gold and Bones

You collect three resources during runs:

• Blood raises your blood level — per the official description, increasing your blood level is how you upgrade your build during a run.
• Gold is the in-run currency, shown as a $ counter on the HUD.
• Bones are spent at the Bone Shop — run by the Dogmancer, who takes your bone toll in exchange for permanent upgrades, per the official description.

Early on, treat every run as a Bones run. Banking Bones and coming back stronger beats chasing a deep clear straight away.

Level-up cards

Raising your blood level pauses the action and offers you 3 cards. Each card is a WEAPON, SPELL or CHARM, with a rarity label (Common, Uncommon and Rare all show up), and weapons level up as you invest in them. Take the one that fits your build — Aftermath's review confirms you can spend gold to forcibly reroll a bad offer — or refuse the offer entirely, which the game tracks (refusing 10 upgrades in one run is its own Steam achievement).

The stat panel next to the cards shows exactly what your character is doing: damage, reload, knockback, move speed, jump height, jumps, magnet range, and status chances like slow, burn, freeze and zombie. Check what's lagging before you pick.

Keys and locked doors

Arenas aren't fully open. Some doors are marked "NEEDS 🔑" with colored keyholes, and timer gates exist too. Grab keys when you see them — the official description notes chests are hidden throughout the arenas, and fully exploring an arena is a real unlock condition (doing it in the Boiler and the Flood each earns a Bone Shop item).

Movement is your real defense

Because weapons aim themselves, nearly all of your skill expression is in traversal. A few habits worth building immediately:

• Never stand still on the floor. Walls, ladders, chains, grates and vines get you off the ground and out of the horde's path.
• Route in loops. Run a lap around the arena's vertical structures instead of getting cornered; the horde bunches up behind you and your weapons do the rest.
• Grab pickups on the move. Doubling back into a crowd for one pickup is how most early runs end.
• Watch the environment, not just the enemies. Arenas also have turrets and spikes, per GamingOnLinux's review — they don't chase you, but they punish predictable routes.

Some upgrades change how you move. One charm leaves a fire trail behind you as you run; the fire drops down from above, so you can spread it across platforms and drop it onto enemies below. Movement and upgrades are not separate systems — they feed each other.

When a run ends, the game shows a quick replay of the path you took through the arena. It's a lighthearted way to see where you got cornered, not a mechanic you need to optimize.

Your first runs

A few first-run tips before you dive in:

1. Stick with Gun Man, the starter character, until the movement feels automatic.
2. Learn the Catacombs before worrying about the other five arenas.
3. Spend Bones in the Bone Shop after every run — buying 10 items there also unlocks the Baby character, so hoarding buys nothing twice over.
4. Watch the unlock conditions as you play. Early ones come naturally: kill 50 spiders for Leggy, lose 10 health in a run for Pain Gains, fire 25 Machinegun bullets before reloading for the Double Deagles.

Once the loop clicks, the character roster and the weapons and upgrades guide are the natural next reads — and the full unlock checklist shows every condition in the game.