Image: Ethan’s Secretions
Tomb of the Bloodletter has all of the ingredients to be one of my favourite games. Its turn-based combat is reminiscent of Slay the Spire, where you know your enemy’s next move before they attack and can act accordingly. Except your own attacks are based on words. And so, to be good at Tomb of the Bloodletter, you’ve got to be quite the wordsmith.
Now, before playing Tomb of the Bloodletter, I’d have told you I was, in fact, Very Good at Words. I mean, I write for a living and everything. But stringing together a sentence is apparently very different than coming up with one strong word.
Tomb of the Bloodletter lets you spell out any word you like – as long as it’s a real word, and as long as it’s between 3 and 12 letters in length. But with certain letters having power-ups and debuffs attached to them, you’re going to want to think very carefully about the word you type in.
The letter ‘O’ might do 1x damage every time it’s used, for example. So you’re going to want a word with as many Os in as possible (foolproof!). But maybe the F has a debuff attached to it, that means you’ll take damage every time you use that letter. Is losing two health worth dealing four damage for? That’s your call. But you’ll need to watch your HP, because it can quickly deplete – and you don’t always have skills available to you to defend.
So, yes, Tomb of the Bloodletter is very hard, and death can come quickly, even if you spell great words. It’s hard not to think of this like Boggle or Scrabble; long or complex words don’t necessarily matter here. It all depends on what skills are attached to your letters, and how well you’ve used them. Some will only take effect if they appear after you’ve already attacked, for example, so their placement within a word matters too.
Thankfully, there’s no timer, so you can take as long as you need to think about your word and pore over the best letters to use. Like Slay the Spire, you’ll move across a pathway of matches, each one getting a little bit harder. Each victory will net you some kind of reward, although they’re not always all that useful. Since the skills available to you are random, there’s an element of luck involved in Tomb of the Bloodletter. If you fail, it might be that you’re not very good at words. Or it might just be that luck is not on your side.
However: costing just £6.39 on Steam (and there’s 20% off for the next two weeks!), Tomb of the Bloodletter is absolutely worth your time. This is a clever twist on a genre that’s been done to death, and those of us who enjoy word games are going to get a big kick out of this. Even if we also get our ass kicked at the same time.
Tomb of the Bloodletter is available now on PC.
