Typing-based games are underused, so when Cryptmaster came along, it was a breath of fresh dungeon air with its creativity, wit, and levels of exploration. Unsurprisingly, nobody else has really capitalised on the genre as it’s still very niche and not so popular. Ehan’s Secretions (ewww), says nuts to that and created a new rogue-like that lets you use more than WASD on your keyboard.
While you can play this on the Steam Deck, it’s best optimised with a physical keyboard. That said, one of the most surprising aspects of the game was the lack of urgency for creating a word. This is easily a highlight as you’ll need all the time in the world to hit the biggest combos, and believe me, this is absolutely essential.
Tomb of the Bloodletter has a roster of four characters (just the one to begin with). After a quick tutorial, you head out in a procedurally generated battle against three foes, one at a time, selecting your own path by picking a three-letter word. Just to beat you to it, yes, you can write ‘bum’, however, it’s not about the word you chose, but the letters, as a select few have a perk attached to it. For example, if there was a perk attached to the ‘m’ such as double healing capacity, the first two battles in ‘bum’ wouldn’t have a perk, but the last one would. Does that make sense? Doesn’t matter, I’m moving on.
As mentioned, you can play this without a keyboard, as a virtual one shows up on screen and is essential to gameplay. At the beginning of every round, a random selection of keys known as magick will be granted a perk/debuff. Each time you incorporate that letter, the perk/debuff will be applied. Ok, another example. Say the letter ‘l’ inflicts 1 damage to your enemy, if you type ‘lit’, it will do 1 damage. Type in ‘hillbillies’ and it’ll do 4 damage. That said, maybe you get bonus damage for double letters, or alternatively, damage for the same placement.
Coming back to those combos is key, as from the very start of Tomb of the Bloodletter, I’d say it’s challenging due to the damage received and lack of healing. Yes, you can heal during rounds, but the criteria are very specific, and it isn’t always just your limited vocabulary that affects a run, but luck. Each battle and magick placement is random, and regrettably, you aren’t awarded new magick upon death for those rogue-like marginal gains and restart with the same options, albeit served randomly.
Should you complete the first area of three rounds, you can then pick a four-letter word (yes, ‘fuck’ is acceptable, you vulgar people) and unlock a new character, this time with powers. In the second instance of the roster, you can improve your healing abilities, though if you use the prayer option, effectively a reshuffling of where magick is allocated, you take damage. I can’t stress how harsh the game can be with damage and healing abilities, and the associated ailments that cause you to lose even more health.
While Tomb of the Bloodletter does warrant repeat plays, and the lack of a timer for conjuring up words is an absolute must, the lack of marginal rewards makes this a little bit of a slog and somewhat unfair. It’s a great concept and overall a pretty decent change to all the open-world and deck-building games out there. Just be mindful that it is a bit of a challenge, so if that doesn’t put you off and your RSI isn’t flaring up, maybe this might be your type of game.
