It's a stellar action roguelite set in a weird original occult universe.

It's a proper action game that will demand quite a bit from the player in terms or reaction speed, positioning, timing and mental discipline. It's an actual first person melee combat game. It lets you choose between leaning into thrusting and slashing weapons, faster and slower ones with different range. The range will matter but not as some abstract stat, it will change how you play as you will have to get closer to your enemies if you're wielding a weapon with shorter reach. Meanwhile the rapier will almost feel like a gun in comparison.

Having said that you are a Blood Wizard in this game and there is a lot of magic, buffs, magical items and spells that can help you gain advantages. And while I don't think it ever completely removes the need to play it properly and cleanly as an action game, it doesn't shy away from giving you truly powerful tools that can trivialize entire aspects of the game that might have seemed insurmountable before. This game follows my beloved principle of you and the enemies are mutually very deadly to each other. But some of the most powerful enemies in the game can be easily neutralized with the help of some of the spells. There is meta progression with you gaining permanent stat increases that persist throughout all of your runs as well. And the buffs you attain over the course of the run with the potions you drink and items you collect can turn you into an almost unstoppable pain train.

Which is why this game has some of the most satisfying loot, all of it matters, half of the things you find bring you closer to being OP. I say half because half of the potions debuff you and it's your job to figure out which are which. The rings you find have different effects depending on which finger you put them on. Figuring out mysteries and secrets and taking thrilling risks is a big part of what makes this game fun. The game is full of fun surprises. So I recommend going into it blind and sticking with it for as long as your patience allows. I found it very rewarding personally.

The game has a gritty art style which I like to describe as "evil cute" but there are actually some genuinely unnerving enemy designs there.

Dungeons of Blood and Dream is light on narrative but what is there is full of mystique and mystery. It plays with some very interesting ideas and feels thematically satisfying. It has soul. I'd love to see more of this world.

If you like challenging action roguelikes, weird dark mysterious games, first person melee combat or living the life of a blood wizard it's an easy must play.

I love exploring through the dungeons and searching for rings! Each time beginning a new dream feels fresh as I keep finding different strategies to move forward. Lots of things to experiment with like finding out which potions are good to use, which rings to put on certain fingers, and what kind of spells to use in different situations. Haven't had this much fun with a game like this in a while! Definitely peak