Blood Vial

I jumped into Blood Vial expecting a neat indie experiment and came out with a grin and a messy keyboard. The game marries boomer-shooter aggression with a Splatoon-esque swimming mechanic: you literally swim through spilled blood to move, climb and stay alive. It’s a compact, retro-flavored FPS that feels like a distilled idea—tight, focused, and wildly energetic. If you like Ultrakill’s speed or Post Void’s immediacy, this scratches a similar itch without pretending to be a sprawling epic.

Blood Is Your Parkour

Movement is the headline trick here: Blood Vial makes spilled blood a traversal tool. You swim, you climb, and you vault using the crimson puddles left by enemies, which turns every firefight into a potential platforming puzzle. The health bar constantly leaks, so there’s real pressure to keep moving and to plan routes that funnel you through fresh blood flows. Standard inputs—double jumps, strafing, and right-click abilities—feel snappy and responsive, which is crucial when momentum is the core loop. I found myself smiling the first time I wall-swung through a grate on a single vial refill; it feels clever and satisfying.

Guns, Gory Gadgets and Sacred Pacts

The arsenal is intentionally small but meaningful: a shotgun for messy, close-quarters carnage and a revolver for measured, precise eliminations, with a couple more unlockables to tinker with. Each weapon changes how you approach rooms and blood pools—shotgun blasts spray more recoverable liquid, while the revolver rewards pickier aiming. Between levels you seal pacts that act like short-term upgrades, shifting how fast you drain, how jumps behave, or how much blood enemies spew. Those roguelike touches are welcome, but they’re conservative: upgrades add spice rather than transforming the gameplay entirely, which keeps runs familiar even as you get stronger.

Sound, Style and the Occasional Stutter

Visually Blood Vial leans into retro 3D/boomer-shooter aesthetics—chunky geometry, saturated palettes and a soundtrack that slaps. The levels feel purpose-built for speed, with open arenas that encourage loops and tighter corridors that punish hesitation. Audio cues are functional and punchy; the OST does a lot of heavy lifting in making runs feel cinematic. Performance is mostly solid, though a number of players reported stuttering unless they crank Downsampling and Color Limiting to High—there’s a quick fix in the options, but it’s worth noting for lower-end rigs. Accessibility options are limited but the core controls are clean enough to be approachable for anyone used to fast FPS movement.

Replay Loop: Fast, Fun, and a Bit Short

The loop is highly replayable at first: small runs, leaderboard incentives, and the delight of chaining movement keep you coming back. Yet the levels and upgrade options are limited at launch, and once you’ve learned the best routes the novelty fades—many runs feel like variations on the same choreography. I appreciate the economy of design: it’s focused and rarely overstays its welcome, but that very focus is why players cry out for more acts, bosses, enemy variety and modifiers. In short: the gameplay is tight and joyful, but the toybox could use more toys.

Blood Vial is a brilliant bite-sized indie shooter: it nails movement and feel, delivers solid weapon duels, and has a soundtrack that pushes you forward. The biggest caveat is length and variety—if you want a long campaign or deep roguelite progression, you’ll be left wanting. For $5 it’s an easy buy if you enjoy fast-paced boomer shooters, leaderboard runs, or just clever movement toys; I’m hopeful the dev expands it with more acts and bosses.