Definitely not Bloodborne on PC what we played

June 7, 2024

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little about some of the games we’ve been playing over the past few days. This week we’re playing probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to Bloodborne on PC; jump back in time in a retro-inspired RPG; and enjoy the easy pleasure of this year’s Clash Mini.

what did you play

If you fancy catching up on some of the older releases of What We’ve Been Playing, here’s our archive.

Skald: Against the Black Priory, PC

Playing Skald last night I was struck by the feeling that RPGs are a kind of language. It’s a thing we get as we grow, in a gaming sense (and maybe a literal sense), and it works in the background whenever we start a game like this. Instinctively, even before we start, we know what to do. We know how to balance things like “hit” scores and why they might be useful. We know what stealth, ranged attacks, and magic are all about. We have an implicit understanding of character archetypes and how they will be used. Indeed, we can see part of the journey through the gaming experience tunnel before it even begins.

This allows the game to do a lot. It may assume a basic level of knowledge and therefore does not deal much with the fundamentals of teaching. It’s a bit like we’ve all been in school and studied a bit of math and science and so on. It means the game can jump further and deal with adventure rather than mechanics. Great, that’s a good thing. RPGs helping other RPGs: it’s holistically healthy.

But sometimes I wonder if it is taken too much for granted. This is why I’ve always been fascinated by games that break away from the Dungeons & Dragons foundation that underpins most RPGs, computer or otherwise. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of great thinking in D&D – a lot of people who have thought about it for many years have produced amazing things. But is this the only way to implement a fantasy game? I’m getting off topic, but a friend of Eurogamer, Quinns, recently did a great review of a TTRPG called Wildsea where he talked about this exact thing. Reprogramming our minds to rethink what a fantasy RPG actually is.

Skald is deliberately based on old-school PC RPGs that are based on D&D, so I know I’m not going to get a free-thinking reinterpretation of the genre here. That’s why I don’t play it. And for what it’s worth, he plays with the rules and does his own thing. It’s not just an obedient copy. But it makes me wonder what a game like this might look like if it didn’t assume any RPG knowledge to begin with and dreamed up something new. That would be exciting, wouldn’t it?

– Bertie

Squad Busters, iOS

A new Supercell game is always exciting. Last summer we got Clash Mini and this year it’s Squad Busters, a game that brings together all the Supercell characters in something that shouldn’t work, but does.

It’s a top-down dungeon crawl, even though the dungeons are outside and in the cheerful landscape of Supercell. Expand your team of heroes and fight your way to victory. Tap and slide your finger across the screen to move, and hold still to attack: enemies, treasure chests, trees, and anything else that will give you loot.

As a MOBA, you spend most of the game trying to get as much power as possible, so when a huge pile of gems unlocks in the middle of the battlefield, you can go over and get most of them. At low levels, where I’m still stuck, it’s mostly silly fun, gently competing with players who are about as incompetent as I am. Above, I imagine it is much more serious and technical. However, the balance of this makes it a Supercell game.

– Chris Donlan

Nightmare Card, PC

It was Wednesday when I got the message: Your Steam Wishlist item has been released. Nightmare Kart, a mix between Mario Kart and Bloodborne, was here.

Nightmare Kart comes from game developer Lilith Walther, a name you may recognize as the brains behind the PS1-inspired Bloodborne demo. It began life as Bloodborne Kart, but Walther was forced to remove all Bloodborne branding from the game before its release. But even though Nightmare Kart is now legally different from Bloodborne, we all know that at heart it really is.

Nightmare Kart is a solid go-kart game in every way, but it’s made even more fun by its PS1-era aesthetic and gothic setting. There is almost a juxtaposition to the whole thing. While the music and power ups set the frenetic pace of a Sunday afternoon Mario Kart Grand Prix with my kids, the game also had me shooting skeletons and werewolves as I skidded past a ghostly version that was definitely not Yharnam. I even died at one point when a large beast jumped out and squashed me. It was amazing!

I love the details that Walther added to the game. Game upgrades are like Bloodborne’s rejuvenating blood vials. Power-ups include the Hunter Pistol and Chipper Chain Wheels, and you can fight bosses complete with second-stage transformations during racing battles. I don’t really want to share much more about Nightmare Kart because it’s been amazing to see how each new track or battle unfolds and I don’t want to spoil anything. But let me say this: even if it doesn’t have to technical being a Bloodborne Kart, Nightmare Kart certainly hit all the right umbilical cords and I’m glad to see it on PC.

And the cherry on top? It’s free!

-Victoria