Blasphemous: Death Mechanics

I’ve recently started playing Team 17’s Blasphemous after I picked it up last summer. The one thing that drew me to this game was the beautiful pixel art and the unique Spanish setting. It’s an awesome game, but in terms of mechanics it borrows heavily from FromSoftware’s Dark Souls’ series. In Blasphemous, death is a core mechanic and although this is fine, I believe death is not as punishing as it should be. It doesn’t motivate the player enough to get better at the game in my honest opinion. There are two bars at the top of the screen, an HP bar and a Fevour (spell) bar. When the player dies, a little bit of the Fevour bar gets cut off. No loss of in game currency and the in game spells are not all that powerful, so a player could go the whole game without using a spell, so death is hardly a consequence. I think that if spells were more powerful to be an actual gameplay changer, it would motivate the player to get better and care about death. However, I did run into a glitch in the beginning when I first started playing the game that made me stop. I died and respawned in the area that I was last in, but all my upgrades were gone. As Rosa Menkman states in her paper, Glitch Studies Manifesto:

“The glitch has no solid form or state through time; it is often perceived as an unexpected and abnormal modus operandi, a break from (one of) the many flows (of expectations) within a technological system(341).”

I was devastated! Other than that glitch, I’ve had no problems with the game. My biggest gripe with it is that players are not punished heavily enough, the spells should be made more powerful so that the player feels the true weight of death and is motivated to get better at the game. I feel it would be so much more rewarding if a little more harsh towards the players that play. I’m still really enjoying my time with Blasphemous, I believe this game does not get near enough recognition it rightly deserves. Hard games are not bad games. If this was more punishing, I believe more people would know of this game.

My Glitch- Blasphemous Game Breaking glitch — YouTube (Not posted by me just same glitch I had)

Viny_Silva 1 Sept. 23rd, 2019

Gameplay- Let’s Play Blasphemous — PC Gameplay Part 1 — Blasphemously Good — YouTube

Wanderbots Sept. 9th, 2019

Works Cited

Menkman, Rosa. “Glitch Studies Manifesto.” Reader Vortex: Beyond Youtube. N/A. “Menkman-Glitch Studies Manifesto (1).pdf: DIG4813–21Spring 0M77 (ucf.edu).” Web. Accessed Feb. 16 2021.

Viny_Silva 1. “Blasphemous Game Breaking glitch.” YouTube. “Blasphemous Game Breaking glitch — YouTube” Web. Sept 23 2019. Accessed Feb 16 2021.

Wanderbots. “Let’s Play Blasphemous-PC Gameplay Part1-Blasphemously Good.” Let’s Play Blasphemous — PC Gameplay Part 1 — Blasphemously Good — YouTube. Youtube. Web. Published Sept 9 2019. Accessed Feb. 16 2021.