Ichorous is the bloody platformer I’ve been waiting for ever since I finished Blasphemous 2

I don’t often play platformers, but when I do you can bet that it’ll be a bloody hack and slash with tons of gore and creepy monsters. It’s a high I’ve been chasing ever since finishing Blasphemous 2, and while I’ve not managed to find something that can rival the same theistic terror it offers, the new demo for Ichorous delivers on the gore.

The premise of Ichorous is simple: you play as The Warlock, an agile fellow who is bound to the god of blood by contract to kill monsters and collect their bloody ichor. The map itself is a puzzle with an unknown layout and number of rooms that you can only piece together by searching through them, killing as many foes as possible while progressing through the map.

The demo only has a couple of levels so far, the Thrall Grave being the first and the Squalor being the second. Each one has different grunts, mini-bosses, and a final level boss for you to tear to shreds. There’s giant putrid flying insects that spit phlegm at you, angry cages with several arms all swinging swords at you, and multi-headed bloodthirsty maggots that also have, you guessed it, swords..

The ichor you get from killing these beasts can be exchanged for offerings, upgrades that scale as you progress through each level. But with each offering comes a curse. It’s a random modifier that can change bosses or even the map layout. For example, after killing the first level boss I chose Mob Tactics, which gives my character the ability to dart between foes, rapidly slashing at them, after I kill an enemy. The downside is, however, that rooms now have a 10% chance to not spawn brutes and instead spawn fiends and vermin twice. Meaning I’ll have double the work and half the payout.

These offerings will also change and grow stronger as you do, giving you one more thing to worry about as you progress through a run. There are also small trinkets to be found around the map that act as minor upgrades, which can strengthen your chosen build. But like all roguelikes, once you die that’s it. You’re left to start again, collect new offerings, curses, and trinkets as you try to progress through the map once again.

It’s not a hard reset though as some mini-bosses will disappear from the map once you’ve killed them. Leaving just the ones you haven’t bested yet, and grunts roaming around each room. Some purists may not appreciate this, but I sure do. It’s nice having some evidence of your hard work, especially when you’ve managed to get so far through a run.

But the biggest advantage you take away from each failed attempt, as usual, is what you’ve learned.

It took a couple of runs for me to get going, but once everything clicked I managed to figure out attack patterns, routes, and what the best build for me would be going forward; it’s leeches by the way, always the ball of leeches.

The demo ended after I completed the first level by stabbing a big ball of organic tissue named The Clot repeatedly and bested the second level doing the same to a monster with a ball of spikes for a head. The fights were both challenging and fair, attacks were consistent so it just meant I had to take a couple of steps back at first and learn the movements. Neither took particularly long to take down, and honestly, I was really sad once it was all over.

Ichorous is still in its early stages but I’m really excited to see what more it’ll bring to the table. It already seems to offer everything I want from action platformers: fun fights, disgusting enemies, loads of blood, a wide range of rewarding upgrades, and a fantastic soundtrack. Honestly, I was sold on Ichorous as soon as I realised that in order to heal myself I first had to absorb the blood of my enemies that had been spattered across the room and then stab myself through the chest with my blade. Hell yeah, more of that please.