Stiffen the sinews...if you can!
The Blood is a fairly simple medieval horror puzzle-game created in 2021 by NPJ Productions.
The game takes place in a gothic medieval setting. You play as an unnamed female character in the early stages of pregnancy, who, along with her husband Darren, move into a castle owned by a family that the protagonist begins to suspect are vampires. However, the truth is more complicated and revolves around an elderly man that the family are keeping locked away, whom Darren has been tasked with guarding.
This work contains examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: The science shown in the story is very advanced for the medieval period. This is most likely because the character responsible for it was centuries ahead of his time.
- Anyone Can Die: And they do!
- Artistic License – Biology: In Real Life, cells cannot merge together into a sentient, self-sustaining liquid that can move on its own.
- Big Bad: The Blood itself.
- Blob Monster: All the enemies in the game are sentient puddles of blood, with the final boss being an entire pool of it.
- Blood Lust: Not the Tepes family themselves, but The Blood itself and the person it used to be.
- Cassandra Truth: The protagonist suspects that the family are hiding something. Namely, that they are vampires and are secretly drinking both her and Darren’s blood in their sleep. It turns out that she is half-right, in that they are albinos with a blood disorder that will kill them unless they drink the blood of others.
- Clean, Pretty Childbirth: The protagonist giving birth is one of these scenes.
- Cruel Twist Ending/Sudden Downer Ending: Although her husband is dead, the Protagonist manages to survive, destroy every trace of The Blood, along with the research of the man who created it, and give birth to a beautiful and healthy baby. Unfortunately, she unknowingly drank a single drop of The Blood early on. That drop is enough to infect her baby while it was still in the womb. The last shot of the game is her baby exploding in the hands of the midwife, and the Protagonist, along with all the other people present, scream in horror.
- Death Equals Redemption/Heroic Suicide: Wilhelmina blames herself for not seeing how evil her son was and letting the rest of her family suffer and die because she refused to kill him when she had the chance. She makes amends by blowing herself up along with her son's new host body.
- Ditzy Genius: Doctor Cula might have made huge strides in the field of biology, but he is also inadvertently responsible for all the horror that happens in the story.
- Enfant Terrible: The Blood was originally one of these. Being turned into an actual monster only made him worse.
- Foreshadowing: The Protagonist drinks a cup of tea, not realizing that a drop of blood has fallen in it. This only becomes relevant in the very last second of the game, as it explains why the Protagonist's baby explodes.
- Grand Theft Me: The Blood eventually develops the ability to induce brain death in its host by cutting off the blood supply to their head, allowing it to take them over completely.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Wilhelmina refuses to believe that there is anything wrong with her son other than his blood disorder, while the Protagonist is convinced that The Blood simply wants a body of its own and a chance to live the life it never had. Sadly, they are both wrong, and The Blood is delighted to be a monster.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Done by several characters, namely the prisoner, Nocturn, Serena, the village boy, Darren, and Wilhelmina.
- Kill It with Fire: One of the few ways to fight enemies.
- Last Breath Bullet: Not to the Protagonist herself, but The Blood uses the last drop of itself to get revenge on her by blowing up her baby seconds after it is born.
- Meaningful Name: It is convenient that a family who appear to be vampires have the surname "Tepes."
- Molotov Cocktail: An item that can be used to destroy enemies in the later stages of the game.
- Mundane MacGuffin Person: Both the prisoner and the boy in the village are used to contain The Blood because they both have Polycythaemia, which prevents them from having to drink the blood of others to sustain themselves as hosts.
- No Name Given: The prisoner is never named, and neither is the boy who replaces him or his father. The Blood also suffers from this, as it was once a human too.
- The Nameless: In the case of The Blood, Wilhelmina wanted to name him after he was cured of his condition, but he never was. Thus, "The Blood" is genuinely the only name he has. Not that he's complaining.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Rather than vampires, the Tepes family are normal humans who suffer from a condition in which their own blood devours itself and has to be replenished as often as possible.
- Outliving One's Offspring: The Blood uses the last surviving drop of itself, which the Protagonist unknowingly drank, to infect her unborn baby and kill it in a horrendously gruesome way (SECONDS after it was born)!
- People Puppets: The Blood can control someone perfectly after killing them from within.
- Punny Name: This goes double for the scientist responsible for the events of the game, "Doctor Albert Cula." Get it? Dr. A. Cula!
- Point of No Return: After completing the Control Room Puzzle in the basement, there is no way back and no chance to save after entering the door to the final boss arena.
- "Pop!" Goes the Human: This is another way that The Blood can kill someone. What’s scarier is that it happens without any prior warning.
- Psycho Electric Eel: One way of fighting The Blood.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Red eyes are a sign of someone being infected by The Blood.
- Sapient All Along: Not only is the prisoner’s blood alive, it was originally a human itself and, thus, pretty intelligent.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: The Blood is briefly contained inside the body of a young man with Polycythaemia to stave off its thirst for more blood. This tactic becomes ineffective once The Blood merges with the man’s blood and becomes self-sustaining, turning the second attempt at containment into a Grand Theft Me.
- Self-Restraint: The prisoner never makes any attempt to escape from his cell. Turns out that he has a very good and noble reason for doing so.
- Senseless Sacrifice:
- The village boy with Polycythaemia willingly takes in The Blood to satisfy its thirst and stop its rampage. Sadly, The Blood was already cured of its need to consume more blood and was killing others simply for the fun of it. To make matters worse, rather than dwelling inside his body, The Blood simply kills him from within, making his senseless sacrifice even greater than he had intended.
- Serena surrendered to The Blood to give Macabre in particular a chance to escape, only for it to kill him later on.
- The Sociopath: Wilhelmina's son enjoys killing for the sake of it.
- Someone to Remember Him By: The Protagonist is able to stay positive after losing Darren because she is still carrying his child. Tragically, that child dies within seconds of being born.
- Stock Video Game Puzzle: The puzzles themselves are pretty simple.
- Tailor-Made Prison: Obviously, the room that holds the host of The Blood must be watertight.
- The Ruins I Caused: Once everything is over, the Protagonist sets fire to the castle to destroy every trace of Dr. Cula's work, in the hope of preventing another version of The Blood from being created.
- Third-Person Flashback: There is a scene in which Wilhelmina recounts the events that led to the creation of "The Blood." It includes scenes in which she wasn't actually present.
- Token Human: Serena's husband is the only Tepes who doesn't appear to be a vampire. He also lets his wife drink his blood. Somewhat subverted, as the family are humans too, and simply have The Blood to deal with.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
- Unlike his brother, Macabre Tepes likes the taste of blood. Still, the trope is somewhat Downplayed.
- Played completely straight with Wilhelmina’s son prior to him becoming The Blood.
- Undeathly Pallor: Averted. The Tepes family aren’t vampires. It's just that their blood keeps devouring itself, giving them a pale complexion.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In trying to cure Wilhelmina's son, Doctor Cula turned him into a humanity-threatening monster.
- Was Once a Man: The Blood was originally Wilhelmina’s son, until he took an elixir that merged his brain, blood and muscle cells together into a gooey mess.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- The Blood has no qualms whatsoever about killing teenagers and even babies, much to the Protagonist's horror.
- On a gentler note, several of the characters are perfectly willing to let a youth become the new host of The Blood if it means stopping its rampage.
- You Monster!: Wilhelmina's son is delighted when someone calls him this.
