Bloodwash Review

Bloodwash is a PlayStation 1 styled horror game, developed by Black Eyed Priest and published by Torture Star Video. Blending survival horror and old-school graphics together is a good way.

Sara’s deadbeat boyfriend is an alcoholic and hasn’t done the laundry, so she sets off on the bus to a not so local laundromat whilst a serial killer is still at large. Will you survive this trip to the laundromat, or will The Womb Ripper perform an early delivery?

Experienced from a first-person perspective, you’ll encounter some rather nice civilians, and some creepy ones too. In Bloodwash the Field Of View is adjustable, which always helps in these type of encounter experiences, and was a welcoming touch for me personally.

Playing Bloodwash you’ll also notice a CRT and VHS filter prominent right from the start, that aim to add a more “old-school” feel to the game. Whilst I can appreciate the thought, these feel a little too heavy on the eyes unfortunately and led to them jarring, just a tad.

After around 5-10 minutes of play on Bloodwash I quickly turned these filters off. That isn’t to say this game doesn’t shine without them, as the games overall aesthetic works really well on its own. Consider these filters the icing on the cake if unlike me, your eyes can handle it.

Your entire experience mostly revolves around a hub world, containing a number of different shops from a laundromat, pizzeria and a pawn shop. So, you have ample opportunity to explore and learn more about this world’s misfortune.

However, the “wait for washing” parts are on a timer. If you explore too quickly you might just be waiting for laundry at ungodly hours. Nonetheless like my old teachers used to say during exams, use any extra time to your advantage. You might miss something!

From the intro to the main section and even the epilogue, the atmosphere is thick and, in your face, throughout. The level of voice acting was surprisingly good for a game of this caliber. Boasting serious 80’s slasher vibes, full VA really helps with the overall tone.

Sprinkle in the tiniest amount of humor found throughout, and for the most part you have a pretty solid, hour-long horror romp. If horror is not a genre you like to experience first-hand, you can always watch a “let’s play.” I feel it works well due to the roughly hour run-time.

The scares are well placed, and it did manage to keep me on the edge of my seat for the most part with some disturbing set pieces and audio design.

Considering the aesthetics in Bloodwash, some parts still manage to feel rather unsettling and take you off guard. The few scares the developers have squeezed into this short horror romp are great. I’m still kind of shocked at how unsettled this game managed to make me feel by the end of it.

With everything on offer here, it certainly is one of those horror game that I can definitely recommend to fans of the genre to check out. Whilst nothing “groundbreaking” per say, sometimes it can be a nice palette cleanser diving back into the VHS world.

Black Eyed Priest have done a great job and I’m now interested at looking into some of their other titles. They actually have a bundle available on Steam titled “The Torture Star Bundle” priced at £18.94 as of this review. Including Bloodwash itself and others such as Deadly Night and Night At The Gates of Hell. I will definitely have to find time to browse their horror offerings.

The Verdict

For the run-time of a single hour with a pretty pleasant achievement list, PS1 aesthetics and priced at £8.39, this is one game I can definitely recommend to fans of the horror genre. Slasher/80’s in particular.

In the end, Bloodwash took me 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete, obtaining 10/15 achievements for a score of 650/1000. The rest of the achievements are easily achieved, by jumping back in and mop up, to obtain the full 1000 Gamerscore on offer.

It’s spooky season, and Black Eyed Priest should be in the horror talks at this time of year, so do check out Bloodwash.