Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus Demo Impressions
Upcoming point-and-click adventure Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus is an unsettling pixel-art nightmare.
Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus. Indiesruption / Blowfish Studios
Horror point-and-click adventure Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus is the upcoming sequel to Vlad Circus: Descend into Madness. Not having played the first game, I wasn’t entirely clued in to the references the demo for Amsodeus makes to the original, but I still found it a compelling experience that left me hungry for the full game.
From the game’s Steam page:
Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus drags you into a sordid world of mirrors and shadows where the demon lurks. Dare to take on this macabre pixel-art graphic adventure of horror and madness. Solve puzzles and explore two parallel timelines.
You play as amnesiac Josef Petrescu, jumping between past and present as you recall events each time you gaze into a mirror of the horrific asylum where you wake up. In the present, you navigate the asylum and try to survive, using painkillers to heal and matches to briefly light the darkness; in the demo, you must find keys to get deeper into the asylum and look for more mirrors to regain your memory.
Each glance into a mirror sends you into the past, where you learn about your journey to find the titular circus. Josef is on a quest to get forgiveness from his brother, the owner and ringmaster, for his role in the destruction of the circus in the last game. This portion plays more like a classic adventure game and lacks the survival elements of the other timeline.
Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus. Indiesruption / Blowfish Studios
The game’s atmospheric world is rendered in beautiful pixel art. The present timeline’s visuals do an incredible job of putting you into Josef’s nightmarish reality, leveraging the low resolution of the art to make things superbly creepy in your mind’s eye as you fill in the gaps. I’m a big fan of low-fi graphics in horror and their mental affect compared to high fidelity, realistic graphics.
I’m very excited to play the full game after experiencing its brief demo. It looks like it’ll be a fantastic game for fans of adventure games and atmospheric period horror. A release date hasn’t been announced, but you can try the demo now on Steam and wishlist it on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S.
Wishlist Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus
Played on: Steam Deck
