DISCLAIMER: the game I'll be talking about is filled to the brim with grotesque, disturbing, gross scenery and themes. Topics like miscarriage and religious fanaticism are brought up freely and violently. Decide for yourself if you are fine with such a title.

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When I heard that NoEye-Soft, developers of excellent NO-SKIN, are working on a dungeon crawler using the combat system of their previous game, I was intrigued! Its' combat system puts a heavy emphasis on utilizing knowledge from your previous runs, as rewards from fights and "events" are always the same, letting you amass a strong collection of tools before the hard battles start.

To my surprise, Edenwound, unlike its predecessor, is not a permadeath game. You can save at save stations, and it seems like you have one station per floor. Floors are also static, including enemy placement. Rewards from chests ARE randomized though! Sometimes these chests spawn an enemy and that's how I died in the first minute of the game when I first tried it haha.

When you start the game, you get to choose between three equipment pieces and then also choose between three abilities. At my first try I went with the item drop increasing charm and an ability to find items as I was curious how viable would that start be. Well, doesn't seem very viable as I died in the first encounter haha. The problem is, abilities can only be used when in battle so item finding ability wastes your turn - and in this game each turn matters!

Okay, I learned my lesson. I picked the weapon and an ability to raise my damage and evasion this time. In one of the first battles I started bleeding. In battle, I'm losing health every turn. Outside battle, I'm losing health every few steps. When it stops? Well.....

never. Unless you apply bandages which you might not even have as they don't seem to drop from any enemy on the first floor. Okay, I'll explore more - surely I will find it somewhere? And then, one room away from the starting place, with only one easily avoidable enemy on the way, I found a weapon that's just better than my starting dagger. Yet again, I picked a wrong starting item.

After bleeding away, I started a new save with the last remaining equipment option - the armor piece. This was my most successful run, when I finally managed to clear the first floor.

From what equipment I gathered around the floor, it seems like the game focuses on items with situational modifiers. More damage against certain enemies. Better protection against blades. Prevention of blood stealing. That kind of stuff.

...oh, and I also fought against the "pregnant woman" who ambushed me. Don't ask.....