158: Moonlighting in the Dungeon with Mark Essen (Blood Dungeon)
158: Moonlighting in the Dungeon with Mark Essen (Blood Dungeon)  
Podcast: The Secret Lives of Games
Published On: Fri Sep 04 2026
Description: We chat with Mark Essen (Nidhogg, Wheel World) about his "feverish bullet heaven platformer" Blood Dungeon. We discuss making a small game in the shadow of a bigger project, the constraints it takes to do it sanely, and building on the foundations of a nascent genre. Discussed in this episode: Messhof https://messhof.com Blood Dungeon https://messhof.com/blooddungeon exp. zine - Vampire Survivors https://expzine.com/2026/07/21/vampire-survivors-poncle-2022/ Death to the Self-Playing Game https://www.jank.cool/death-to-the-self-playing-game/?ref=aftermath.site Messhof Marchive https://messhof.com/freeware   https://secretlives.games  https://discord.gg/tslog https://www.patreon.com/tslog