Kill the Brickman: The Roguelike That Turns Your Worst Arcade Nightmare Into an Obsession

Hello everyone. Today we’re diving deep into Kill the Brickman, which, on paper, sounds like something designed during a fever dream after too much caffeine and perhaps a questionable prescription med dosage. It takes the skeleton of Breakout, injects the DNA of Balatro, straps it onto the twitching corpse of arcade nostalgia, and then slaps grinning nightmare faces on everything for good measure. Yes, you heard that right-the bullets are human, the bricks are human, and you’ll probably question if you’re still human after playing it for two hours straight.

The Premise: Breakout Meets Madness

The core idea is disturbingly simple. You control a revolver at the bottom of the screen, load up custom bullets with a variety of effects, and blast your way through… anthropomorphic bricks. Apparently, these brick-people aren’t the kindly neighborhood mason-types either-they’re here to kill you if you give them the chance. It’s like a dystopian fever dream where Tetris blocks unionized, bought shotguns, and decided they had a vendetta against you personally.

Let’s be honest here: arcade nostalgia has been milked harder than a Holstein cow on steroids. Yet somehow, turning block-breaking into a roguelike deckbuilder with light RPG mechanics manages to claw back some originality. Your bullets can bounce more, corrode enemies, or deal raw damage depending on how you want to spec your gun chambers, all while you’re desperately juggling mini-objectives for extra cash like some poor cubicle worker stuck in capitalism’s endless upgrade treadmill. Imagine working night shifts just so you can afford a scope upgrade-except now it’s pixels and fake guns dragging you down the same rabbit hole.

The Gameplay: A Surgeon’s Scalpel Wrapped in Duct Tape

From a mechanical perspective, this thing is tight. The revolver format gives you a clean, turn-based puzzle-shooter loop where careful planning can make you feel like a tactical genius-until, of course, some grotesque brick-face manages to wobble its way toward you and eats your health faster than a politician devours corporate lobby money.

The gameplay rhythm is like prescribing medicine with randomized side effects. Sometimes you get a cure, sometimes you get your patient vomiting rainbows, and other times their head explodes-but you do it anyway because it’s endlessly fascinating. Roguelike enthusiasts will cling to the relics, synergies, and upgrade grind like rabid lab rats in an experiment gone wrong. Meanwhile, casual players will just be asking: “Why the hell do the bricks have faces?”

The Presentation: Surreal Horror Masquerading As Humor

Kill the Brickman comes wrapped in CRT pixel art aesthetic bliss, like somebody threw a rave inside an old cathode-ray television set. Bright colors, bizarre designs, and just enough surreal creepiness to make you wonder if you should really be laughing. Poncle, the publisher behind Vampire Survivors, clearly has a knack for sniffing out projects that combine accessibility with something bordering on psychosis.

Look, it’s no secret that gonzo indie projects thrive on their “weird as hell” factor. But here, the absurd presentation is as much the hook as the mechanics. The tagline says it all: “Imagine Tetris, but if the bricks had anger issues and a taste for human flesh.” Whoever wrote that is probably on some kind of government watchlist, but fair play-the pitch works.

Development & Price: The Bargain Bin Bloodbath

Priced at a measly $5, this lunacy comes cheaper than a hospital co-pay-or to use gamer terms, it’s basically a Steam key you’d forget you had, except this one will actually eat your time. Made by the team Doonutsaur, known only for their equally weird Meow Legion, Kill the Brickman hit Xbox and PC on August 21, 2025, riding on the back of Poncle’s credibility. Rumor is Luca Galante got an email, said “sign it now,” and that was that. Honestly, that’s probably how half the gaming industry should work-cut the red tape and listen to your gut, preferably before it starts growling “feed me flesh.”

Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths: Unique mechanic twists, satisfying roguelike progression, uncanny humor/horror mix, dirt-cheap price.
• Weaknesses: Faces on everything can lean so hard into creepy that it puts people off. Gameplay loop repetition might hit faster than you’d like if you’re not a hardcore roguelike addict.

The Verdict: Madness You’ll Pay For Again

So here’s my ultimate diagnosis: Kill the Brickman is the kind of game that makes you laugh nervously while still handing over more of your time than you planned. Like a medical chart for a patient who keeps coming back with “weird symptoms,” you’ll find yourself drawn into session after session, trying to figure out what makes this ridiculous idea tick. The deckbuilder-roguelike fusion works surprisingly well, the aesthetic is both memorable and disturbing, and at five bucks it’s basically malpractice not to try it.

Is it perfect? No. Is it frustrating? Occasionally. Does it stand a good chance of getting under your skin like a conspiracy theory about fluoride in the water supply? Absolutely. If you like roguelikes, arcade throwbacks, and creeping yourself out at 2 AM, then Kill the Brickman is worth your time.

Overall impression: good-disturbingly good for what it is.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.”

Article source: Vampire Survivors Dev Publishes Surreal Roguelike About Shooting Human Brick Heads You Can Play Right Now