Blood and Sunlight

Another game with which one of my works shares a jam (this time, Amare Fest 2025), which is really amazing. The main jam it was submitted to was the Queer Vampire Jam, though, and that made it even more awesome because… well. Queer vampires, good gods, do I have to tell you why it’s cool?

I’m already familiar with some of the author’s work (specifically, No More and How Dare You) and I know that eir stuff tends to hit pretty well when it comes to the emotional layer of things. Blood and Sunlight is a part of the series that I’m yet to get into but it can absolutely be played as a standalone game, which is how I experienced it. It’s New Year’s Eve. You’re Zach, a vampire. You just spent the night having fun with your partner, Lyle, their sister Daphne, and their two cousins. Things are all nice, except… well, you can’t be in the sunlight, and if you stay the night, that’s what you’ll encounter. So, will you stay with your beloved and risk getting violently sick in the morning or will you leave and feel the crushing weight of what-ifs?

There’s a lot of discussions about vampires in popculture and the whole thing with vampire romance, and this discourse’s been going on probably as long as (I’m sorry for the comparison but I need to) Twilight has been around, if not earlier. I talked to many people who are drawn to vampires and everyone had their own little bits and pieces of canon they thought were the best, and they all had different ideas of what vampires represent or are meant to represent. There’s many “flavors” of vampires around and I’m always happy to see another reinterpretation, no matter what it might be… but also, I’m a little biased towards vampires being “the other” – alienated from human society in one way or another, mentally and/or physically. I feel like Blood and Sunlight's flavor of vampire focuses on this aspect in particular. Zach experiences (if you choose so) some angsty feelings over the fact that his nature doesn’t allow him to fully enjoy the night. Suffering waits for him no matter what his choice is. It’s either suffering on the physical level or suffering on mental level. Wouldn’t it all be better if he was “normal” – if Lyle had a “normal” partner?

Usually, the angst of human-vampire relationship comes from violent vampiric urges, from nature that can’t be changed, from eternal hunger. We all read that scene before: “go away, I’m going to hurt you!” and “nooo, you won’t hurt me, you love me”, and “I can’t control myself”, and blah blah blah. In this universe, however, it seems like being a vampire is more like having a chronic illness that’s being kept under control under extremely specific circumstances. Now, I haven’t read through other Blood and... games… yet (I will) but if a game can be read as a standalone, I feel like I can work with what I’ve read. I’ve had days during which seeing sunlight made me nauseous and only sitting in the dark room could restore me to normal, I’ve had days during which the very thought of food made me want to throw up. And there is a certain dose of guilt that comes with enduring pain, that creeping thought that perhaps your loved ones would do better without you “ruining their fun”, or that they would be better if they didn’t have to accommodate your requests that you make only to stay vaguely functional. There’s something to be said about the option to walk right into the sunlight, even if you know it’ll hurt you. It’s the longing for the “regular” life that truly hit me on the emotional level, quite authentic if you’ve ever dealt with a condition that renders you unable to do certain things.

There’s a lot of angst but also a lot of softness in Blood and Sunlight, Lyle is an understanding partner, one that certainly cares about Zach’s well-being – sure, they were the one who requested Zach to stay, but they did so in the alcoholic haze, probably motivated by deep feelings, and I can understand it. In the morning, they’re apologetic about it and offer to help as much as they can, including offering their own blood. There’s a lot to say about the theme of blood drinking, with blood being the common shorthand for life, so I always eat up consensual blood drinking as a theme – sharing a part of your life with someone else, trusting them deeply enough to not kill you outright. There’s so much trust that this act requires and it feels like there’s so much trust between Zach and Lyle, so much love that maybe can’t stop the sunlight from hurting but can make staying in it more bearable.

In case you can’t tell from this whole review, I really enjoyed this one. Good gods, I was definitely in need of something softer today. I will definitely check out the remaining two games in the series soon. Go and check it out for yourself.