Blood and Sunlight

Blood and Sunlight is one of three games in a series. The author notes that it also stands on its own, and this is how I experienced it. In this game you play Zach, a 23-year-old vampire who must decide whether or not to spend New Year’s Eve at the house of his partner Lyle.

Some of the most charged vampire tropes (blood drinking, forbidden desires, sleeping in coffins, etc.) are rendered rather benign and quotidian in this game. Spending the night with your ~lover~ (using that term to be dramatic) is, in Blood and Sunlight, more about discreetly trying to figure out whether or not to borrow their toothbrush (for your fangs?) while they’re passed out. Being turned to ash in the morning sun is, in this game, more like trying to make your way home on new year’s day with a very bad hangover. Because, as we learn, sunlight won’t kill you, but it will make you pretty sick. Waking up in Lyle’s bedroom, therefore, means waking up without the blackout curtains and other lightproofing measures you’ve implemented at your own place. It means navigating Lyle, Lyle’s sister, and Lyle’s Mario Kart-loving cousins while trying to call an uber and trying not to barf or otherwise embarrass yourself and/or Lyle.

Defusing vampire tropes really opens up the story, and gives the player a lot more room to explore what the game really seems to be about: your attitude toward aspects of your identity and your body that you can’t change, but that impact those you love. You can be stoic and isolate yourself; you can endure discomfort for the sake of your partner–but in a passive aggressive way; you can endure–but in a sincere way; you can accept help or not; you can feel sorry for yourself or not. And you can do all of these things in a way that’s jumbled together and even contradictory, which I thought was just terrific. Throughout the game, I felt like I was really just doing my best to navigate a stressful and fluid situation, sometimes being whiny, then immediately after that being stoic, and then totally contradicting myself. I never felt like the choices were trying to maneuver me onto one of four or so distinct “tracks”--or that there were “good” endings or “bad” endings.

A small thing: As someone who hasn’t (yet) played the other Blood and games, I felt like I wanted a little better understanding of the context and significance of what Lyle is asking of Zach. Would this be the very first time that Lyle and Zach spend the night together (in which case it’s presumably a big step for them)? Or is it just the first time they’d spend the night at Lyle’s house instead of Zach’s (a big step, but in a different way). I assumed the latter was the case. If it had been their first ever night together, my choices might have been a little different, skewing more toward agreeability at the expense of my own comfort.

Finally, I just wanted to add that the family scenes were described with such warmth, which really underscored Zach’s loneliness and his longing for connection. I’m looking forward to playing the other Blood and games and perhaps even future installments? Lyle was so sweet and Zach was such a relatable overthinker. I’m really rooting for the two of them.