They Bleed Pixels
Fair · Action · 2012
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
NO RUSH.
Fair at $9.99. Buy it if you want it.
- Length
- 8.8h
- Value
- $1.14/hr
- Reviews
- 83% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 512 MB of memory, OpenGL 3.0+, 2.1 with ARB extensions acceptable, 246 MB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
They Bleed Pixels is a fiendishly difficult action platformer inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and classic horror.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
It has never been cheaper than $1.99. That was June 2014. It has been discounted 114 times in the 14 years tracked here, typically at 75 percent off, with about 5 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 3 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 5 weeks.
On value it sits in the top 6 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 74 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 86 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Kaze and the Wild Masks ($9.99, scores 63) beats it on value, while it beats The Last Faith ($27.99, scores 58).
74 from critics against 83 percent from players, and the player number comes from people who own the game.
Steam's global achievement data says about 5 percent of players ever finish it. On an 8.8-hour game, that is a lot of paid-for hours most people never see. This site sampled 256 of its Steam-purchase reviews; none were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written March 2020 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 72 percent of the 425 reviews written there were positive, against 83 percent overall, and those are 21 percent of everything written about it.
Valve rates it Steam Deck Verified, and at 8.8 hours it is short enough to finish on one.
The drop-off
86% start to 5% finishMost players never reach the end. On an 8.8-hour game, that's a lot you pay for and may never use. Steam global achievements
What players say
They Bleed Pixels is a brutally precise action-platformer developed and published by Spooky Squid Games Inc. that has earned a cult reputation for its uncompromising difficulty, striking aesthetic, and deeply mechanical design. From the moment the game begins, it makes its intentions clear: this is not a casual platforming experience, but a tightly tuned gauntlet built for players who thrive on mastery, repetition...
Such a classic gothic indie action game, flawlessly blending high-precision platforming with a rhythmic, one-button brawler system. Set in a haunting, Lovecraftian nightmare, the game tells the dark story of a girl transforming into a clawed horror through gorgeous, ink-and-paper-textured motion comics. Its most innovative feature is the "earn-your-own" checkpoint system: by performing stylish kills and combos, you...
This is such a uniquely frustrating experience. I enjoy the game- I had fun playing through casually despite it's faults and wanted to work through the rest of the achievements, but that's where I found seething rage I haven't had over a game in... maybe ever? The enemies, The basic enemy type stretchy arms guy, He's basically built to only attack when it's inconvenient. Placement ranges from pointless to incredibly...
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
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They Bleed Pixels scores 59/100 on the BANG Score (fair value). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/211260/they-bleed-pixelsThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 6, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.