Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands is a game that’s based on the long-running webcomic of the same name. it’s a game about a local music competition that quickly spirals into a laugh-out-loud nonsense. The first thing we noticed about Deathbulge is the art style—it really doesn’t look like anything else we’ve played. It has this cheerful and chaotic energy, like a comic book brought to life by a wildly imaginative kid with a wicked sense of humor. The hand-drawn animations are striking, using bright colors and heavy shadows to build a world that’s surprisingly easy to get lost in. There are so many things to see and do, but we don’t have time to waste. The concert is about to start, and we need to find our guitar. Let’s get this show on the road. After the trailer jump, of course.

Kicking doors and taking quests

While the core game revolves around music and concerts, the real hook is the writing. The banter is sharp, and the cynical humor genuinely made us laugh out loud. It doesn’t take long to grow attached to Faye and the rest of the band.

Early on, Deathbulge feels like a point-and-click adventure. You explore towns, chat with locals, and literally kick doors off their hinges to enter random houses. You’ll blast a door into a living room (sometimes smashing a TV in the process), and the owners barely bat an eye. Instead, they just hand you a quest, like grabbing some cheese from their fridge. These side gigs seem simple, but they usually hide a weird, funny twist. They are a joy to complete, and for services rendered, you receive “bops”—the local currency.

Underneath this weird exterior, you’ll find a surprisingly solid RPG. You can manage gear and upgrade stats for life, toughness, speed, and melody. You’ll also find patches to equip for attribute bumps—hey, all that door-kicking has to be worth something. There’s even a super useful dash, to help you get around this bizarre world a little faster.

The power of the song!

Eventually, you will run into an enemy band, and this is where Deathbulge really shines. It uses a turn-based combat system, but it feels completely different from the usual “wait in line and attack” formula. It’s built around a time-meter system, but with a heavy musical twist.

Instead of each character having their own turn timer, your entire three-piece band shares a single action bar at the bottom of the screen, which is designed to look like a measure of sheet music. Your party moves as one unit. The catch is that only one character acts as the frontperson at a time, and you can freely swap who is leading the group at any given moment before your turn actually pops.

This matters because the person in front dictates how fast you move toward your next attack, but they are also the one who takes all the incoming damage. Meanwhile, the two bandmates hanging out in the back will quickly regenerate hype, which is basically this game’s version of mana. The way things are set, there’s this constant tagging in your tank to eat a heavy hit, then swapping to your fastest character to sprint down the turn meter, or resting someone in the back so they can afford a big ability later. It’s a very fun and unique concept and we hope to see it more often in other indie games too.

Playing the timeline

Things get even wilder because you don’t just put buffs on your characters or debuffs on your enemies; you can drop them directly onto the turn meter itself. If you throw a damage effect on the enemy’s timeline, they will take hits just by passing over that specific chunk of the bar. It turns combat into this weird, but very satisfying tug-of-war where you are constantly trying to clean up your own sheet music while sabotaging the enemy’s.

The primary skill you equip determines your character’s genre. Classes like Headbanger, Busker, or Emo Goth completely change not only the stats but also the physical appearance. There is no annoying potion hoarding here. Healing items (called Merch, like a soothing cup of Barry Friendly’s Tea) are permanent unlocks in your inventory. Using them just drains a shared, resource pool called Stock, which, by the way, is easily refillable.

We know what you’re thinking. It does sound like a lot to keep track. The combat can get really challenging, really fast. Mashing the attack button without paying attention to the timeline, will almost never grant you victory. Getting the rhythm of swapping characters on the fly and painting the timeline with effects becomes a must. The moment you master these mechanica, everything becomes incredibly addictive.

Turning the volume up

Given that the entire game revolves around a battle of the bands, we were extremely please to experience music that fits the chaotic and colorful energy of the world perfectly. Every track is catchy, and we often caught ourselves just nodding along to the beat while trying to figure out our next move in a tough fight.

Because you face off against different types of musicians, the soundtrack jumps between genres constantly. Heavy rock? Weird synth beats? Double check! To our untrained ears it all sounded great. The battle themes keep the energy high, while the music playing while you explore the towns is usually laid-back and quirky. It does a great job of making the world feel alive and keeping the momentum going.

Rock on!

Deathbulge is a wild and funny webcomic, and the writing in the game definitely backs that up. Underneath the jokes about flying doors and chatting with oddball characters, there is a really solid and rewarding RPG. Once you get used to the timeline combat and the whole manipulation of the turns, it is incredibly satisfying to play. If you have the time, we strongly recommend picking the title up, it’s weird, it’s funny, and it’s surprisingly deep.

9/10

• Developer: Deathbulge, Five Houses LLC
• Publisher: Deathbulge, Five Houses LLC
• Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4|5, Xbox One and Series S/X
• Release Date(s): June 30, 2026
• Genre: RPG/ Funny/ Story Rich