Apr 17, 2023

Update 34 into beta phase plus incompatible version issues with save files fixed

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

Hope you're all doing alright!

First things first, we just published a fix to resolve incompatible version issues with save files for Mac, Linux, and Windows. Let us know if stuff's still breaking with our bug report form. Fingers crossed that that link will stay un-clicked...

Anyway, the upcoming Clean Cut update is now in beta, one step closer to arriving for all the wary players avoiding the testing phase. Here's a recap of everything coming, you can skip to the end if you already know what we've stuffed into this one.

New Survival Weapon: Sewing Scissors. Instakills all enemies it hits, as long as at least one of them dies to the weapon's standard damage.

New Brutality Weapon: Giant Comb. Throws your enemies upwards, and deals critical damage to airborne mobs!

New NPC: Tailor's Daughter. Find her in the Tailor's Room, and talk to her to freely change the look of your head.

New Speedrun Mode option: Activate it to track and display the completion time of each biome. Also tracks your previous bests and compares them!

New Boss Rush DIY Mode: Lets you choose whichever bosses you want to face in a run.
The 3 Bosses from Return to Castlevania are also now accessible in Boss Rush.

Training Room reworks: We added a bunch of options to streamline the experimentation process, such as:

New UIs to spawn a specific weapon with a set Level, Quality and Legendary-ness.
New UI to choose a certain number of scrolls
New UI to choose the overall scaling level of the Training Room, based on the values of a selected biome.
Added the mini-bosses to the mob spawners
Added a bunch of different traps to the mob rooms.
Added the Return to Castlevania Bosses.
Bosses aren't scaled down to level 1 anymore! (no more 20 minute fights)
Changed the UI to select mobs to a grid-based one.
Added a Training Dummy for DPS calculation.

Balancing

Slow effects now stack up to 5 times. Each stack has a greater slowing effect, then the affected enemy is frozen at the fifth stack.

Mutation reworks:

Berserker: Can now stack, and renders you immune to stuns.
Combo: Enable a damage increase with every melee hit in a 2.5 sec window (of course the window refreshes after every hit). It scales exponentially, go crazy with it!
Dead Inside: Doubles your life but prevents ALL healing sources.
Disengagement: No more cooldown!.. but can only trigger once per biome.
Frostbite: Now stacks with slow effects and acts as a full stack on frozen targets.
Necromancy: Also now grants recovery instead of healing. It scales with the max health of the mobs you kill, which means you can get more recovery by killing a stronger enemy. The cap has been removed, but it’s less effective as you get closer to max health.
Networking: Marks enemies with ranged attacks now, there doesn't need to be an actual projectile stuck in the mob's body anymore.
Tainted Flask: Can recharge even if your flask is not totally empty. It also adds 1 more elite into every biome when equipped.
What Doesn't Kill You: Now grants recovery instead of healing.

Return to Castlevania balancing:

Dracula (Demon), Buer, Werewolves and Medusa are now considered to be Beasts (crits with the Crowbar).
Dracula (Humanoid)'s fire pillars are now slightly easier to avoid (in terms of intervals) but are not rollable anymore.
Elite Mermans should now fire 2 big fireballs instead of a big one and a normal one.
Haunted Armor (the one with an axe) should now activate at a slightly longer range.
Medusa's flurry attacks should now have a small pause after the end of the attack.
Holy Water has a bigger vertical hitbox, and the flame now deals damage.
Bible is now considered to be a heavy weapon.
Medusa Head deals more damage and bumps further.
Throwing Axe can no longer roll the Fire Bullet affix.
Rebound Stone now deals slightly more damage, and has a smaller but longer window before being able to "catch it" (i.e., trigger the crit). Its cooldown now starts upon its destruction.
Whip Sword - Whip Form now passes through shields.
Whip Sword's transformation attack hitbox tended to bug, it should now be consistent with its visual FX, which means it won’t only hit one single target anymore.
Added a long cooldown when the Cat is killed by the Queen.
Alucard's Shield has better parry windows, and the whole combo will now crit after a parry.
The ghosts gathered by Death's Scythe now have a slightly smaller explosion radius.

Graphics & UI:

Added a new Petrification effect icon.

Level design:

Switched the Dracula's Castle (Hard) Cursed Chest chance to 10%.
The Mimic can now appear randomly in shops outside of the Bank.

Bug fixes:

Fixed Agitated Pickpocket being able to hit through Global Shields.
Fixed Bible's projectile disappearing after a cutscene.
Fixed Bobby Head's disappearing in the Tailor's Room.
Fixed Cursed Sword not disabling other inventory items when switched slots.
Fixed Diverse Deck - Foresight tagging the blocked attacks as if they were blocked by a shield.
Fixed Gold Plating not protecting against Dracula - Final Form's grab.
Fixed Heal Flask glow effect also affecting the player's glow effect.
Fixed Morning Star's chain detaching itself from the base.
Fixed Pets' behavior being broken in Dracula's opening cutscene.
Fixed Serenade destroying deployables when activated.
Fixed a crash in Shipwreck, when a platform is destroyed at the same time as Mushroom Boi is spawned.
Fixed a crash when an Automaton falls off a platform while using its Dash Attack.
Fixed a crash when saving a reloading while a Petrified enemy is on screen.
Fixed a crash when using the Emergency Door during the Queen boss fight.
Fixed a softlock when falling off the map during_ Dracula - Final Form_, while all platforms were destroyed.
Fixed being able to duplicate Turrets using the Emergency Door.
Fixed the Shop Mimic's hitboxes being too big compared to the visual.
Fixed weapons' crit indicator sometimes not displaying.

That's the lot, if you're interested in playing the beta read the warning and instructions below!

How to access the beta:

NOTE: Playing the beta will lock your chosen save slot to update 34. You won't be able to go back to update 33 with this save slot during the entire duration of the beta. However, your progress in the beta will be automatically merged into the main game when we release update 34 officially.

If you want to try out the beta and don't know how, first BACKUP YOUR SAVE FILE, then follow these instructions:

Go to your Steam game library.
Right click on Dead Cells and click "properties".
Select the tab "Betas".
In the first dropdown box select "Beta".
Click close and wait for the upload to finish downloading.
Start playing.

You can leave any feedback here or on our official Discord - there are two channels called update34-beta-discussion and update34-beta-feedback. We also have a bug report form for issues and bugs.

Next time we'll be back with the official update announcement and hopefully some extra bits of news!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Apr 12, 2023

Patch released for current alpha for Update 34

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hello everyone,

We've just pushed a new alpha patch focused on fixing lots of small bugs and visual changes.

This only affects the current alpha test, if you are not participating in the alpha, this does not affect you.

If you want to take part in the ongoing alpha, just check out our previous posts for instructions on how to access.

Here's everything we changed:

Training Room
- Fixed missing texts for various new UIs in Training Room
- Fixed a crash when restarting in Training Room
- Fixed training room dummy being destroyed when going through the door
- Updated sprite for the training difficulty picker interaction
- Fixed a crash when spawning colorless legendary item
- Fixed legendary items always being level 1 in Training Room
- Fixed Death not being in Training Room
- Fixed Dracula's Final Form not loading in Training Room
- Camera no longer tracks Tick in Training Room

Bosses & Boss Rush
- Fixed Dracula Final Form's meteors spawning too low during the interphase (aka Genkidama)
- Fixed Dracula's exit in Boss Rush looking rough
- Removed Modified Humanoid Dracula's speed bonus during his last phase
- In Boss Rush, Modified Humanoid Dracula's big fireballs have been recolored to better signal their difference from the normal version of the fight
- Fixed Death's AI breaking after being interrupted during its combo attack
- Fixed Humanoid Dracula's hitbox on melee attack (the first hit had no hitbox)
- Increased cooldown to Modified Humanoid Dracula after shooting fireballs to make it easier to catch

Mutations
- Armadillopack can't parry unparryable projectiles anymore (was problematic on Boss Rush Dracula)
- Necromancy nerf (lower base heal)
- Combo mutation damage bonus now scales more slowly with the number of stacks
- Buff to slow diminishing factor (i.e. it decreases less quickly and thus should be more efficient)

Other
- Late game Dracula's Castle's Cursed Chest now has 10% chance of spawning
- Shop Mimic no longer spawns behind Z-doors (mostly BC doors) (when outside of the Bank)
- Fixed an issue with Tailor's Daughter menu (you could open multiple instance of it)
- Fixed a crash happening with the Tailor upon unlocking the Scissors

Thanks for taking part!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Apr 5, 2023

Update 34 "Clean Cut" is in alpha stage!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hello!

We're back for a new alpha test! The "Clean Cut" update is designed to improve the whole Dead Cells experience with a bunch of trims and cuts for every part of the game, and now we just need to make some tweaks before we officially release it. So what's in store?

New items

Firstly, we have two new weapons, the Sewing Scissors and Giant Comb, both indispensable tools for a clean cut.

Sewing Scissors: a huge pair of scissors that scale with Survival. Will instakill all enemies that it hits, if one of the enemies is killed by the attack's standard damage.

Giant Comb: a Brutality weapon that deals critical damage to enemies that are not on the ground.

New NPC

Turns out, the Tailor was hiding a daughter all along, and by some coincidental massive stroke of fortune, she has just the skills to replace your head with the flame "Bobby version" on all skins. Crazy world...

New mode

Finally, we have the brand new Speedrun Mode with in-game time tracking for speedrunners, or anyone else who wants to know how much time they've spent trying to make it to Hand of the King and failing.

We’ve also done a ton of upgrading, reworking and rebalancing.

Upgrades

We've added a new “DIY” mode in Boss Rush. With this mode, you can choose whichever bosses you want to face in a run.
The 3 bosses from Return to Castlevania have also been added to Boss Rush and Training Room.
Enhanced bosses have been tweaked in the Boss Rush.
Training Room has multiple new options for you to practice your skills now. Too much to list here, just go check it out and have a nice surprise :)

Reworks

Mutations:

Combo: there is a true combo meter now! The mutation has been changed to enable a damage increase with every melee hit in a 2.5 sec window (of course the window refreshes after every hit). It scales exponentially, go crazy with it!
Tainted Flask: it can recharge even if your flask is not totally empty. We also added 1 more elite into every biome. It’s kinda experimental, we might revert it at the end, and it’s all up to you the reaction and feedback we get.
Networking: you can just mark enemies with ranged attacks now, there doesn't need to be an actual projectile stuck in the mob's body.
Berserker: it now stacks (it caps at 90%) and renders you immune to stuns.
What doesn't kill you: now grants recovery instead of healing. You have to earn your healing now.
Necromancy: also now grants recovery instead of healing. It scales with the max health of the mobs you kill, which means you can get more recovery by killing a stronger enemy. The cap of up to a “maximum 50% HP” is eliminated, but it’s less effective as you get closer to max health.
Frostbite: now stacks with slow effects and acts as a full stack on frozen targets.
Dead Inside: now doubles your life but prevents ALL healing sources.
Disengagement: there is no longer a cooldown but can only trigger once per biome. (I know, I know…)

Other:

Slow effect stacks up to 5 times. Each stack has a greater slowing effect, then the affected enemy is frozen at the fifth stack.
The Mimic can now appear randomly in shops outside of the Bank biome. Mwahahaaaa

Rebalancing

Return to Castlevania

Weapons:

Whip Sword: whip form now passes shields.
Whip Sword's transformation attack hitbox tended to bug, it should now be consistent with its visual FX, which means it won’t only hit one single target anymore.
The ghosts gathered by Death Scythe's have a slightly smaller explosion radius.
Bible is a heavy weapon.
Throwing Axe can no longer roll Fire Bullet affix.
Alucard's Shield has better parry windows, and the whole combo instead of “the next hit” crits.
Rebound Stone: it deals slightly more damage and has a smaller but longer window before being able to "catch it" (i.e., trigger the crit). Its cooldown now starts upon its destruction.
Holy Water has a bigger vertical hitbox and deals damage in a more logical way. By logical, we mean the flame itself can cause damage now.
Medusa Head deals more damage and bumps further.
We added some security measures to prevent the Cat from being targeted by enemies. There is also a long cooldown when the Cat is killed by the Queen.

Mobs:

Medusa's flurry attacks should now have a small pause after the end of the attack.
Haunted Armor (the one with an axe) should now activate at a slightly longer range.
Elite Merman should now fire 2 big fireballs instead of a big one and a normal one.

Bosses:

Dracula (Humanoid)'s fire pillars are now slightly easier to avoid (in terms of intervals) but are not rollable anymore.
Dracula (Demon) is now a beast, along with Buer, Werewolves and Medusa (Crowbar wise).

And that's it!

How to access the alpha:

Back up your save first. The alpha shouldn't affect your saves but better to be safe than sorry. If the worst happens then there’s a save restore hack detailed here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/588650/announcements/detail/1696100248017690442)

Then follow these instructions to access the alpha:

Go to your Steam game library.
Right click on Dead Cells and click "properties".
Select the tab "Betas".
In the first dropdown box select "Alpha - Not for the faint hearted".
Click close and wait for the upload to finish downloading.
Start playing.

As always, everything is still being tweaked according to feedback. So some things may break, have strange interactions or just straight up crash the game.

If you want to leave feedback you can do so in the comments here, or on our official Discord (link at the bottom of the post) - there are two channels called update34-alpha-discussion and update34-alpha-feedback specifically for these conversations, so please use them!

Bug reports can be sent to us with the following form to help us collect all information on bugs and crashes in one place, this helps us to fix them quicker! https://forms.clickup.com/f/2b318-1807/WG3GMB5KUFQB4XRAHX

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Mar 10, 2023

Hotfix is live - fixing Mac crashes, Steam Deck save issue, softlock in DLC

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hi everyone,

Hope you've been enjoying the Return to Castlevania DLC!

No rest for the wicked, the devs have been hard at work fixing some issues that came up with the DLC release and we've just released a hotfix to address a decent chuck of them:

Major

Crash fix for Mac
Fix steam deck save issue - This shouldn't have been a save wipe situation, but a save lock situation, so your saves should be OK. If you're still having problems let us know
Fix parallax rendering on Castle's Outskirts
Fix softlock on Dracula's Castle for players without spider rune

Minor

Fixed the Katana cancel technique being wrongfully removed from the game.
Fixed a crash when loading a very old save.
Fixed random crashes in Richter Mode when using certain affixes.
Fixed Richter Mode Vania-moves disappearing when trying to sell them.
Fixed a softlock in Castle's Outskirts when teleporting through a door with Snake Fangs.
Fixed Medusa's Head clipping through walls.
Fixed World Map vibrating up and down in certain resolutions.
Fixed random crashes on the title screen.
Fixed a random crash when blocking an attack.
Fixed Legendary Items spawning in biomes where loot is disabled.
Fixed Queen's reflected items not having the proper trail color.

Have a great weekend and let us know if you've noticed anything else that needs fixing with this form - https://forms.clickup.com/f/2b318-1807/WG3GMB5KUFQB4XRAHX

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Mar 6, 2023

Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC is out now!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

It's finally here, the Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC is available now!

Storm Dracula's Castle on a new quest, meet famous heroes, fight classic monsters with iconic weapons and confront Death & Dracula in epic boss fights, all backed by original and re-imagined tunes! You can even play as all the main characters from the famous series with 20 new outfits!

This is our tribute to the main inspiration of Dead Cells so we have put a ton of our time and effort into making this the best possible Castlevania x Dead Cells experience, we hope you enjoy it ^^

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101430/Dead_Cells_Return_to_Castlevania/

Our resident marketing artist Steve has created a pretty epic gameplay trailer to get you in the mood for some manic vampire slaying, check it out here:

So what exactly is in the DLC? Well, there's a main quest featuring Alucard & Richter Belmont, where you'll fight your way several times through both Dracula's Castle and the main island on the way to a final showdown with Dracula in his iconic Throne Room.

Straight from Prisoner's Quarters you'll find an entrance to...

Castle Outskirts

Before you can enter Dracula's Castle, you'll need to venture through the gardens, across the moat and up the ramparts while avoiding traps and fighting off countless evil minions.

Don't get distracted by the view and keep your eyes peeled for hidden pathways, secret rooms and a certain energetic feline...

Dracula's Castle

Moonlight streaming through stained glass windows. Ornate pillars holding up ceilings of magnificent halls. Towering spires pushing into the night sky over fortified battlements.

The beauty of Dracula's Castle hides a dark heart, as undead creatures wait to pounce from every direction. Make your way from the entrance hall to the top of the castle and find the lair of the most powerful vampire of them all...

Boss Fights

This DLC comes with not 1, but 3 new bosses! Death and Dracula take no prisoners and you are no exception. Be prepared for epic battles against majestic backdrops where the winner takes it all...

If you manage to beat these two creatures then prepare yourself for our most ambitious boss showdown yet!

Weapons

14 new weapons can be won in this DLC, like the Vampire Killer, Throwing Axe & Holy Water. Each classic Castlevania item has been translated into the fast-paced combat of Dead Cells while keeping their original essence.

Wield whips, crosses and holy powers to carve your way through hordes of the undead and tame the evil powers of the night.

Richter Mode

Hidden somewhere in the castle is a bizarre room that turns you into the indomitable vampire hunter, Richter Belmont!

Unlocking a moveset inspired by his appearance in Symphony of the Night, you'll storm through a section of the castle finding vania moves and classic weapons that will push all the nostalgia buttons.

Soundtrack

We're giving you access to an alternative soundtrack made of 51 of the original Castlevania tunes, that can be heard across the entire game.

On top of this, we've taken the 12 most iconic tracks, such as Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears and Simon Belmont's Theme, and reimagined them in the style of Dead Cells as a soundtrack for this DLC, while preserving the Castlevania ambiance of course.

Outfits

Unlock 20 outfits as you progress through the castle, letting you roleplay as all your favourite characters like Alucard, Richter Belmont, Simon Belmont, Maria Renard, Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, or even Dracula!

How much is it?

$9.99/9,99€ (or equivalent). The increase in price from the previous DLCs reflects the extra work we've put in to this DLC, as well as the use of the Castlevania IP. The dev team have been working on this for a long time and we think that it shows!

AMA

We'll be running an AMA on r/gaming tomorrow at 16:00 CET, we'll post a link in the Community Hub and on social media, so come ask us all your questions!

That's all, hope you all enjoy the DLC!!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Feb 8, 2023

Return to Castlevania DLC release date announced and first glimpse of gameplay!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

You've waited long enough to know the release date of the Return to Castlevania DLC, we said Q1 2023 and we're already in February, so here it is!

But first let's explore an essay about what's going on in the game industry today. We strongly feel that in the current climate of global titans and small independent studios, that we can extrapolate...

6th March! It's 6th March OK.

Here's a short gameplay trailer to get your teeth into:

So what you saw there is about 5% of the content on offer, there's still loads for you to discover in March, and keep an eye out for more reveals in the future. That should have been your first true glimpse of the boss fights as well, which we think look pretty damn good, if we do say so ourselves...

You'll have hopefully recognised the iconic Vampire Killer track at the end - if you didn't then go listen to the old soundtracks right now! I'll remind you that we have 51 of the original Castlevania tracks in this DLC, with 12 reimagined by our resident musician Yoann "Valmont" Laulan in his Dead Cells style. If that's not reason enough to check out this DLC then I don't know what is!

If you haven't wishlisted it yet, here's a handy link for you:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101430/Dead_Cells_Return_to_Castlevania/

That's not all, there's a couple more bits of Dead Cells news!

Dead Cells board game

Yep, we've decided to bring high octane Dead Cells action to the board game world! Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game will be coming to Kickstarter this Spring: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scorpionmasque/dead-cells-the-rogue-lite-board-game

It will be a cooperative, rogue-lite metroidvania inspired experience, where you explore the ever-changing island of Dead Cells as a group. Yeah, yeah, I know, you're getting a co-op Dead Cells experience in a board game and not the video game, don't shoot the messenger...

Players will have to choose their path carefully within ruthless biomes and face Malaise-infected enemies or die trying. Each death is a chance to mutate into something far more powerful and go further every run. Explore. Kill. Die. Mutate. Repeat. So it's a pretty faithful representation of the video game, right.

The team behind it is Scorpion Masqué, a multiple award-winning publisher with a strong expertise in legacy board games, that has been joined by Kaedama, a group of veteran and decorated designers (7 Wonders, Draftosaurus, Cyclades, The Loop) to bring their vast experiences to the design of this board game. We're confident that they're building a game that remains faithful to the Dead Cells style while translating well into the world of board games. We don't want to release something half-baked just for the sake of it!

If you want more info, they've released a blog post here, go check it out.

New Dead Cells wiki

Finally, some seriously dedicated and kind folks from the Dead Cells discord banded together to move the Dead Cells wiki from Fandom to Wiki.gg - https://deadcells.wiki.gg/wiki/Dead_Cells_Wiki

Without getting too into the details, Wiki.gg offers fewer adverts, faster and better editing, better looking pages and great admin support. What's not to like?!

However, Fandom will still appear as the top result when searching for anything wiki related. You can find the new wiki easily by adding "wiki.gg" at the end of your search or by simply bookmarking the new wiki.

The Fandom wiki won't get updates from the experienced editors anymore, so please don't rely on it for up-to-date advice and head over to the wiki.gg site. Thanks to everyone who helped out with this project!

That's all for now, speak to you all again very soon :)

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Dec 8, 2022

Castlevania is back! Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC coming Q1 2023!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hi everyone,

After almost a year of keeping quiet, and we still can't believe that we get to say this, but our next DLC "Return to Castlevania" is coming in Q1 2023!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101430/Dead_Cells_Return_to_Castlevania/
Wishlist it now!

Yep, one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, inspirations behind Dead Cells is being reimagined in our fast-paced, frenetic gameplay with our most ambitious DLC to date.

Somehow we managed to convince KONAMI to let us recreate this truly iconic pillar of gaming, and we have loved every minute of crafting our very own love letter to the granddad of Dead Cells, bringing the Castlevania series back to its 2D action roots. We hope that we have done justice to the game that inspired a thousand more and it has been a ridiculous privilege to work on this project.

Anyway, that's enough fanboying, let's get on with the post!

First up is a brand new animated trailer to celebrate the DLC, courtesy of Bobby Pills:

What's in the DLC?

You'll strike out on an adventure through the spooky outskirts and candle-lit interior of Dracula's Castle in two new biomes, where you'll wield iconic weapons such as the Vampire Killer, Throwing Axe & Holy Water against classic enemies like mermen, bone throwers & haunted armors on your warpath to vanquish Dracula himself. Three epic boss fights await you throughout the haunted Castle, no prizes for guessing who one of them is!

The famous Richter Belmont and Alucard will be by your side in a new storyline, helping you to navigate the maze of Dracula’s Castle and providing you with strong weapons (sometimes willingly, sometimes not). However, where there is good there is evil, so watch out for powerful foes who will try everything in their power to stop you from reaching the throne room!

If it wasn't already obvious, we've taken great care in creating that unmistakable Castlevania atmosphere. You'll find secret rooms, beautiful paintings and of course, chicken legs in the walls. OK, the chicken legs were already in the walls but we won't tell anyone if you don't. Oh and we hope you like the moon because that sucker is everywhere!

Behind all of this, you can listen to a full in-game soundtrack of more than 60 Castlevania tunes, both original and reimagined. Full means full - we've got Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears, Divine Bloodlines, all the hits!

How much is it?

The DLC will be $9.99 or equivalent. Yes, this is an increase from our usual price of $4.99 for a DLC, but this reflects the fact that the scope of this DLC is quite a lot bigger than previous DLCs, as well as the inclusion of the Castlevania IP.

We'll be back with a lot more information as we get closer to the release date, but in the meantime I'm just going to leave another link to the DLC store page here in case you want to add it to your wishlist...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101430/Dead_Cells_Return_to_Castlevania/

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT