Sep 25, 2023

Drug Dealer Simulator 2 - מרים

Y’all, another Q&A is rolling in! You asked (a TON of questions, sometimes many times), and we have the answers ready. There are sooooooooooooo many questions that we had to split this post into 3 parts so we wouldn’t overload the page.

Go and enjoy!

Q: Will there be DLSS support?
A: Yes, we are planning DLSS support. We are waiting to implement it in a newer version of the engine, so not sure if it will be there for the demo, but most likely for the full release.

Q: Will there be a system to produce synthetic drugs? Setting up labs and buying chemicals?
A: Yes, DDS2 lab system is way more advanced than what we had in the original. All of the drugs have their production chains, base ingredients are obtained in various ways (not to spoil anything). You have control over how complex your production and distribution chain is and how many types of products you want to focus on.

Q: What is Rafał's favorite color?
A: Yes.

Q: What's the estimated time to complete the game (hours)?
A: It will highly vary depending on your goals and playstyle. We put much effort into making DDS2 fit for both casual and hardcore “max out” audiences that want to spend very long hours and weeks in the game. You have a lot of control over your priorities, scale of the operation, expansion range and tactics. Depending on how much you want from the game you could possibly spend anything from 15 to 100 hours in one complete playthrough. It is very hard to estimate.

Q: How will the co-op work? Are you all equal in the group or are there leaders, distributors, and street dealers?
A: The game host is the main boss and has a few additional options, but you are mostly equal. How you divide your duties all depends on your planning. There also are NPC employees who can do some stuff for you, and balancing bonuses for smaller parties and single players.

Q: What is the maximum number of people you can play with?
A: For now we plan to make the co-op for up to 3 people. This might change for the full release. The limit is both a technical and a design+balance thing to consider and we need a bit more time and polish to finalise the decision.

Q: How does the save system work when playing in co-op?
A: Each game session is started by creating a new cartel. The cartel progress is saved on the host computer (or a single player PC) or dedicated server. There are also some progress elements that save locally per player. You can freely and easily migrate cartel save files between machines as well as between Co-op and single-player sessions at any point in time. Example: You can start a singleplayer session and decide to invite your friend along the way, use your save on a dedicated server to continue, or use a coop session save to continue and finish the playthrough alone.

Q: Will there be an option to create a gang?
A: Creating a cartel is the basis for starting a new game session. It’s built out of both players as well as NPCs.

Q: Where is Eddie ;(?
A: Eddie is one of the playable characters you can choose from as well as one of the two selectable narrators for the story.

Q: Will there be any new drugs in the game?
A: Yes, there are a few new drugs as well as new drug forms. Part of the available drugs are the same types as in the original, but each of them has a unique production chain, with multiple lab equipment types and sizes. Obtaining product is much more complex and engaging than simply unlocking and ordering.

Q: Will gangs/wholesaling become more prominent?
A: There are more wholesale clients to obtain in the game, yes. You also hire NPCs to “automate” your distribution chain, so you don’t have to deal with all the clients (if you don’t want to). This way you can also focus on more wholesale deliveries, big batch production and smuggling just to supply your employees with products and collect cash.

Q: Can I make my own drug and name it?
A: You can’t make “your own drug” per se, but you can make named mixes like in DDS1. You can produce all of the types of drugs available on your own tho.

Q: Will there be freedom to explore in co-op, or is there a tethered system?
A: You can free to explore wherever you like. There is no leash or distance limit system for the players. You only need to keep in mind that for listen servers (local player-hosted games) all explored areas need to be partially loaded on the server, so it may affect the host’s gameplay performance depending on his rig.

Q: Will there be any plot in the game or is it just an introduction and free play?
A: There is a full story for the cartel and an entire playthrough up till the end. There is an open ending for the cartel and a final “ending ending” for each player unlocked upon reaching the cartel ending. The main story and how you go through it will also partially adapt and evolve depending on your choices, priorities and playstyle.

Q: Will you be able to place drugs in marked zones like Eddie did in DDS1, or just sell from hand to hand?
A: Yes, you can hire your own NPC dealers that you supply by dead drops. You start the game as a “man on the ground” but can progress all the way up to only managing large-scale operations and using minions to do most of the leg work for you.

Q: Will we be able to get dyes to make custom colored drugs?
A: There are no dyes, but we’ll think about that. There are multiple color coding and custom naming features for organizing your gameplay tho. You can name employees, hideouts, containers, boats, organise substance storage and more.

Q: Will you be able to create a sub-network of NPC dealers in single-player mode, e.g. have NPCs distribute your stuff or collect resources?
A: Yes, that’s exactly how it works. You can hire NPC’s for dealers as well as other tasks and distribution.

Q: Was the playtest a full release or a beta?
A: The playtest is still in progress and considers the full game, but we are still working on some of the content, balance and mechanics. The community testers help us with finding issues, discuss features and polishing the balance of the whole game.

Q: Will there be a gang reputation?
A: Yes, you have a reputation to maintain with the game world and it has a much wider impact on the gameplay than in DDS1.

Q: What was the cat for? WHAT ABOUT THE CAT?!
A: I’m afraid that if I told you, I would have to kick you :)

Q: Will all drugs be able to be sold everywhere or will it be like a b c like in DDS1?
A: Different areas have different demand proportions, but you can distribute almost any drug almost anywhere. There are only a few exceptions, but the demand for certain drugs varies in different areas. This being said, in the end mostly you decide on what and where you want to sell and to what extent.

Q: If we are all going to be in different ranks, how does the money system work? Do the employees get a cut and can do their own thing?
A: Yes, all employees cost money. Daily or % from the sales, depending on their task. The more people you hire, the less money you make (per sale) but can do more work and tasks. Just like in any company… or organised drug operation.

Stay tuned for part 2!

Ah, btw, Dealers!

Remember the music challenge? We’re still collecting your entries so if you forgot to press send on your submission, you have a few days until the end of the month! So, get yourself recording and send us your happy creativity 👀🎶

Sep 25, 2023

Unleash your Creativity with Custom mode!

Station to Station - littleoliphant

Hello conductors,

This is our last devlog before our official launch date in just over a week! So, we wanted to share an exciting new mode that will be available in the game from launch.

Custom Mode is something that has been highly requested by our demo players and Discord members and we really loved the idea. Here’s a quick introduction from our creative director, Joost, explaining what you can expect from our new Custom game mode.

In this devlog, we’re going to talk more about what it is and how you can use it.

Create your own challenging levels

Custom game mode generates new levels every time you play and you can use the custom game setup to set specific criteria for that level. This flexibility lets you create compact maps with dense railway networks or expansive maps filled with intricate connection challenges.

So, if you want to play a very small map with farming industries in the desert, or a very large map in the countryside with tall mountains and a mining industry, you can.

Endless levels to create

Thanks to procedural generation, there will always be a new level for you to discover. Our level generator can produce infinite amounts of different levels.

Even with the same prompts, every level will look different.

Free Money

A new feature coming to both custom mode and the full game is the ability to turn off money altogether so you can just enjoy the game at your own pace.

You’ll be able to just relax and lay some tracks without needing to worry about not being able to complete a level.

Conclusion

We’ve been reading and listening to all the feedback you’ve shared with our team so far and this new mode is just one result of that. As you’ll discover when the game releases, we’ve added many more features that you’ve requested, but you’ll just have to wait and see what they are.

Until then, please consider wishlisting Station to Station - it really helps us - and we will see you all in just over a week for launch day!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2272400/Station_to_Station/

- Galaxy Grove
Join our Discord server: http://discord.gg/Cw7UV5ECjw
Follow us on Twitter: @galaxygrovegame
Follow our Instagram: @galaxygrovegame

Sep 25, 2023

The End is Near Update is now in Beta phase!

Dead Cells - 你的宝贝

Hey everyone!

The upcoming update The End is Near is now in Beta! In case you missed the alpha post, in this update we are stuffing in new mobs, weapons, mutations and biome effects all expanding on the curse mechanic, 40+ new head skins, almost 20 new legendary affixes, extra accessibility options and more!

Before we go through the updated list of new content for the update, a quick note here for the players who didn't like the idea of Cursed mobs and might’ve missed our patches in the Alpha phase.
Instead of making cursed mobs spawn randomly in your run , we have introduced a new effect on biomes, Cursed Biomes, to make sure that players can choose to have cursed mobs in their run or not. Also, the players who choose to take the risk will now get rewards for taking on that risk. We are gonna elaborate more on this mechanic below!

Now, let’s get to the full list of new content:

New Curse additions:

3 new mobs:

Sore Loser: a cutie who can’t hurt you but is super clingy and annoying, always trying to be close to you and dash through you. When you kill it, you get cursed.
Doom Bringer: every melee attack from it won’t cause damage, but will apply 2 stack of curse and stun you, and you will instantly die if you have already got 50 stacks of curse. Sounds pretty fair right?
Curser: it launches a slow homing projectile that can go through the walls. If you “accidentally” get caught by this projectile, you take damage and 5 stacks of curse. One more surprise! If you get close to it, it will bonk you with its staff.

New Cursed Biome system:

Cursed biomes only spawn in runs with a Boss Cell level 2 or higher (boss fight biomes won’t be cursed).
Just like biome incentives, there will be a specific icon above the exit to a cursed biome, so that you can have the choice of taking this challenge or just going to the other normal biomes.
A cursed biome always contains 9 (+/-2) cursed mobs randomly selected from Curser, Sore Loser and Doom Bringer.
There is, of course, a reward for that risk: all the items dropped in a cursed biome will drop 1 gear level higher, regardless of their source (shop, loots, etc.). The spawn chance of cursed chests also increases by 10% in such biomes.
There is a cap to the number of cursed biomes that you can go through on your route, depending on the BC level, set as follows: from BC 2 to 5 respectively: 2, 3, 5 and 8 (i.e. in 5BC, there is no cap).
This cap only limits the number of Cursed Biomes that you can go to in a run, it doesn’t mean that you must go through that many Cursed Biomes to finish your run.
Once you have hit the cap, no more cursed biomes will appear in that run. Until you have hit the cap, cursed biomes will continue to appear.
As long as you haven’t reached the cap, biomes always have a 25% chance of being cursed. There will always be at least 1 biomes without cursed mobs at any point in your run, no exceptions.

3 new weapons:

Anathema: rip a Mushroom Boi’s heart out to fire a heavy indirect projectile dealing AOE damage. However, there is a price for being an utter savage - you will get cursed if your attack hits anything.
Indulgence: Calls down a ray of vengeful light on the nearest enemy dealing critical damage if you are not cursed. Targets killed by the ray purge you of 3 stacks of curse instead of 1. Fires 1 additional ray per 5 stacks of curse you have (max: 5 per cast).
Misericorde: inflicts crits if the victim has less than 50% HP. Curses you if the attack doesn't kill its target.

3 new mutations (all colorless):

Cursed Flask: your health flask has infinite charges but also curses you 20 times each time you use it.
Damned Vigor: upon being dealt fatal damage, you stay alive at 1 HP for 2 seconds. If you kill any enemy while under this effect, you will be saved. Otherwise, when the effect disappears or you get hit while under it, you instantly die without any sort of protection applicable.
Demonic Strength: Damage increases by 30% if you are cursed. This bonus is increased by 2% per curse stack you have. Cursed Sword counts as 1 stack for this effect (no special bonus for it, but you can still stack curses on top of it).

New legendary affixes:

Flawless: NEW Almost Perfect: Killing an enemy within one second after getting hit allows you continue causing crits.
Gold Digger: NEW Filthy Rich: Crit multiplier increases with your gold.
Punishment: NEW Punish Combo: Recasts the AOE effect if it kills at least one target.
Rampart: NEW Mirror Coating: Reflects damage of attacks received while under the effect of the shield's force field. This damage scales with the attack received (i.e., the stronger the attack is, the more damage the shield reflects).
Cocoon: NEW Parry Streak: Each consecutive parry reduces Cocoon's cooldown the next time it starts.
Emergency Door: NEW Armored Door: The door can't be destroyed by enemies (except for bosses).
Bone: NEW Whirlwind: Increases the last attack's whirlwind duration by 2 sec with every enemy it kills.
Wrenching Whip: NEW Retiarus: The first attack throws 3 crow's feet in front of you (with the same internal cooldown as the grenade affix).
Explosive Decoy: NEW Foolproof: The cooldown of the item is instantly reset if its explosion doesn't hit at least one target.
Barrel Launcher: Triple Bullet (i.e. not a new affix, but we changed the one it had before).
Leghugger: NEW Mitosis: Summons 2 Leghuggers instead of 1.
Assault Shield: NEW Charged Dash: Holding the shield button will charge a stronger version of the dash, which can then be used by releasing the button.
Ice Shards: NEW Bouncy: Projectiles bounce on the ground twice before disappearing.
Quick Bow: NEW Sharpshooter: Critical hits will refill one ammo.
Bladed Tonfas: NEW Lacerator: Only uses the first attack of the combo.
Grappling Hook: NEW Octavio: Also fires a chain behind you.
Tesla Coil: NEW Double Use: You can use the skill twice. Each use has its own cooldown.
Lightning Rods: NEW Double Use: You can use the skill twice. Each use has its own cooldown.

Some notable balances:

The Bank is slightly easier in 2, 4 and 5BC. Yeah, SLIGHTLY...
The Throw Master's bone projectile deals less damage in Return to Castlevania DLC.
Alienation rework: Instead of healing the player per curse reduced, it will now heal the player when the curse is lifted, with the amount of health recovered based on the max amount of curses you had (for that curse instance). The effect only starts triggering when the player had more than 5 curses, and requires 35 stacks of curse to fully heal you.

New head customisation:

What do we have in the Tailor’s Daughter’s secret stash?

Flame heads based on various appearances of the Beheaded along the years.
Bosses’ heads such as the Scarecrow Hat.
And lots of strange and secret heads, such as the Cell Head, are waiting for you!

New routing

We've also changed the connections between biomes:

Added an exit to Master's Keep in High Peak Castle.
Added exits to Corrupted Prison and Ossuary in Castle's Outskirts.
Added an exit to Dracula's Castle (early) in Corrupted Prison and Toxic Sewers.
Added an exit to Black Bridge in Dracula's Castle (early).
Added an exit to Defiled Necropolis in Ossuary.
Replaced the exit to Fractured Shrines in Defiled Necropolis by an exit to Graveyard.
Added a light source in the Mimic Hint lore room, when it spawns in Forgotten Sepulcher.
Added an exit to Dracula's Castle (late) in Mausoleum, Guardian's Haven and Clock Room.

Yes, this does mean that you can now go to both Return to Castlevania biomes in one run...

More accessibility options

Added two new sets of control icons and an option to select them. You can select either "Legacy" (current icons), "New" (a new, cleaner set) or "Big" (accessibiliy focused, easier to read).
Changed the Daily Challenge's boss arrow opacity, for better visibility.
Added new input options for the "going through platform" action.
Added options to change the controller triggers' deadzone.
Reworked the Auto-hit assist mode option. It will no longer force the use of a melee weapon in the first slot.
Added an option to add a background to most texts in the game. The background's color and opacity can be adjusted.
The left stick can now be used to scroll through item descriptions in the pause menu.
Added options to fully invert the player and camera movement.
Added a bunch of options to tweak the camera's behavior. The influence of the player's movement, combat, or points of interest can be customized.
Split the "controller sticks deadzone" into two options, one for each stick.
Added an outline option for spikes.
Added a button to center the minimap on the player.

We have also done some tweaks and fixed some bugs with this build:

Graphics & UI:

Added Latin-American Spanish and Polish as language options.

Bug Fixes:

Fixed Death Outfits being able to equip custom heads.
Fixed Spoiler Level's Lightning Walls being able to kill entities immune to lava.
Fixed Legendary Hook cooldown resetting when only one of the hooks missed.
Fixed a crash when loading a save with speedrun data.

If you wanna take part in this Beta test, please follow the instructions below:

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.

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!
Bugs & Crashes Report

For feedback and suggestions, just leave them here or on our official Discord - there are two channels called update35-beta-discussion and update35-beta-feedback.

Cheers,
XYZ, Matt, EE & MT