230 of you walked a party of four into the dead city, got bitten, got wiped, and came back to tell us exactly what went wrong. The Deckalypse playtest is now closed while we lock the game down for launch on August 20, 2026.
Some of you posted in the Steam discussions. Some of you lived in our Discord. Some of you wrote to us directly with pages of notes, screenshots and save states. It all landed in the same pile, it was all read, and a surprising amount of it is now sitting in the build.
🧟 What your notes turned into
- The Infection. The Biter, a 15-round timer that does not reset between fights, a damage penalty that stacks to -90%, and heroes who turn on the party if you let it run out. The whole system was reshaped around playtest reports about pacing and clarity.
- Cures that make sense. Suppressant Shot, Purge Serum, Antiviral Dose and the Antidote, plus a first-bite explainer that stops the game once and tells you exactly what is happening to your survivor.
- A rebuilt trader. The shop stopped selling cards and started stocking supplies, the Satchel arrived to carry them, and your gold and items now survive a failed run.
- The Compendium. Glossary, statuses, traits and a bestiary that fills itself in as you meet the horde, because too many of you were guessing at what an icon meant.
- Hover explanations everywhere. Buffs, debuffs and enemy traits explain themselves in a fight instead of hiding behind an icon.
- A new action feed. The old combat log is gone, replaced with a readable feed of what just hit what and for how much.
- Interface pass. Reworked energy pool, a proper End Turn button and a cleaner perks screen.
- Deck cap 30 to 15. Tighter decks, faster cycling, every slot fighting for its life.
- Achievements, credits, the Spoils Den's daily rotation and the Dead Circuit minigame, plus secret areas and a new escalating-damage card.
- English, Portuguese and Spanish.
🔧 And the bugs you found
- Enemies no longer overflow off a crowded lane, and the selection box actually fits large bosses.
- Abandoning a challenge run ends it properly, so its mutators stop leaking into your next normal run.
- Game over drops you back at Area Select, ready for the next attempt.
- Zombified heroes are correctly excluded from resting, reviving and ally-targeted cards.
- Taunt is front-row only, which is what the tooltip always claimed.
- The white flash at the end of every fight is gone, and pasting a seed or challenge code works.
📅 What happens now
- The playtest is closed. No more builds go out through it.
- Deckalypse launches August 20, 2026. Two weeks.
- Wishlist it if you have not yet. It genuinely decides how many people see the game on day one.
- Stay in the Discord. That is where launch-day noise, hotfixes and the next round of your complaints will live.
See you in the dead city. 🖤