Hey there everyone!
I'm writing this with a mix of nostalgia and fatigue. Seriously it's late over here... Today Dead Cells grows up and flies the coup, heading off into the world to become it's own game, get an apartment, find a special someone, pay taxes and bitch about traffic. Good for it!
It's been 454 days since we first introduced you to what we though was a half finished, reasonably well balanced but somewhat bizarre attempt at making a rogue-lite metroidvania. Man has it been some fun since!
With the help of all you equally half baked mad men and women, we've brought that little game to what we can now happily and proudly call "finished". Well at least something that's in a finished state for the time being.
We've written 47 of these update posts for you, well mostly Joan, but I do 'em every now and then too. We've pushed 79 updates including 10 major content additions or feature expansions. Plus probably a bunch of hot-fixes no one wrote any patch notes for, because the devs like to keep the people guessing.
All the while we've tried to hold true to our early access promises and prove that the platform can be a potent tool when used right. We've taken your feedback and done our best to build something with you, while staying true to what we wanted to do from the outset and right now... Well seeing all the reviews come out today, it feel like we've done pretty well. So thank you guys, from each and every one of us, thanks for all of this:
- Dead Cells gets into your nervous system like a wonderful toxin... Brendan Caldwell, RPS.
- Dead Cells is a phenomenal effort to blend together some very disparate genres into a tight, cohesive whole. Daniel Starkey, GameSpot.
- Dead Cells may be the most fun I've had in a game all year. Justin McElroy, Polygon.
- Dead Cells is the best Castlevania game in years Andrew Webster, The Verge.
Hell they even wrote about us in the WASHINGTON FRICKEN POST!!!
- Dead Cells’” steady introduction of new mechanics made it easy for me to pine for one more go. In my view, that’s the hallmark of a successful arcade experience. Christopher Byrd, THE Washington FRICKEN Post.
And theeeeeen?
So anyway... that's all very well and good, but we're not done. Just because we're now OK saying that we're at 1.0 quality levels, doesn't mean we're just going to down tools and go home. Nor does it mean that we've been sitting around doing nothing since the last big update.
Today we're happy to present to you are version of a story, a little touch of lore, to the game. We've hung a skeleton up in a closet, well more numerous pieces of numerous skeletons in many different mostly not closet hiding places, for you to find.
From there we'll decide whether the lore is up to scratch, or whether, as with everything else in the game, you might not want to leave your mark on it.
Anyway, for now, have find finding out what's going on with your enigmatic, smiley, caustic and somewhat cantankerous, green ball of a prisoner is doing on this island.
Aaaaaaannnnddddd theeeeeeeen?
Well it wouldn't be much fun to spoil it all, and we did cover a lot of the rest of the stuff in our previous post on modding tools, Twitch integrations, UI updates, Mac and Linux versions and whatnot.... Buuuuuut.
If you do so happen to choose to start a new run and play through the whole game, there might be some new stuff to see. Some new things to do, not a terrible lot, but you know... Go have a look.
What next?
Well right now we're actively working on our first big post release update. It'll be a free DLC, or a big-ass free update, whichever is technically feasible, but there'll be a stack of new content. Good stuff... Playable stuff...
From there we'll do what we've always done and work with the community, if demand stays strong, who are we to deny the people their Dead Cells? If y'all get over Sir Blobspierre, then we'll go off and make another game.
So if you want to see more content be sure to let us know.
Right now I'd like to finish, by not finishing, but by doing what we always do and showing off a bit of the community's handiwork:
Community Artwork
Image by: Facebook awesome dude whose name I'll have to find tomorrow
Image by: zadobag
Image by: kaerazene
And on that note... I'm going to bed.
Thanks for everything!
Steve and the entire MT team.
Edit: Deleted the IGN review.