Dead Cells News

Accessibility update moves into beta

Hey everyone,

We're back with a pretty expansive beta for our upcoming accessibility update. If you haven't heard about what we're planning, go and read our previous alpha post.

Otherwise, here are all the changes that we've made with the new beta...

[h3]Balancing[/h3]

Reverted the changes on Crowbar.
Barnacle no longer crits on bleeding enemies.
Machete & pistol: The third hit now ignores side shields.

[h3]Graphics & UI[/h3]

Added an option to toggle the Crit Feedbacks.
Added an option to toggle Synergy Icons.
Tweaked the Crit Feedback on the HUD to something less visually jarring.
Changed all the Synergy Icons, as well as the Affect Icons, to make them more readable.
Outlines' colors can now be changed.
Added an option to toggle an outline for NPCs.
Added an option to change the text size of Item Names, Item Item Descriptions and Dialogues.
The HUD size can now be increased.
Added the Assist Mode to the Main Menu.
Added an option to increase the size of the Attack Announces.
The Brutality / Tactic / Survival color override now apply to the HUD, menus, icons, weapons, items, etc.
Added a new font to choose from: "Adys".
Added an an option to add a colored filter between the background and foreground. The color and opacity of the filter can be freely customized.
Reorganized the entirety of the Options menu and added a new "Accessibility" section.
Texts in the Stat Selection Menu no longer use "Red", "Purple" and "Green", but "Brutality", "Tactic" and "Survival".

[h3]Quality of life[/h3]

"Show Kill Count" option is now enabled by default.
The number of lives with Assist Mode's continue mode can now be changed.
Added an option to prevent "Auto-Attack" from breaking doors.
Added an Assist Mode option to instantly reveal the whole map.

[h3]Mods[/h3]

Added a way to modify the Assist Mode's values through mods.

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

Fixed a crash when scrolling through the credits.
Thunder Shield is now longer considered to be a ranged weapon.
Fixed a crash when entering Graveyard.
Fixed a bug where the mob displayed by the Mirror would appear glitched out in some situations.
Fixed Face Flask's "Volley of Arrows" affix not dealing any damage.
Fixed a bug where scrolling in the options felt "bumpy".
Fixed the left-most part of the HUD never fading back in, in case the player would ever be behind the HUD.
Fixed Options Sliders, with ranges different to 0-100, not working properly with a mouse.
Fixed the control label being wrong in the Controller or Keyboard Rebind menus.
Fixed a bug where Assist Mode's Continue would not work if the player died by a curse.
Fixed a bug with Options Lists, where the text would overlap with the arrows.
Fixed Golden Bat Kamikaze appearing in the ground in the Training Room.
Fixed the War Javelin being instantly thrown after teleporting, when "Hold to Attack" is enabled.
Fixed multiple issues when going back to an older version, after tweaking some settings in Update 29. Now, going back to an older version will create a clean version of the Options, while keeping what you changed on Update 29.

If you want to try out the beta and don't know how then 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 accessibility-alpha-discussion and accessibility-alpha-feedback. We also have a bug report form specific to this beta.

Barring any shenanigans, the next post will be for the update release so keep an eye out for that!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Dead Cells is getting accessibility features, including an assist mode

fter a year in Early Access, bastard-hard action-platformer Dead Cells arrived at version 1.0 in 2018. It's still being updated regularly, with recent additions including The Queen and the Sea DLC and free add-on Break the Bank. There's more to come. In a recent interview with Twinfinite, marketing manager Matthew Houghton said, "When I first arrived at Dead Cells around a year ago, Arthur [Décamp, designer] showed me the game and what the team still had and I said, 'OK, so we are only about halfway through Dead Cells now.'"..
Read more.

New alpha with accessibility options, Assist Mode and beginner item reworks!

Hello everyone,

The alpha for our next update is live!

This update will be all about making Dead Cells more accessible to everyone. It's been five years since our Early Access release, and it's about time that we made sure that Dead Cells can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

We're trying to achieve this in two ways – one is a bunch of new accessibility options such as outlining sprites in-game, holding a button to jump/roll a second time, or button remapping (full list below).

The other angle is an Assist Mode with sliders to adjust elements of the game such as enemy damage, enemy health and trap damage, options for slower parry window and trap speed, plus auto-hit and continue mode options.

There's also a rework of 8 weapons, and the cost of early game weapons is being heavily reduced to allow players to unlock weapons while working towards the crucial upgrades like health flasks and gold.

[h3]So, why are we adding the accessibility options? [/h3]
Well, Dead Cells is intended to be tough but fair - sure, you die a lot, but you grow your skill while gaining new weapons & powers until you can beat the final boss, then add a Boss Cell to up the challenge and die to a rat on the next run. And so it begins again...

This is our vision of Dead Cells and we encourage players to try to beat the game as it is, however, we've received quite a lot of feedback that this experience is just inaccessible for a decent chunk of players with the game in its current state, for various reasons.

These new options are designed to allow specific adjustments of the game, to make this tough but fair gameplay accessible, while leaving other parts of the game the same.

We hope that these changes can let more players enjoy Dead Cells as we intended, and if the unaltered version of Dead Cells already hits the right balance of challenge and progression for you, then these changes are all optional - just leave the game as it is and continue having fun :)

[h3]What are the new options? [/h3]
All the changes that are described below were tested (and are still being tested) with a panel of players with various impairments at Able Gamers, but if we're not addressing a need or are attempting to address it in the wrong way, please let us know how we could do better in the comments or on Discord.

Input

Hold to second jump
Hold to roll
Shield toggle option, instead of long press
More options to customise controls, especially actions that require a long press or a complex input + joystick action

Additional input options

Control customisation menu

Visual

Customisable interface size and transparency
Choice of game font styles (including pixellated)
Game font colour customisation
Stats colour customisation
Display stats icons next to character stats
Options to outline the Beheaded, projectiles, enemies, active skills and secrets
Synergy and stat icons in equipment menu
No-blood mode
Adjustable particle limit

Making the text size adjustable is on our list too, but the game really, really, hates it when we make the text bigger. This was requested a lot, so we're not giving up yet, but we can't promise that it will be in the update.

Font colour menu

Stat icons displayed next to items

Outlines applied to Beheaded and enemies (plus customised stats colours in bottom left)

Synergy and stat icons in equipment menu

Sound

Adjust volume of different sound effects separately

There are some other options that we'd like to add which are proving a bit tricky to implement, so bear in mind that this isn't a complete list of what might be in the update at the end.

We're also working on creating an accessibility menu to gather all these options in one place as they're all spread out in the options menu at the moment, but again the UI is being a bit tricky!

Assist Mode

Continue mode – each time you die you can resurrect from the beginning of the biome (this effectively already existed by quitting the game when you die, now it's just 'official')
Auto-hit mode – automatically target nearby enemies with your primary melee weapon. The one time that the mobile version was ahead of us!
Adjustable trap damage, enemy damage and enemy health in % increments
Option for slower parry window and trap speed

[h3]Weapon Reworks [/h3]

This update also brings some reworks of older weapons, which were in pretty dire need of a tune-up:

Barnacle: new crit condition on bleeding or poisoned targets to make it less awkward (and bad).
Tentacle: lots of bug fixes. It should be way more reliable now.
Crowbar: new crit condition on stunned enemies to make it less awkward too.
Magnetic Grenade: full rework: it doesn't send enemies flying around (often in your head) but instead pulls them towards the explosion.
Biters pets: now way more resistant to attacks and effects that don't specifically target them.
Corrupted Power: now in % instead of a flat bonus. No other difference functionally speaking.
Wings of the Crow: lots of bug fixes.
Decoy: can be manually detonated after a few moments (it's not a grenade, but you don't have to awkwardly wait for it to explode if you don't want to)

Obviously this is an alpha so we might have been over eager with some of these changes. Have fun with that while you can, because we will be adjusting them where needed!

[h3]Early-game item cost reduced [/h3]

The cost of most of the beginner items has been drastically cut, to make the early game less tedious for new players and to make new items a viable unlock option while trying to get your flask, gold and other useful upgrades. This should also make it easier to catch up on your item pool when starting a new save.

[h3]How to access the alpha: [/h3]

Back up your save first. The alpha shouldn't affect your saves but better to be safe than sorry (and 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 - there are two channels called accessibility-alpha-discussion and accessibility-alpha-feedback specifically for alpha conversations, so please use them!

Well, that's it for this post, and if you know anyone who bounced off Dead Cells because they found it inaccessible then let them know what's coming!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Patch for Break the Bank update

Hey,

Happy Monday! We’ve just released a patch to fix some bugs introduced by the “Break the Bank” update.

Here are the bugs we’ve fixed:

General

Using Hunter's Grenade on Mimic and Gold Gorger spawns Elite Zombie
Tonic's health recovery is taken into account by Midas' Blood
Crash on Runner teleport and BC4+ mob teleports if hero is not in the room
Soft lock when queen dies while you’re being resurrected by her when she has low enough health
Pickpocket bugged SFX

Mimic bugs

Mimic pulls you through the floor
When using the Hunter’s Grenade on the Mimic, the item you attempt to buy is sometimes unavailable
Obtaining a two-handed weapon from the Mimic only upgrades the primary hand.
Extracting blueprint from mimic breaks the purchase
Food mimic + Hunter's grenade = bugged food

Twitch integration bugs in the Bank

Streamer is able to navigate to the Bank before next level modifier vote is settled
During darkness modifier, player gets killed in the elevator before he can do anything
Twitch chest replaces special chest at the end of obstacle course, summoning enemies when you're unable to use conventional weapons, and seemingly disabling the outfit loot drop.

That’s it, short & sweet, we’ll be back very soon with a new public alpha!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Steam Deck issues with proton 7.0.1 and earlier - don't use compatibility layer

Hey Steam Deck players,

We've been made aware of an incompatibility with proton 7.0.1 and earlier.

Dead Cells is a linux native game, so we highly recommend you keep on playing the game without any compatibility layer for the best experience.

Additionally we cannot provide support with issues linked to unofficial forks of compatibility layers (ie. ProtonGE).

Thanks,
EE & MT