Dead Cells

Dead Cells is a two-dimensional, platform action game enriched with elements characteristic for roguelike and metroidvania production. The title was developed by an independent French studio Motion Twin.

Game world

At Dead Cells, we're in a dark fantasy world. The action is shown on the side, with the areas visited in the game are multilevel. The core of the game is exploration of gloomy locations, including dungeons, prisons, clock towers and canals.

Most of the locations in the Dead Cells is generated procedurally - at each new pass of the game, the layout of corridors, rooms or treasure boxes is completely different. The game also offers some freedom in choosing the order of visiting the location. Some areas have several different outputs and can lead to completely different places.

Mechanics

A very important feature of Dead Cells is that the death of a character controlled by us is permanent, so it involves the need to start the adventure from the beginning. Although the absence of the checkpoint system does not facilitate the case, it is worth noting that at the time of death we do not lose all the progress. The game allows you to save the gained schematics and unlocked upgrades (you buy them with the title cells). This means that in each subsequent game the controlled character has a slightly better chance of survival.

Dead Cells offers a lot of room to show off when it comes to creating "builds" of characters. The hero can use a variety of weapons (close and distance combat) as well as power, shields, skills, traps and grenades. Some combinations of objects and abilities can be extremely powerful. In every new game we start only with a regular sword, bow and shield - we have to find better items in the game world or buy them for gold from traders we meet. The spoils are also drawn on the basis of only those plans that we managed to get in the previous competitions.

In each of the available places, monsters of different varieties and unique skills are waiting for the hero. In this case, the developers were mainly inspired by the Souls series - duels are characterized by a high level of difficulty, and the deadly danger is not only the powerful bosses, but also the smaller opponents. The key to success is to work out attack patterns derived by adversaries and develop the character accordingly. At the same time, the clashes are characterized by high dynamics. The game enforces quick decision making and flawless reaction to monster attacks. The basics of control are easy to learn, but if you want to perfectly pair monster attacks, you have to train a lot.

During the breaks between the fights we explore new dungeons. They are sometimes complex, and some of their fragments cannot be reached at first. Runes found during the game come to your aid, unlocking completely new skills, such as climbing walls or teleporting. The places in Dead Cells also hide a lot of secrets - we can reach additional loot or rooms with new schematics.

Technical aspects

Dead Cells has a colourful, two-dimensional graphic design. Although the whole thing is kept in pixelart style, the elements of the frame straight from the era of eight and sixteen bits have been enriched with modern, advanced visual effects.

Last updated on 25 May 2023