DECONSTRUCTING #008: Dead Cells - Or How to Get Inspired the Right Way

INTRO

Working in a creative field it is almost impossible not to be influenced by the works done before. We all have our favourite games, movies, books, TV series, you name it. On top of that we all feel more or less nostalgic for something we enjoyed countless hours as youngsters. Those things often play as a blueprint for what we’re trying to create, some more and some less than others, but they’re still there, lurking in the subconscious mind.

Game development particularly, is a media where influences are very clearly there as the inspiration. In some games it might be just some little thing from the dev’s favourite game, not even that clear to most players. In some the source of inspiration might be way more obvious and some games could even be considered as remixes or sequels which were never made (“a spiritual successor”) of/for some older game. Many devs try to create their version of their favourite thing or things, or something they saw the potential falling short, molding it as something they always wanted it to be or thought it should have evolved into.

Like in any entertainment media, games are also mashing up different “genre specific” things. And what not a better way to add something old and something new into the mix, than mashing up different features, which usually are considered being just in some particular genre. And by this way create something that can well stand as its own entity.

Enter the Dead Cells, a game me and my few friends have been playing a LOT lately. Dead Cells is one of those games which clearly has got a quite an amount of inspiration from not only one, but few games. And by saying this, I am by NO means criticizing the dev, Motion Twin, no. This is a song of praise, for a dev who really did understand what they took and what to mix it with in order to create something special. Like a Michelin star rated restaurant chef, who knows what some spices add into the dish, how they work together and what it needs as a main ingredient to be the masterpiece dish.

In this article I’ll be analyzing (as well as speculating) the things I see as Dead Cells’ main sources of inspiration – Rogue Legacy, Roguelikes and Castlevania/Metroid-combo. I’ll be deconstructing how Motion Twin used those inspirations in order to create something of their own, a true masterpiece of gamedesign, as well as pushing the current buzzword , “roguevania”, forward, as something we might need to actually start thinking as a legit sub-genre (note: many people already think that).

ROGUE LEGACY

Rogue Legacy is most probably the game a lot of people will compare Dead Cells to and in a way I’d say for a good reason. After all Rogue Legacy was arguably one of the first games, if not the first to really make this “roguevania” thing a THING to begin with, at least on a level of notability. It was both a great and a successful game, which really pioneered the concept of mixing roguelike design with persistent progression so, that it felt meaningful.

As already mentioned, Rogue Legacy had persistent progression on top of the roguelike, by having all the upgrades being persistent. While Dead Cells doesn’t do it exactly like this, I’d say with a firm confidence, that Rogue Legacy has been a huge inspiration for the persistent system in Dead Cells.

In Dead Cells the features which are persistent are unlocking the possible loot you can get and skills that let you open new paths. You’ll find blueprints you can then unlock with the experience and thus add them into your “loot pool”. It is a very clever system, as it keeps the essence of a roguelike intact (especially the effect of permadeath). I always felt that while Rogue Legacy’s system was brilliant, it lost a bit of that roguelike vibe, as all of the upgrades were persistent. Example: in Rogue Legacy you could unlock air dash, which then would be in your arsenal forever. This changed the game a lot, which they admittedly addressed well and incorporated into their core gamedesign with a kind of a “dynamic procedural generated difficulty”. They altered the level design to fit to your new persistent unlocks, which in that game’s design was a brilliant move, but like said, that lost a bit of that roguelike essence.

Unlocking skills and upgrades with the XP (cells).

In Dead Cells the above mentioned does not happen. Every time you die, your character is on the same base level as you always were, just like in traditional roguelikes. And in Dead Cells this is in my opinion a very good choice. Note: Some smaller base level upgrades are persistent though - for example +5% damage for the Broad Sword or two health potions instead of just one, but nothing too drastic.

Like mentioned earlier, Dead Cells also has persistent “path openers”. Once again a great move – the further you play, the more choices you’ll get by having a possibility to choose different paths. This makes it more of a “metroidvaniaesque” game.

How can I get there? Maybe via unlockable path opener?

The way the persistent features work in Dead Cells, gives a bit more forgiving feeling for the game, as well as a sense of high-level progression, again without losing the essence of roguelikes. You are not unlocking anything that would drastically change the base difficulty of the game. To me it seems like Motion Twin wanted to avoid the same scenario which was the reason for Rogue Legacy’s dynamic difficulty, as it wouldn’t probably have fitted in Dead Cells that well. Thus they made an own version of it, but with great understanding.

Another thing they’ve most probably got at least some bit of inspiration from Rogue Legacy is how the levels are generated, although there are other games from where they’ve drawn the main inspiration for this approach, like mentioned in this great article by Sebastien Benard on Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SebastienBENARD/20170329/294642/Building_the_Level_Design_of_a_procedurally_generated_Metroidvania_a_hybrid_approach.php . Reading that article also draws quite a good picture how they’ve understood their inspirations.

They use a mix of hand crafted levels and procedural generation, which is a great choice for an action platformer. This keeps the level design quality and fairness way more tightly in the hands of the developer. When you have a game, that has frantic combat and tight platforming, you don’t necessarily want to rely too much on procedural generation. Instead of that, they’ve made bunch of hand crafted templates, which are then populated, placed and altered by procedural rules. This is something that made Rogue Legacy feel really fair all the time and that is what the devs of the Dead Cells have also clearly understood when they chose this method.

ROGUELIKES

To me Dead Cells is probably the first non-standard roguelike game that really gets it – the core of what roguelikes are and why they work.

First of all, Dead Cells gets the “interconnected core design” part of roguelikes right, something I wrote about in one of my earlier articles ( http://gamedesigndeconstructed.blogspot.fi/2016/01/deconstructing-003-interconnected-core.html ). But, it also gets right what follows that interconnected core design, if executed right: great roguelikes are always games about learning. One could even say that the interconnected core design in roguelikes interconnects with the learning part.

Let’s inspect the interconnection part a bit. The guys at Motion Twin have clearly understood the same thing that my article mentioned above is about, that the loop of “permadeath – procedurally generated levels – random loot” just has to play tightly together, supporting each other, in order to make it work like a real roguelike. And this would suggest, that they’ve played the necessary amount (read: a lot) of roguelikes in order to really understand the importance of that trio of interconnection.

How Dead Cells handle the permadeath, is pretty close to how it is handled in standard roguelikes – you die, you lose everything (outside the aforementioned persistent unlocks, as well as part of your money, if you have unlocked the perk). Experience points, gear, build, progression of the current run and so on. Like in roguelikes, once you have a great build, great gear and so on, your stakes go higher. You start to see the possibility for a truly epic run. You start to play more wisely, maybe even carefully, as you don’t want to lose that setup. Simply put: you have more to lose.

But like I explain in the interconnected core design article, permadeath needs two companion gameplay features in order to really feel meaningful, just as the two other features need the permadeath. One of those is procedural generation of levels. As I already explained in the Rogue Legacy part, Dead Cells uses a kind of a “semi-procedural” generation for levels. But it is procedural enough to meet the requirements of procedural generation in order to be a meaningful companion for permadeath – you never know how your build will develop, what loot and enemies/challenges might be behind the next corner. And when you get that favourite weapon or skill of yours with a great perk, you really don’t want to lose it.

The third one of the pack, the loot system in Dead Cells is just pure brilliance. As mentioned before, you unlock the things that’ll then be added into the loot pool, and like in roguelikes, the loot drops from that pool are of course random generated. In other words when you find a loot chest, you don’t know what’s inside of it until you open it. Bad luck and it might be THE weapon/skill you just absolutely hate, with a perk you don’t like. Good luck and it’s exactly what you wanted and needed plus some awesome perk or two. This plays well together with the permadeath and the random generated levels.

A breather between areas, also a place where you can spend all those hard earned cells.

I really can’t underline how satisfactory the system for unlocking the loot is – it is simply put just brilliant. One rarer part of the loot is actually the blueprints for the loot unlocks. If you die before you can reach the end of the level you’re in at the moment you find the blueprint from, you’ll lose it (talk about adding importance into the run). If you manage to survive, it stays as a persistent unlockable. And on top of that: there are also RARE blueprints to be found.

Blueprints are definitely something you don't want to lose.

Next up there is the game of learning part, as roguelikes are always a bit unpredictable and on top of that you never can be guaranteed to get the build you would prefer. In order to be a great player, and consistently so, you are forced to learn as much about the game’s nooks as possible. This is what puts the candle on top of the cake in great roguelikes and it also does so in Dead Cells. This kind of a learning plays as a huge part of the power fantasy in roguelikes, making one to adapt into the unexpected situations with the tools that happen to be in hands, favourite or not. And when you finally do adapt, it makes you feel even more bad-ass, as you now possess even more tools to be unbeatable.

When thinking about these interconnections of systems, it is indeed very clear that Motion Twin has seriously studied the core of a "real" roguelike with a thought and then incorporated it into their game with a success.

As a bonus: there’s also one more thing that Dead Cells has very similar with many roguelikes: how it treats the high-level leveldesign. Despite of doing many things procedurally – the way there are always certain elements in the level design and art that are pretty much the same on every run. For example in Nethack or ADOM, despite of being highly procedurally generated, when it comes to level design, there are certain places, level themes and bestiary, which can always be expected to appear approximately in certain levels and possess some specific qualities. Having the high-level leveldesign be this way, it creates a firm sense of progression and sense of place, when dwelling in a procedural generated world. It can in a way even trick the player to forget the procedural nature of the game, as some things stay familiar. It is a choice that fits super well in Dead Cells as it really benefits from feeling like a full hand crafted game.

CASTLEVANIA/METROID

The games of Castlevania series are probably the first things which come into mind of most of the players, when playing Dead Cells – not only in terms of the presentation, but also in terms of the gameplay – especially when talking about the Symphony of the Night era Castlevanias. There are quite a lot of similarities in terms of movement, combat, overall gameplay and structure. Thus I’d say that this game series might’ve been the biggest influence and inspiration of all for the devs.

Symphony of the Night (SotN from now on), is THE game, that created the term “metroidvania”, as it blended the Caslevania formula into Metroid. Whereas Dead Cells isn’t necessarily the purest form of “metroidvania”, it certainly uses much of that structure as its basis. Like I said in the intro part, to me this really is THE game that’ll make me think a term “roguevania”. It just really feels like it, how it mashes up these two influences as something own.

It’s not only the post SotN Castlevanias which come into mind when playing this game. The branching nature of progression reminds of the great Dracula’s Curse. In many levels you can make decisions where to go next, just like in Dracula’s Curse. Whether to choose a bit riskier route or a safer one with less rewards, is up to the player. And one can’t forget the secondary skill system.

The way Motion Twin has evolved this branching is brilliant, as you’ll get more branching options as you progress further in the game. It keeps the new runs fresh, gives a unique feeling of progression for the player. Also the procedural nature throws its own twist of excitement on the table, as you don’t exactly know what’ll be waiting for you behind every branch, only a general idea. This procedurality of course could easily be a frustrating thing, but in this game, like in every great roguelike, it is well balanced and thus it works.

When it comes to the secondary skills, the way they incorporated it into this game and evolved it further is again just pure diamond. Whereas in Castlevania games you’ll only have one secondary weapon, in Dead Cells you have two and two main weapons on top of that, which of course adds more possibilities for strategies. But, as those are coming as random loot, they are forcing you to adapt as you’ll create the loadout. You’ll never really know how your build will end up being, which is ingenious. You can’t just always prefer some specific skill or weapon, as you might not even see those favourite things of yours during the run. For someone who hasn’t played Dead Cells, this might sound like a drag, but it really isn’t. It’s a very good design choice for this game and brings a lot of freshness into the runs. You’ll end up trying different loadouts, which can even lead to finding new favourite skills and weapons as well as strategies. I’d go as far as saying this system of forcing the player to play differently, to adapt, is the most important gameplay feature in the whole game. THIS connected to everything else, is THE revolutionary little thing, which just elevates this game to a whole another level.

The current loadout usually dictates what kind of strategy is the best solution for a challenge on hand.

As an example: I watched lately my friend playing Dead Cells and he had a whole different core strategy than I do. I usually play a bit cowardly, using a lot of skills, like firebombs, so that I try to be in a relative safety huge part of the time. My friend though, he was way more “in your face” most of the time, heading on into the crowds of enemies. In many other games, this would be how we would play it to the bitter end. But not in Dead Cells, as there will be runs, which just don’t give us the tools to use in these favourite strategies of ours. And then it’s a whole new game, a fresh one. But like said the adaptation can lead to new and more enjoyable experiences.

CLOSING WORDS

At the time this article was written, Dead Cells was still in Steam Early Access. But don’t be alerted, if Early Access is not your cup of tea, as it is sometimes handled in a very bad way. This game is one of those occasions, where the Early Access model is actually shining. The game’s nature is such, that playing it as an Early Access game won’t ruin it. It reminds me of what Dirt Rally and Broforce were in their Steam Early Access state: the core gameplay was already super tight, super fun and well polished. The audiovisuals were also something you could consider as “shippable quality”. 

Neither of those games were something that only had a glimpse of promise and nothing more. They were already games, which were super fun to play and Dead Cells is exactly on the same track. Like with Dirt Rally and Broforce, all they need to do is polish a little, balance a bit and make more content (which is pretty much what they apparently have as their plan at the moment of writing this).

This is also something that many roguelikes, like ADOM for example did way back then, when there was no concept of an Early Access game – by the time ADOM went public, it was already a very tight roguelike game, which instantly felt good. Then the subsequent updates “just” added meat, polished, balanced and so on. In a way many roguelikes were “games as services” way before that concept had any name to coin.

I’d go as far as saying, that we might be witnessing a “coming of age” of a modern classic, a game that, despite being inspired by bunch of games, will end up being one, a game that will inspire many in the future. And it is all thanks to the devs understanding what made those mechanics work in the games they were inspired of. They thus created something unique, a game that’s growing up you don’t want to miss.

You can get the game from Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/588650/Dead_Cells/