Development

This page is intended as a history of the making of Dead Cells, as well as a page to see the contributions of the different developers. It is currently a stub, but feel free to help.

Programming

The game was coded using Haxe, game’s informations (outfits, biome difficulties, mobs...) are in .json files.

The game uses Heaps engine.

Art

Carduus was responsible for the design of the Beheaded and all enemies in the game, as well as certain NPCs such as Spider Lady He designed the animations, special effects and backgrounds of the game on his own for a year, until Gwen joined the art team.

Gwen was mainly responsible for backgrounds, level design and NPCs such as the merchants and the blacksmiths and the unnamed Ghost of the challenge rifts. He also designed the chests and the Tutorial Knight. The idea behind the design of some of the NPCs, notably the merchants, was to mix goblins and chameleons.

Both Gwen and Carduus were involved in drawing marketing and promotional material.

Interviews and articles on the making of Dead Cells

• Article by Gwen explaining the approach to art in Dead Cells.
• Article by Carduus explaining how animations were done in a pixel art game with a very small team.
• Pinterest page by Carduus showing images used as references for art in Dead Cells.
• Interview with Steve to explain how weapons and skills were designed.
• Interview with deepnight explaining how early access made the game better.
• Interview with deepnight explaining how builds were balanced in early access.