Oh hey, it's the April Meowsletter... I mean Neowsletter! (This is as close to an April Fool's joke as you're gonna get from us this year.)

Thank you again for all the fantastic cover art submissions, this one is brought to you by Caleb! May's prompt is: Neow and Mother's Day flowers! It's what she deserves, being the Mother of Resurrection and all. Send them to us either in the fanart channel of our Discord[discord.gg] or via fanmail@megacrit.com, and reminder that the dimensions should be 800x450px and leave room for the title text, which we'll add!

There's still a lot of work ahead of us, but maybe because we know that things may get hectic when Early Access starts, the whole Mega Crit team (and some friends) took a trip to Japan! We've been working on Slay the Spire 2 for more than 3 years but as a hybrid-remote studio, many of our employees have never met in-person.

That's now changed! We met up in Japan to see the sights, enjoy the almost-ready cherry blossoms, take part in various traditions, karaoke, and really just hang out in a non-work environment. So much grass and moss was touched. The Ghibli Museum is quite something! With the power of okonomiyaki, Tower of the Sun, and my terrible singing, Mega Crit is considerably more powerful than before.

(Demi's note: Neow joined us on our journey, too! You can check out her little TikTok diary here[www.tiktok.com].)

Alright, enough of this human experience nonsense. Here's a sneak peak at a new way for monsters to ruin your day. Afflictions!


Those who were savvy enough to look under the hood at Slay the Spire's game code probably noticed a similar system that wasn't used... However, here they are in Slay the Spire 2! It's quite simple. A creature that wants you dead will "Afflict" some of your cards in all sorts of mean ways.

I wish I had made a cool VFX for this move...

Once your cards are promptly afflicted, you end up with something like this.

Hmm, how would you work around this conundrum?


This is Demi now, here to say hello to all our intrepid Spireologists! Thank you for all of your hypotheses of what this mystery creature could be:

So let's see which ones came the closest (or made us laugh the most)!

The award for memey-ist submission goes to GM_Whitose for this Ironclad creature!

The award for most accurate goes to WildSamich, who was actually our first submission I believe, but got the toad-like essence of the creature right away!

Though we've been receiving so many submissions that it's impossible to include them all, here are some more runner ups!

Credit in order from left to right: Niek_Alexander, grunk, syrupybug, Shep, moo_cactus, roygbic, bbron, ssorgatem, niko, Boltman, kwayan42, and U_1065.

So then, let's take a look at this creature, now that it's been unveiled...

Voila! It is a spiny toad monster of some sort! Which means hopefully the person who goes by "Frog Nuggets" who emailed us specifically to ask if there were going to be any frogs in StS2 is satisfied.

And--you guessed it--another shadowy enemy just appeared!

What could it be? What could it do?? Submit your guesses in our Discord, on socials, or via fanmail@megacrit.com, as usual!


It's Questions & Answers with Casey & Anthony! Do you have questions? We have answers! Though sometimes we withhold them because you've asked for too much. If you'd like to see your questions answered, submit them to fanmail@megacrit.com and title it like "I have a Question!" or something and be sure to provide a pen name/alias if you want to retain some anonymity. Okay, on with it!

King?? asks: Not quite related to STS 2, but I really liked the desk mats you guys released and was wondering where we can expect more STS merch in the future.
Casey: The deskmat is sold independently by our background and key art illustrator for Slay the Spire, Bruce Brenneise. In general, we're doing considerably more merch as we have a larger team but it'll likely ramp up after Early Access begins.

Braiam asks: I hope the dev cycle is going well. I have a question about game balancing and design philosophy in Slay the Spire. In the patch notes, you say that random temporary card generation (like dead branch and distraction) cannot generate healing cards. How does alchemize fit into this?
Casey: Alchemize, a card which generates potions, can be duplicated with Nightmare (which can be duplicate itself with Nightmares if you have two) and players can farm for infinite Fruit Juices if a combat could be stalled. While we encourage abusing mechanics to eke out every advantage, we try to disincentivize those which require repetitive card play.

Airank asks: Why is Deca called Deca if it is clearly an octahedron, not a decahedron?
Casey: I like being wrong on purpose sometimes. When people correct us it's a learning moment for everyone. We've done this a few times. But for this specific case it's because Octa sounds like an octopus as well. It doesn't roll off the tongue. I'd rather things be memorable than right!

Bobberation asks: If Slime Boss is green and splits into a green slime and a grey slime... where does the grey slime come from?
Casey: Well, our organs are red so maybe the Slime Boss's organs are grey. I don't know I just transcribe what the Spire asks me to.

NikkoJ asks: I was wondering if the Face Trader will be in Slay The Spire 2? If so, will there be interesting new faces to acquire? And will trading faces change the appearance of your character this time (a feature I felt should have been present in the original...)
I also found the Face Trader's appearance to be terrifying, yet strangely alluring... I think I need help!
Casey: You don't need help! I think masks are quite an engrossing concept. In fact, I've been drawing masked figures since I can remember. A long time ago, I was fascinated by an artist named R.S. Connett. He had a lot of psychedelic, disturbing, and beautiful paintings accompanied by stories of house fires, drugs, and trauma. I forget which painting now, but one had a deep fascination with masks and I, too, drew many masked figures since! Here's a 20+ year old drawing titled maskman5.jpg. This character feels kinda familiar.

As for interesting faces to acquire, not sure yet! We're still making more and more events and new mysteries every day.

baibai from China asks: Will the ascension mode be the same as that in Slay the Spire, or will it still be 20 levels of ascension, or perhaps more? Are the effects of each level of ascension the same as before?
Casey: First of all, it's always exciting to receive fanmail from outside the US! I'm happy to see global participation in our C&A. Thank you!

Ascensions will be available from Early Access and it'll be seeing some changes! It's important to ease players into the difficult world of Slay the Spire. However, whether or not we'll make tweaks or add more levels during Early Access remains to be seen.

The Bartening asks: can we see a new relic but you dont explain anything about it?
Casey: Yeah sure why not

The Dylster asks: Does the Transient like to play chess
Anthony: No

targetson. asks: Does Silent have a better starter deck?
Anthony: No


You can now live your dream of snuggling up with The Silent OR celebrate the Year of the Snecko with these brand new limited edition plushies from YouTooz! Look at them, just a couple of green, sneaky friends :'D Pre-order them today here[youtooz.com]!

And back by popular demand, Fangamer is re-launching their Slay the Spire collection[www.fangamer.com], including two very cool tees AND a cute Cultist pin which ACTUALLY MOVES ITS ARMS!! Your power is sure to be unmatched with this lil guy upon your plumage.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnNhA7vLgZ0

Did you know the Triple-i Initiative just held another showcase? While we're not participating this year, they did a fantastic job at showcasing a consortium of exciting indie game reveals, updates, and other stuff! Give your local indie devs a look and--WAIT IS THAT A KATANA ZERO DLC??? Anyways, go check it out!!


Another Slay the Spire Connections puzzle[custom-connections-game.vercel.app] is here (hopefully it's not as tricky as the last one but not too easy either... hopefully it's purr-fect!)


First of all, we'd like to highlight some of the runner ups for this month's cover image! Again, we received a LOT (thank you!!) so we're featuring as many as we reasonably can:

Credit in order from left to right: The LiliPad, nekotrapik, ICantEatThis, Amy, Alcalmy, grunk, Kirby, Arthur, Maeva, PseudoJames, pearblo, and ssorgatem.

Now for the rest of the community highlights!

The final installment (for now) in the Choose Your Own Ascension series by Alex Zapata aka boosta11b[x.com]!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml5sc8wv2jk
Another hilarious Slay the Spire song and animation by Atillion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTOvTg2crOE
Slay the Spire 2 reimagined in Unreal by 星门望天!

And that's all for this month! See you again next time, come what May!

Happy March everybody,

It's time for another Neowsletter! Wow, thank you for the March Neowsletter banner image, melohdy. It's so nice, beautiful, and featured! You too can get your art up here if you submit something through our Discord or email us your 800x450px artwork to fanmail@megacrit.com (and make sure there's no text but has room for us to add text.) It's true, only one submission can be the header... but we'll feature the rest in the Community Roundup section! Next month's theme is: Neow donning cat ears or otherwise looking catlike :3 (we have a reason okay, trust us).

This is a wild month because a lot of us are playing Monster Hunter: Wilds, but outside of this bad joke, development progresses at a good pace. Okay, let's show off a new thing. Behold...


Slay the Spire 2 is... an RPG? No! However, we're adding a new type of card called Quests. Obtain these rare cards and fulfill their requirements and you will be greatly rewarded. Each quest is quite different from one another but we hope you get to encounter every one of them :).

Quest cards look quite different from regular cards; when do they show up?

New friend acquired!

Okay, that was quite exhilarating.


We started a TikTok[www.tiktok.com] page?? Channel? There will be more videos and insights into various Slay the Spire and Mega Crit things there! These "Shorts" will also be brought over to the Mega Crit YouTube channel. If a variety of vertical videos about little details, previews, or meme things appeal to you- then good news for you, go to these links to subscribe, get notified, follow, like, thumbs up, etc etc. I should have had Demi (our Community Manager) summarize this portion. Too late now.

(Demi's note: That about sums it up lol, thank you Casey! By the way, here's a sneak peek of our sneak peeks, featuring our art director Marlowe posing as her own reference for Ironclad!)


It's always fun to look at how games are made and it was fun AND nostalgic to see a documentary for Slay the Spire 1's production. I helped gather bits of art, video, and info for this documentary and if you wanted to dive a bit more into the making of the game, then it's a great video to look through with some exclusive archival footage 👀!


Demi here! We tasked you, our Spireologists, with determining last month's mystery creature and WOW did a lot of you come through this time! While it was hard to choose which ones to shout out, we did manage to curate them a bit...

The award for most funny/absurd guess goes to annyamako for this unholy amalgam of StS1 elites!

The award for most accurate guess goes to ssorgatem... again?? The color scheme even matches and everything... it's ok if you've hacked us you can tell us <3

The bonus cool factor award goes to torgomind, who animated their (creepily cool) guess!

And here's a collage of our runner ups! Everyone's so creative <3

Credit in order from left to right: Copper, Trutru1002, FireworkPolymer, ExampleNote, indecks, CeciliaCrow, Seilgrank, Fire Tonyno, Niek_Alexander, LordOverflow, Badine, alexrinehart

So let's see what this little guy really looks like...

Phew, now that's settled! I'm sure there are no more shadowy monsters lurking nearby wAIT A MINUTE--what's this??

Looks like we need your hypotheses yet again! You can submit them via the fanart channel in our Discord[discord.gg], fanmail@megacrit.com, or tag us on social media!


It's time for us to answer more questions from you, yes... YOU! As a reminder, you can submit your questions to us via Discord during a short window near the end of each month or via fanmail@megacrit.com at any time (just be sure to specify an alias if you choose to send us an email or we'll list you as anonymous.)

Tekamania asks: Will there be any interesting start of run features?
Casey: Yes, many features at the start of the run :). While there are a few changes to the start of the run we can't talk about, Neow will be returning to help our heroes make it to the top with new and old blessings.

foxpile asks: What's your favorite sound in the game? (anything from the first or anything new from the second!)
Casey: Probably the death stinger. It's quite poetic for me.

Kirbstar asks: Are there any QOL changes of note?
Casey: Yes, you can view the turn number, current floor info, access to card/relic/etc information mid-run, things you can't do tend to wiggle and turn red more often, and so forth!

bobtheblob02 asks: How much larger will the game be compared to the original?
Casey: Like 300mb or so. For a more serious answer, we're launching Slay the Spire 2 with more "countable" content than the first game but we're also launching with new ✨Features✨.

forq asks: how many calories are in the ice cream relic
Casey: You can't actually eat the ice cream. Having it in your possession gives you its powers... The anticipation of eating the ice cream is the source of its power. But in terms of calories, a lot of course. It's full fat ice cream, not froyo.

Chief Bart asks: Are there going to be more food related enemies/events like Donu
Casey: Donu is not a food-related enemy... Donu is a Toric Construct named after a beloved fried pastry. Related, that one guy asks: What flavored donut is Donu? The answer is bronze. All of the constructs are bronze. Donu and Deca are painted as they're decorated Grand Constructs.

linh asks: will the game get released on nintendo switch too ?
Casey: I hope so! We'll definitely be optimizing the game enough to run on the Nintendo Switch. Porting work is happening during Early Access so nothing is set in stone yet.

SRabbelier asks: Have the slayers been resurrected much in the past 1000 years since STS 1, or are they coming back after a break?
Casey: I see you fishin' for spoilers

Gosha Plusha asks: Will there be a STS 2 card or board game released?
Casey: If there's enough interest! I'd like to focus more of our time on it so we likely won't be shooting for a simul release or anything for this.

Verdego asks: If you had to describe a yet-to-be-revealed feature in one word, what word would that be?
Casey: Stars

Guest Of Unhonour asks: Could we learn one guarenteed, for sure returning event npc?
Casey: The Merchant is back. The Merchant is eternal.

LizzardWizzard asks: Will the baby companion snecko item/event return (he's my favorite)?
Casey: What

gooseph asks: Probably a completely irrelevant question, BUT -- compatibility between workshop mods for STS1 with STS2? Or, will it be easy for that to 'work?'
Casey: Compatibility is impossible between sts1 and sts2 as it's a separate game engine. Sorry!

untitled_goose asks: Will a modded launcher be a part of the base game or will it be something made by the community like it is now?
Casey: We do want there to be in-game integration but haven't done it yet soooo- tbd.

Boraborawayhay(4xA20H) asks: Which card name, from either game, is your favourite?
Casey: Ascender's Bane. Its name makes a lot of sense; what a good name it is.

imgamg asks: A couple years ago, Casey posted this picture clarifying what Deca looks like from behind, but unfortunately it still remains somewhat ambiguous. Are Deca’s cheeks square pyramidal (making Deca a hexadecahedron) or are they more triangular (making Deca a tetradecahedron)? Hopefully this can be resolved before STS2 releases.
Casey: I... uh..

Drake Waffle asks: Can StS 2 come to the Wii U?
Anthony: No

BatZach asks: can i use feed on defect in sts2?
Anthony: No


Demi here again! ICYMI: the {LINK REMOVED}Artovision x Slay the Spire collection dropped last month, so if you want some beautiful, three-dimensional Spire swag for your desk or your wall go check it out!! Yes the collection is currently missing the Defect, but rumor has it the demand for him may be filled! In terms of desktop art, of course. Sorry to the people who are ctrl-F searching for other Defect news.

And in other exciting, feathery news...

CAW-CAAW!! Your power will be unmatched with your very own Cultist plushie[www.makeship.com] from Makeship by your side!! Perfect for cozying up with or for performing sacred rites in worship of the crow god Mazaleth with, no nest is complete without a Cultist plush in your flock! Ritual Dagger not included. Make sure to join the flock soon though, as this limited edition campaign is only live for less than 3 more weeks!!


If you are a fan of roguelike deckbuilders (which I hope you are, if you're reading this) and are looking to try another icon of the genre, now is the perfect time! For a limited time only, Slay the Spire and Monster Train are bundled together--so if you already own Slay the Spire you get 10% off of Monster Train! Also be sure to check out the Monster Train 2 demo!!


We hope this month's Slay the Spire Connections[custom-connections-game.vercel.app] puts a little extra Spring in your step ^-^


First up, we want to shout out the other lovely submissions for March's Neowsletter cover!

by grunk

by Ansi

by Georgia

And last but not least, here are some other incredible fanworks from the past month!

A series of beautiful character redesigns by JustOzzy[www.instagram.com]

An incredible pixel animation of Necrobinder and Osty by var1egated[x.com]

Part of a series of really cute, sticker-worthy StS illustrations by haiqiebulasjie[x.com]

That's all for this month's Neowsletter; see you again when we March onward into April!

Winter has arrived in Seattle❄️... in February!

While it's intermittently snowing, it is not sticking. Pft, typical Seattle weather (please don't actually snow too much, I don't have time to shovel the driveway). Did you hear the news that a Nintendo Switch 2 is coming?? Expect an email from us, Nintendo :)


We're back on the work wagon after our nice restful break. We're spending the early part of this year ensuring that a handful of major experimental features are good for Early Access. They won't be featured in this month's Neowsletter but let's take a look at another feature some of you may have already noticed.


In Slay the Spire 2, you may run into a new modifier to your cards called Enchantments. As probably surmised from the name, enchantments are modifiers to cards in your deck which are applied for the duration of that run! While the majority of common Enchantments will give you a slight edge here and there, the more meaningful and potentially run-defining Enchantments can be discovered in rare Events and things like REDACTEDs throughout the game.

Enchanted cards have a little icon and additional effects are added to the card in purple.


You may have heard by now... but THE DEFECT AND THE WATCHER ARE BACK!! In figure form :) Last week the second part of the YouTooz x Slay the Spire collection[youtooz.com] dropped, meaning you can now complete your own collection with figures of all 4 heroes!! We don't recommend putting them in your mouth as some fans have expressed the desire to do, but hey, we don't judge.

In some newer news, you will soon be able to ascend to the status of True Gamer with some peripherals that Slay! Namely, these keyboards, keycaps, and deskmats by MKRO & Infinikey[ifk-slaythespire-shop.fourthwall.com], each themed around a different hero of the Spire so you can rep your main AND have some StS swag right at the tip of your fingers. The collection launches this Friday, February 14th, so remember to check it out and grab the ultimate Valentine for yourself or that special Slayer in your life ❤️


Last month we tasked you, dear readers, with illustrating your hypotheses as to what this ~shadowy~ creature could be. So, Spireologists, let's see what you've come up with...

The award for funniest guess goes to Kodiak_Krew, who created a particularly defective-looking abomination charming creature :) We appreciate the wishful thinking!!

And the award for most accurate guess goes to ssorgatem, who imagined our mystery monster as a Jaw Worm-like creature! And it's... kind of scary how accurate it is actually. Either you are living in our walls or you're just particularly talented at clocking our tea.

Though we couldn't feature them all here, thank you for all of your (often cursed) contributions!! It seems we are finally able to lift the veil and see what our friend actually looks like:

Ah yes, why it's a Nibbit! A feisty little monster you'll see often in the Spire.

But what's this? Another wild shadow has appeared! What could it be?? Just like last time, post your artistic theories on Discord, Reddit, Twitter, Bluesky, etc, and we'll feature the most accurate--and most amusing--submissions in next month's Neowsletter!


Hello everyone, yet another new section to the Neowsletter has been added (do we need to cut some sections?). This is 🥁... Questions & Answers with Casey & Anthony! Myself (Casey) and Anthony (other co-founder/designer) will be picking and answering a handful of your burning questions to answer each month, as well as the occasional guest. Let's get right into it.

Harribo asks: What did you learn from making Dancing Duelists and how did those lessons manifest in StS 2?
Casey: Excellent question! For those not in the know, we released Dancing Duelists[megacrit.itch.io], a deckbuilding autobattler game jam game in October 2023. Slay the Spire 2 wasn't yet announced, and we were considering an engine switch for a host of reasons. Made in 3 weeks in the Godot Engine, which none of us have developed in before, it was a technical exploration to assess the viability of switching from the Unity Engine to Godot. I guess we learned that Godot seems like a viable game engine! But for more details around the situation and learnings from that project I published a blog post[caseyyano.com] on the topic around the time Dancing Duelists was completed.

oblivionsweet asks: Will Clash return in sts 2?
Anthony: No

Keystone asks: What does Enchant mean?
Casey: Oh right, we haven't explained this yet. Well now it's been answered above!

Will asks: Will there be a 'sell' feature at the Merchant in StS2?
Anthony: No

Cosmosis asks: Can we know more about the pumpkin looking guy? He sparks my branium
Casey: No, but soon

Mage Ferago asks: How is music design involved with the development of the game? For example, is a boss's design created first, and the music track made based on its vibe? Is it any different for making music for rooms/acts? Additionally, why does the Merchant's theme in the full OST have a huge portion that isn't used in game?
Clark, our composer: In my book, music is support and serves the gameplay, so I’m absolutely looking for ways to write the soundtrack based on the vibe of the boss, environment, etc… A good example of this’d be the Corrupt Heart boss fight from Slay the Spire, where the music had pulsating heart-beat motifs to echo the boss’s design. In Slay the Spire 2, I’m aiming to take that a step further with dynamic music to have the music adapt as the gameplay and situations you find yourself in change.

In the differences between the Acts music and Boss fight music, at its most broad, it’s a feeling of intensity and scale. I’ve definitely died enough to enemies while moving up the map, so the threat level needs to feel present as you’re climbing, but when you reach the Boss, that threat level needs feel amped up. That amping up can be found in the orchestration, harmonies, tempo, and restating motifs found in the main Act music in new ways.

As you'll have seen in the gameplay trailer, the Merchant is back with some lovely new digs, so you can expect new arrangements of that extended version on all your shopping sprees this time around.

---

That's all for this month! We used to have this section in our Discord server but felt that choosing the top questions we receive and answering them here would be better. If you wish to submit questions for next month's Neowsletter, post it in the #ask-the-devs channel in our Discord or shoot us an email at fanmail@megacrit.com with the Subject: Question for Casey and Anthony or something similar. Be sure to include an alias!


And now, it's time for us to show our ~love~ for you all with this month's Slay the Spire Connections puzzle[custom-connections-game.vercel.app]! ❤️


A lovely illustration of the Slay the Spire 2 gang by MagusOfArc / @inanitasDei4[x.com]

Some beautiful Year of the Snecko envelopes made by GM_Whitose

The latest (and coziest) ModTheSpire anniversary project by our incredible modding community, Spire Cafe

Needless to say we have a LOT of talented artists in our community--and we've got another way to showcase that! If you would like your own art featured as the Neowsletter's cover image next month, submit it to us either via our Discord[discord.gg] or fanmail@megacrit.com by Friday, March 7. The image must contain no text (since we localize the covers) but should have room for the title & issue text to be added, and the dimensions must be 800x450px. We can only choose one submission of course, but if people like the idea we'll continue it for future issues going forward! The March Neowsletter cover image prompt is: "Neow admiring the cherry blossoms."


I've added a little section here to say that we're still slowly onboarding translators for the Neowsletter and eventually the game! The following languages currently have translators: French, German, Korean, Russian, and Simplified Chinese.

While positions for these languages have been filled, we might require more work or have other opportunities in the future. If that happens, we encourage you to apply again at that time.

For the languages that do not yet have translators, thank you for your patience- I'm very slow here and will hopefully be able to get more translators 🐌. But wanted to make sure that the filled positions are known publicly.

Again, thank you for all who have applied and I hope you enjoy Slay the Spire 2 when it's out!

Phew, that was our longest Neowsletter yet, hope it makes up for the last couple of shorter issues! See you in the next one!

Happy New Year everyone 🎉

Some of you keen-eyed players are aware that we're launching Slay the Spire 2 into Early Access this year! The rumors are true, we're still on track to release. But what day? What month?? Well, we can't say for sure yet. More news will follow sometime this year. If you want to stay up-to-date you can get the Neowsletter straight to your inbox by signing up on our website[megacrit.com]. But you can also get notified on Steam, Twitter/X, and Bluesky[bsky.app]!

For those who missed the gameplay trailer, you can view it right here by clicking that play button. We have the technology 🤖.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttVtllHkb4E
I know we brought it up already but we worked hard on it, okay?


We took a nice break during the second half of December so there isn't too much news to share, but if you have any burning questions that aren't covered in our FAQ[www.megacrit.com], then you can visit the Slay the Spire Official Discord[discord.com] and ask away in our #ask-the-devs channel where I'll personally refuse to answer your spoiler-related questions :)


We were on break for some of December so I didn't prepare anything new to highlight. We worked on a trailer the last few months anyways. Here, have this nice screengrab of the main menu background.


This is the part where our Spireologists would normally tease a new enemy, but it seems that a strange pall has fallen over the Spire and the monsters are now ~shadows~ of their former selves! Our research indicates that this enemy in particular will become unobscured by next month, but in the meantime we would appreciate any predictive depictions and/or descriptions for our records. Post your artistic theories (regardless of skill level!) on Discord, Reddit, Twitter, Bluesky, etc, and we'll feature the most accurate--and most amusing--submissions in next month's Neowsletter! Something tells us that another mysterious creature will be in need of unveiling by then…


And now the moment you’ve all REALLY been waiting for… this month’s Slay the Spire Connections puzzle[custom-connections-game.vercel.app]! You’re welcome!


Thank you to everyone who showed your Critmas spirit last month with art, crafts, decorations, custom cards, and even cooking! Here are a few of our favorite festive fan submissions…

An adorable, pixel-y illustration of Osty lending The Necrobinder a helping hand with decorating their tree by @boysensyrup[bsky.app]

Another adorable illustration of a different, mysterious new character enjoying the holiday season by @chizifsd[x.com]

Delicious-looking holiday cookie art of some Slay the Spire icons by Pebble on Discord

That’s all for this month’s Neowsletter, but we’ll be back soon for February’s edition!

You didn’t think yesterday’s Neowsletter was *all* we had for you, did you? ;)

It’s been 1000 years since the Spire last opened its doors… and since we first announced that Slay the Spire 2 was in development! At long last, the gameplay reveal for the sequel to the original, iconic roguelike deckbuilder is here, as revealed earlier today at The Game Awards.

Step into the newly evolved Spire, a twisted labyrinth teeming with strange and deadly foes. With a new and returning cast of characters, adapt to an arsenal of brand new cards, relics, and potions, each offering game-changing possibilities—or dangerous consequences.

What new strategies and challenges await…?

Looking for even more ways to get Slay the Spire 2 updates? Join the flock:

• Twitter
  
• Bluesky[https//https]
  
• Discord[discord.gg]

Let us all welcome winter in this month's Neowsletter! *applause* An end-of-year wrap-up seems appropriate so let's keep it simple and focus on that. Still, looking back at all the work which was accomplished by the team is a good reminder that yes, things are happening. Progress is being made. I have confidence that a beautiful video game will be spawned into the universe soon. ✨

• Announced Slay the Spire 2 to the world via an animated trailer during the Triple-i Initiative. Many thanks to Evil Empire for the opportunity.
  
• Many copies of Slay the Spire: The Board Game were shipped out :). Great job, Contention Games!
  
• Started The Neowsletter, what you're reading right now! A lot of extras like the fan art and upcoming merch are handled by our community manager Demi, thank you!
  
• Worked with other game devs to set up bundles and great discounts, thank you to the IndieBI team.
  
• Lots of new merch this year with a lot of collaboration with Makeship and The Yetee.
  
• Hired one more person, hooray team growth!
  
• Fully migrated engine for Slay the Spire 2 and made significant progress. Great work, Mega Crit dev team.

That was a lot of thanking! I guess this is actually the Thanksgiving Neowsletter. 🦃

Because so much of our work isn't yet publicly available, we can't give a deeper recap until next year. Something to look forward to in next year's December Neowsletter!


We recently topped 1 million wishlists on Steam and it's maddening to see so much faith in the sequel and us as a company. The only way for us to thank you is to do our best every day and make a good video game so that's what we'll keep doing next year.

It's truly a privilege for us to be independent game developers and I'd like to keep saying, "I make video games for a living." As a thank you, I drew a celebratory Cultist. Please enjoy.


When working on sequels we ask ourselves how we can introduce new and creative ways for you to die horrifically and we whispered, "...what about bees?"


Demi here, bringing good tidings: Mega Crit-mas is back!! For those of you who weren’t around last year, this is your opportunity to spread some holiday-themed Slay the Spire cheer. Tag us on Twitter[x.com] or Bluesky[bsky.app] with any original festive fan creation, be it art, writing, mods, a video, some Spire-y holiday decorations, etc, and we just might spread the cheer, too! AND if you share your work in the event channel on our Discord[discord.gg], you’ll get an exclusive role to wear with honor throughout the season!

And no holiday ambience is complete without the official Slay the Spire Yule Log, featuring some cheerful renditions of classic StS boss themes to accompany the crackling rest site flames!

And one last plug: if you’re looking for some last-minute gift ideas, you can always check our site’s merch page[megacrit.com]!


*Merchant voice* Ho ho ho! This month brings a more festive (though hopefully still somewhat fiendish) Slay the Spire Connections puzzle[custom-connections-game.vercel.app]!


Gorgeous pixel art of The Defect channeling his own inner artist by
@boysensyrup[bsky.app]

An amazing illustration of The Defect in a Hades-inspired style by https://www.instagram.com/coryharris.jpg

Another incredible pixel version of Slay the Spire that we wish we could play, this time by @aspabot[aspabot.com]

Happy holidays from everyone at Mega Crit to you! Be sure to tune in next year for the next Neowsletter :)

It's the November Neowsletter!

Unsurprisingly, work continues on Slay the Spire 2. Though we're not quite ready to reveal gameplay footage yet, let's have a sneak peek at some quality of life and UI changes that come with StS2. Do keep in mind that the Early Access release is still a bit off (it's not going to be released January 1, 2025). Any screenshots and the contents within are a work in progress.


Okay, so it sounds obvious, but rare things should be shiny! Working in a fancier game engine allows us to make effects easier so that's been fun. VFX work is behind as it's lower priority and rarely introduces bugs (we tend to work on scarier/buggier things first) but I felt inspired ✨.

I warned you about work in progress; these two new cards have already been reworked...


One day, I tried playing Slay the Spire on my phone and it was hard to click on the little icons on the map. Differentiating some of the room types was also quite hard on these tiny screens. As I don't play video games on the phone, I wasn't aware of this... until now (or about 4 years ago, to be exact). So we slapped some color on there and bumped up the size of the icons.

There's a Colored Map mod for Slay the Spire 1. Somebody showed me that you can also draw on maps and I said, “That's a fun idea. Let's steal it.” That's right modders, that's what you get for not filing Game Mechanic Patents (that is a joke, don't actually do that).


Sure, this is in the screenshots of the game but there are some small changes here. The height of the bar has gone from 64px -> 80px. That's a 25% increase in hitbox size for things in the top bar, making it easier to select potions, open the map, etc. We also made it less wordy. Goodbye names, people were censoring their names in screenshots anyways. We like privacy too! There will be more things in this top area but for now, keeping it nice and roomy feels good. Oh oops, let's censor these relics for now…

The icon next to the stair icon indicates what type of room you're in


A nice little pop-up to let you know what run you'll be continuing! Neato.


This month we show off a cute little gummy bear looking creature. How adorable :). We hope everyone will love this cutie. Definitely not an enemy that will upset you in the future.


We're starting to onboard some translators but it's been a bit slow as it's the season of sickness. Apologies for the lack of response to many of you. The amount of responses to the localization sign up form has been quite a lot more than expected. This has been great, but a lot of work. I'm trying my best! As some non-English speakers will notice–this Neowsletter is translated on Steam! Wahoo!! How do you translate "Wahoo"?

Also, we're also getting some translations of our previous Neowsletter up as well :). If that's been helpful do let us know, even if we can't read your comments (lol).


Ok, now Demi’s section begins! First things first, we’ve got some big merch drops to tell you all about!

This plushie of The Champ may be tiny, but he is also MIGHTY!! He’s also VERY limited edition; there’s less than a week left on the campaign, so be sure to grab your own from Makeship here[www.makeship.com] before November 12!

Also, The Yetee recently released a bunch of stickers, including sticker sheets of EVERY relic in the game and some very boss-looking boss stickers! And (as their namesake would imply) the drop also includes a t-shirt, featuring Neow and the Corrupt Heart in a metal concert tee style! Get your hands on these and lots of other items from our Yetee collection here[theyetee.com].


Another Neowletter, another Slay the Spire Connections puzzle[custom-connections-game.vercel.app]! Last month’s was on the easier side, so let’s see if we can up the difficulty rating a little with this one…


If you tuned in last month, you’d know that we just held our annual Mega Crit-or-Treat event! We got LOTS of spooky submissions via Discord[discord.gg] and Twitter[x.com], and while we couldn’t possibly show them all, here are just some of the highlights of what our community created last month!

Another resplendent rendition of The Ironclad in his fiery, spooky Demon Form by @JoQuerol[x.com]

A very cute illustration of a Halloween costume party at the Spire by @chizifsd[x.com]

A super detailed Ironclad cosplay, featuring a belt of homebrewed potions and glowing eyes by TheGuyFromThatThing

That’s it for this Neowsletter, tune in next month for more details on this year’s Mega Critmas event and, as always, more behind-the-scenes looks at Slay the Spire 2’s development!

Happy spooky month everybody :)

As fall descends upon us and I'm eating strange mushrooms found in the forest, we're still hard at work on Slay the Spire 2. This month, let's touch on the art direction and how we're planning on changing things up when working on our sequel. But first, a brief progress update.


September was a festive month as some of us got together to meet in Seattle, WA during PAX West. However, this meant that everyone got COVID so I'm not sure if that was worth it. Three of us work out of an office and we're moving offices. Only a mile away, but a move is a move.

Besides those drawbacks, we're still focused on getting core content into the game. Content like REDACTED and also REDACTED. There have also been significant changes to REDACTED. Interestingly enough, we implemented in-game patch notes so you'll be able to visit the archive of changes one day! All of our secrets and development pacing will be revealed.

Now that a lot of the tools for our trailer editor is complete, there's clean up happening for our core VFX.


Last month we discussed why we're working on a sequel instead of adding on to Slay the Spire 1 and this week we're diving into the visual changes we're bringing in! While we hinted at this topic briefly in the past Neowsletter, let's look into what the problems were with the visual style. The first and most important one was that I'm (Casey) bad at art. Now, being bad at art doesn't necessarily mean bad at drawing or having poor taste. It's that I haven't spent enough time in my life to cleanly translate what I'm imagining onto paper. It's a frustrating experience trying to capture a “damned knight powered by demonic energy” as a sprite in a video game. In the end, I gave up on the Ironclad. That's correct–the Ironclad you see today in Slay the Spire 1 is a character I gave up working on.

Various ideas, poses, concepts, etc. Plus a bonus resting Ironclad shot!

After 3 - 4 weeks total of on and off ideating, drawing, redrawing, sketching, etc. I drew a character in a pose that I liked thinking it would give me better ideas. Those with a keen eye probably realized that the Ironclad has the same pose as Hakumen from the BlazBlue series. I found this character with a long thin blade with weighty attacks so cool (he's my main)! On top of this, the faceless nature of the character and this posture was really menacing. I sketched out a character that felt like it would fit in the world of Slay the Spire in this same pose. It was supposed to be a “This is the feeling I want! Hopefully an artist redraws this later.” but ended up being the final sprite so it felt a little unoriginal due to the pose :(. Still, I'm happy with the outfit and color scheme.

After I had a character with the right feel, now I had to animate it as well? This was daunting, as there was a lot of other work to do (like programming). Already frustrated with how much time was spent on the Ironclad, I decided he can just elbow strike the enemy.

In the end I didn't use this sprite. The irony...

The Silent's concept came to me much quicker. But it still took a long time to draw the sprites that exist for her and animating what I drew was also out of the question for my technical ability. A scary skeleton donning assassin. If you can see anything but her cape, it's probably because you've been assassinated. Very cool concept. Great job, Casey. Now give her a wobbly knife because wobbly knives are scary (Kris Dagger).

The little purple knife was a placeholder. Also, the pose makes no sense.

A lot of the art for the Ironclad, Silent, and other humanoid enemies didn't read well to a lot of people due to the size of the sprites on screen and my lack of experience here. There were misunderstandings on what a character was doing. How they were standing. How they are holding something. Whether they were supposed to look happy or angry even.

After all of this, I ended up drawing considerably less humanoid characters into the game. This in turn made me incorporate less narrative mechanics. A lot of intrigue and power struggles tend to occur between humanoid races for a reason; we're able to relate more to things that are human than the foreign or abstract. You can see remnants of this from the existence of other humanoid adventurers, slavers, thieves, and so forth! As the game's fun was found in the deckbuilding and core game loop, this felt like an opportunity to reduce the game's scope and rescind a lot of the narrative and story elements which were loosely planned. Today, I ask myself, “But what if those limitations were gone? Hmm...”


A visual representation of Mega Crit and Marlowe Dobbe coming together, featuring The Silent from Slay the Spire and The Thief from Dicey Dungeons, which Marlowe was the artist for.

While a lot of my time post-release and during the pandemic was spent on improving my artistic abilities, learning bass guitar, and making various game prototypes in Unity, I also knew there would be too much work for me to be the primary on all things visual if we were to do a sequel. I wanted an “Art Person” who could draw small things that were clear and concise while also inviting playfulness, creativity, and expressiveness. I emailed a bunch of industry friends to see if they knew anybody interested in such a job and we talked a great deal (is this an interview?) and brought her onboard as Art Director. Welcome, Marlowe (3 years ago that is)!

We've been working together for the majority of the project and we continue to hone the visual identity of Slay the Spire 2 based on what I think, what Marlowe thinks, what the rest of our team thinks, and what our internal playtesters think. There's a lot of thinking overall.

Our style and philosophy is merging together and I'm always pushing for UX snappiness and speed while ensuring that the game's vibes don't stray from the original. On top of this, we've also hired a full-time animator, Chris Gortz, and Slay the Spire 1's card and event illustrator, Anailis Dorta (see our full team here: https://megacrit.com/about/). Working together for a long time allows us to mind meld and I think the harmony you'll see in the game is a sight to behold!


If I were forced to make a bulleted list of high level changes, it would look something like this:

• Playful:While we still retain some dark themes, the tone is more playful through its visual language and world.
  
• Crisp:Creatures, items, cards, backgrounds are all a bit more crisp, as the style is less painterly.
  
• Liveliness:Considerably more animations and transitions make the game feel livelier.
  
• Cinematic:More whole-screen art stuff. Compared to before, this makes the game feel more epic rather than intimate.
  
• Colorfuler:Everything is more colorful! This improves the legibility of various screens as well.

Working on developing the visual style for Slay the Spire 2 has been a really interesting and unique challenge that I’m unsure I’ll ever get to experience again as a game developer. Coming into work on a sequel of a very beloved game has a whole new set of rules from working on a new concept or property. While we want to update the visuals and make it feel new and fresh, we also want to ride that line of it being recognizable as the Slay the Spire world.

Some early explorations for The Silent for StS2. Perhaps there is a universe in which we ended up going in this more cartoony direction.

Myself and the art team have done what I can only describe as visually dissecting what parts made up the vibe of Slay the Spire 1. What motifs, repeating visuals, creatures, races, architecture, etc. all add up to the unique, kind-of-creepy-but-kind-of-fun energy of the first game. We’re all big fans of the first installment and I at least have spent an embarrassing amount of my time playing it. When I’m approaching it as a fan and also someone in charge of steering the visuals of the sequel, you start to pick up on things like “yeah there’s not a lot of uncovered faces in Slay the Spire 1, this character we’re working on wouldn’t fit cause you see too much of their face.” or “This is a cool monster, but is it WEIRD enough?” (I have spent a lot of time iterating on enemy designs to make them weirder.)

In the end, our goal is to make it feel bigger than the first game with new sets, new characters and enemies, more full-screen-art, way more animation, and a LOT of VFX (insert sparkles and fire and sparks here.) Of course it’ll look different and new, but I think it’s going to be a place that old and new StS players will feel comfortable and familiar in!

And in the ~spirit~ of the season, here’s a spooky StS2 sneak peek…

oooOooOoo it’s a new, ghostly, knight-looking enemy…


As we've started posting the Neowsletter on Steam, our viewership has increased significantly. It may be time to start translating these announcements... If you have worked on Slay the Spire translations in the past and/or interested in translating announcements, please contact devs@megacrit.com or DM me on Discord @caseyyano. As an FYI: We're not yet starting on STS2 translations.


Our art director Marlowe’s own beautiful Cultist-themed pumpkin carving from last Halloween.

........BOO!!! Hey, it’s Demi the Community Manager now–did I scare ya?! In any case, it's spooky season again, and you (might) know what that means: Mega Crit-or-Treat is back from the dead!

For those who don't know, last year we held the first annual Mega Crit-or-Treat event, where the community was encouraged to share any Halloween-themed Slay the Spire content, be it drawn, written, modded, cosplayed, cooked, carved, crocheted, interpretively danced, whatever! And this year we're doing it all again, this time with a new prize for participants!

From now until Sunday, November 3, post your beautiful and/or terrifying creations in our Discord server[discord.gg] and we will bestow upon you a treat: the limited time Creepy Cultist role!

If you want to join in on the frightening festivities but don't know where to begin, check out these {LINK REMOVED}official StS pumpkin carving stencils made by our art director (and honorary Mayor of Halloween) Marlowe!

Also, if you post any spooky Spire content on Twitter or Bluesky, be sure to spread the eerie cheer by tagging us @MegaCrit!


Since so many of you enjoyed the last one, we’ve got another official unofficial Slay the Spire Connections puzzle[custom-connections-game.vercel.app] this month! Having a regular puzzle section almost makes this feel like a real publication, huh?

This one may be slightly easier but, hey, it’s also slightly spookier too so it balances out maybe.


And, as always, let’s close this out with some of our community’s wonderful creations from the past month:

A beautifully composed poster of the Spire’s many inhabitants by @h0lysarthole[x.com]

A big, beautiful, beefy Demon Form Ironclad by @ultimatept0812[x.com]

A hilariously animated and insanely catchy song by Finger Pickin Good

Wow, you made it to the end of this month’s Neowsletter! See you in the next issue, Slayers!

New month, new Neowsletter :)

As all of us at Mega Crit are hard at work on Slay the Spire 2, we figured we’d start shifting these posts towards news about the game.

Starting this issue, we're also posting on Steam! If you're reading this on Steam, know that on our new and updated website[megacrit.com] you can sign up to receive these monthly Neowsletters straight into your email inbox (if that's your preference).

Okay, on with it!


Most of the team is hard at work making the game better while I slack off and write this announcement. Speaking of announcements, we're working on something called a "Gameplay Trailer". Hopefully, we'll be able to show it off this year, but if not— I apologize! Trailer-making is not really our forte but we've enlisted some help to make sure that everyone gets to see a lot of exciting gameplay soon enough.

In the development department, we've been running private playtests for about 4 months now and the game has been ported to Godot and stabilized. Currently, our core focus is on adding more content so the game is packed full of interesting enemies, choices, and the silliest of situations.

In parallel, we've been improving performance and increasing compatibility on a wide range of devices (at least for our desktop release). We have high confidence that we'll be entering Early Access with a PC, MacOS, and Steam Deck(tm) compatible build. Yes, Linux is also likely. We see you! There are currently no plans for Slay the Spire 2 to run on VR/XR/AR or any other R-ending piece of hardware on Early Access launch. I'm sure nobody is surprised by this news but that's okay.


This is a question we get often and I'm happy to answer! Why are you working on a sequel? Why not expand Slay the Spire instead? Let's get into it!

For those not in the know, the first Slay the Spire was developed over 2.5 years before we hit Early Access. Myself (Casey Yano) and Anthony were programming, designing, and arting (this is the official term for making art in video games). We enlisted the help from a handful of contractors to polish up the rough edges and hide some of our shortcomings. This was done by various illustrators, animators, trailer editors, and of course our composer, Clark Aboud who's been with us the whole way and now Slay the Spire 2!

It's difficult to fully explain how quickly and chaotically we scrapped together Slay the Spire. There's no guarantee that any indie game with no reputation will sell more than 10,000 copies. Spending time writing clean, editable, and maintainable code for such a project seemed foolish. Commented code was sparse, issues were hastily patched, systems were cut or completely redone often. This happens in games with exploratory game mechanics. Big shocker!

On top of this, only about half of my time was spent programming the game, with the rest spent in technical art, QA (my former job!), UX design, and writing things like this. Strangely, writing blogs comes the most naturally to me. It's not beautiful prose but I enjoy the process.

With this in mind, I'll fire off some quick bullet points to the "Why a Sequel?" question:

• Undoing many of my sins in the codebase
  
• Cleaner and more expandable architecture
  
• Improving the game's performance so we can add more stuff
  
• Migrated to a higher compatibility game engine
  
• Forming and growing a team to avoid working 60+ hours for 5 years straight
  
• Giving the game a visual refresh (Art and UI)
  
• Experimenting with various mechanics we always wanted to
  
• New Stuff

This last point, New Stuff is really important. Games aren't a list of game mechanics and features. The design of content, pacing, balance, story beats, unique characters, and various things come together to make a one of a kind experience! Otherwise, there would be no reason to play any sequel ever. I think we all know this intrinsically, yet a lot of players can't seem to accept this. I think skepticism is healthy, but I abhor the cynicism. It's too much. Get a hold of yourselves, cynics.

The visual refresh is also really important! We're still filling out the backgrounds and haven't incorporated ambient effects but... I would feel remiss not including something...

(Teaser of a silly fellow with an orby lookin’ head.)

Do note that I'm trying to compress 4 hours of ranting into a handful of paragraphs. For your burning non-spoiler inducing questions, you're always free to ask us questions at our Official Discord Server[discord.gg] where we have an #ask-the-devs channel!

In case you missed it, answers to common questions can be found at our FAQ[megacrit.com].


If you haven’t yet nabbed a copy of Slay the Spire: The Board Game, another round of pre-orders are open now[contentiongames.myshopify.com] and will ship in October!

Contention Games will also be at https://tabletop.events/conventions/bgg.con-2024 from November 13-17 where they’ll be running demos and selling Collector’s Editions–while supplies last!!

(A glimpse of the Slay-tastic action at Contention Games’ booth from last weekend at PAX West.)


Did you know? Mega Crit is currently around ~10 people and while the majority of us work remotely, half the team is in Seattle, WA.

After 3 years in our current office, we're moving... 1 mile away.

We'll be closer to a donut shop, so productivity should improve by 0%.


We noticed that some of our community members have been making custom Slay the Spire Connections puzzles and our Community Manager, Demi (that’s me writing this section, hi), was inspired to make an official unofficial StS Connections puzzle[custom-connections-game.vercel.app] for you all to try, too! Maybe this will become a regular thing??


And last but not least, here are some of the past month’s fan art highlights:

A serenely vigilant Watcher by @ElesDecroisa[x.com]

An incredible and slightly ominous pixel animation of The Silent by @DankShamwow[x.com]

Even MORE pixel animation, this time featuring rare footage of Neow’s body off-screen by @ktwfc[x.com]

That concludes the September 2024 issue of The Neowsletter. Tune in next month for more StS2 behind-the-scenes looks and community updates!

Looking to eat up the time until Slay the Spire 2 comes out? We have just the thing!

While away the hours with your very own limited edition Time Eater plush from Makeship by your side! Plus, the next time Time Eater ruins one of your runs you'll have a healthy, squeezable outlet for your frustration ^-^

Get yours here[www.makeship.com] now--before time runs out!!