CHENNAI: If you have never heard of “Dead Cells”, you might wonder at it being so special. It is a 2D side-scrolling platformer, with a simple pixelated aesthetic that recalls the games of yore. It starts like this: a slimy green blob drops to the floor through a pipe in the ceiling. It morphs into a being. It jumps and passes a few rooms, and then finds a sword. It thinks for a second, weighing its options for weapon #2. Should it pick the shield? Or the bow? I laugh at my past self for taking my time to make this seemingly important decision.
Creeping across the dimly lit passages, I make it stun the enemies with sudden entries, and then smash them to bits. The level is done when the map on the HUD has nothing new to reveal. The game says its time to move to the next level — with some upgrades, fresh weapons, and “cells”. But eventually, my luck runs out. The creatures encountered in the subsequent levels are fiercer, and my puny swords hardly scratch their cells. I don’t get past three levels.
A slimy green blob drops to the floor through a pipe in the ceiling — did I not mention the “permadeath”? The game restarts from the very beginning every time the character dies. It’s routine now: run across the rooms, pick up the sword, pick up the bow, collect the minimum cells by smashing some enemies, cross over to the next room. And then the next. Luck runs out.
A slimy green blob drops to the floor — but wait. Every time the game restarts, everything changes. The rooms are not arranged in the same way. There are different enemies, different power-ups and new weapons to gain.
If there’s permadeath, no retention of skills from previous runs, then what keeps me from rage quitting? The brilliance of “Dead Cells” is that it always leaves you a sense of hope that you’ll do better in the next run. The individual levels and enemies are not exceptionally difficult, and you may even get better upgrades and weapon drops in the next attempt.
“Dead Cells” recently released in yet another platform — on the Apple Arcade. Playing the game on the iPad adds a layer of discomfort to the gaming experience, but Dead Cells itself does not disappoint. It’s a great time to start playing the game, because the latest expansion “Return to Castlevania” released last week. The game is currently available on the PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.