Slay the Spire 2 boss scrapped after ‘playing too much Deadlock’

Mega Crit co-founder Casey Yano wrote in the developer Neowsletter that he was ‘playing too much Deadlock’ when he designed Doormaker, the controversial boss the studio removed and replaced with Aeonglass.

Yano wrote that Doormaker proved difficult to balance during playtests, prompting the team to scrap the concept and start over. He rejected suggestions that the character referenced the web serial Worm, writing, ‘I was playing too much Deadlock.’

The comments came with the game’s second major update, which added a Bestiary. The Bestiary currently collects enemy art and animations. Mega Crit plans to add enemy statistics and lore entries in future patches.

Yano also shared short origin notes for several creatures. He said Ancient Nonupeipe’s name comes from an internal NOPE placeholder icon and explained that when two such icons line up in the user interface they read ‘NONOPEPE.’

On the Ceremonial Beast, Yano wrote the design was influenced by the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke and that the boss began as a more solemn and grotesque concept. He noted it was the first boss the team designed for the sequel and acknowledged comparisons to Valheim’s Eikthyr, adding, ‘I’m a big fan of Valheim, actually!’

Yano addressed naming choices as well. He wrote Kaiser Crab was chosen to avoid repeating common western royal titles: ‘We have all these wacky words for kings, sultans, etc, and it’s always the bland western one. The world feels small when we use the most accessible titles.’

On multiplayer, Yano noted the team is experimenting with color changes and other visual tweaks to help players distinguish each other when multiple participants select the same character.

The Neowsletter entries and the Bestiary are part of ongoing updates as Mega Crit continues refining encounter balance and multiplayer presentation for Slay the Spire 2.