The Neowsletter - December 2024

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. ✨

Mega Crit 2024: A Retrospective

  • 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!

A Million Thank Yous

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.

Drawing of a cultist in the spotlight with confetti

Enemy Preview… WAIT, BEES?!

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?"

New humanoid enemy made partially of hives wielding a staff attacking with a swarm of bees

Mega Crit-mas!

Snowy illustration of the slime boss in a Santa hat surrounded by other slimes

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 or Bluesky 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, 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!

StS Connections

Slay the Spire Connections 4 screenshot

Merchant voice Ho ho ho! This month brings a more festive (though hopefully still somewhat fiendish) Slay the Spire Connections puzzle!

Community Roundup

An interpretation of The Defect based on the Creative AI card featuring him as an artist with a beret, using War Paint to illustrate himself being worshipped by Cultists Gorgeous pixel art of The Defect channeling his own inner artist by @boysensyrup

A Hades-style inspired illustration of The Defect channeling each of his orbs An amazing illustration of The Defect in a Hades-inspired style by @coryharris.jpg

Pixel art of The Ironclad in Neow’s starting room complete with the Slay the Spire UI Another incredible pixel version of Slay the Spire that we wish we could play, this time by @aspabot

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