Slay the Spire Developer Releases New Game for Free After Ditching Unity

To celebrate leaving behind Unity, the Slay the Spire devs have released a free new deckbuilding autobattler.

By Ricky Frech

Last month, Unity announced changes to how it collects fees from developers, which was met with widespread backlash. While some of those changes have been walked back, Unity's CEO John Riccitiello was forced to step down after so many developers pushed back against the change. In fact, many of those developers announced that they would be leaving Unity behind to move on to new engines. One of the developers who decided to move on was Mega Crit Games, the studio behind Slay the Spire. Today, the team has released a new game called Dancing Duelists that will be a treat for Slay the Spire fans. The best of it all is that you can pick the game up for free.

What is Dancing Duelists?

Like Slay the Spire, Dancing Duelists is a deckbuilder, but this one incorporates autobattler elements from games like Teamfight Tactics. Mega Crit decided to build something over the last few weeks as it tried to get used to working on its "new official engine of choice." The team decided to start using Godot, which has been around since 2001 but was made available as an open-source engine in 2014. After the Godot team made that move, the first relatively high-profile game to release using Godot was the indie classic Deponia. Since then, the engine has been used to make games like The Case of the Golden Idol, Cruelty Squad, Dome Keeper, and Cassette Beasts, among several others.

Of course, since Dancing Duelists was made in just three weeks, you shouldn't expect it to be as fully featured as Slay the Spire, though it is impressive that the team has put something together this quickly. Hopefully, it's a sign that Mega Crit isn't too far away from whatever's next. Obviously, the studio will need to take some time, but we're much closer than we were when the Unity announcements went live a few weeks ago.

What is the Current Situation With Unity?

After the initial statement, Unity relatively quickly walked back some of the changes and tried to note that most developers wouldn't be affected by the price increases. However, that was largely met with more outrage as developers felt the company wasn't telling the whole truth. On September 22, Unity rolled back even more of the announcements, though it was a bit of too little, too late for the company.

Given how turbulent the initial announcement and response were, many developers (including Mega Crit) had already decided to move on. That doesn't mean no one will ever use Unity again, but it does mean that players should expect to see the logo less often when playing games in the future. Fortunately, it looks like Mega Crit Games has made a good choice for its studio and will be moving forward to making its great games on Godot.

Dancing Duelists is available now on PC. Remember, the game is free to download on Itch.io. Slay the Spire is available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, mobile, Xbox One, and PC.

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