Within a Dead City

About this game

Latest news

• Announcements·22 Apr 2025Official

  Neongarten released!

  Hello! Today, I'm releasing my latest creation onto Steam! Neongarten is a roguelike "city block" builder where buildings are piled on top of each other in complete disregard or safety, decency, or regard for anything but profit. But there is profit to be made! Buildings will provide bonuses to certain other types of neighboring buildings, and you can get filthy rich if you learn to stack your city the right way. Inspired by ISLANDERS and Luck Be a Landlord, Neongarten has been a ton of fun to make - I loved playing around in Luck Be a Landlord's design space and seeing how far I could push it. I've partnered with Goblinz Studios to publish the game, and they were able to help make the game really shine. (They helped with an art pass from an earlier prototype, and man does the game look gorgeous now.) If you enjoyed my work on Moondrop and Within a Dead City, take a look at Neongarten! I'm proud of the game and proud to share it. Cheers, Josh
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• Announcements·8 Feb 2024Official

  Version 1.4 released - Dwarves, Nobles, and Graveyards

  The new content update is out! It was a lot of fun diving back into the code and working with the little heroes again. So much fun, in fact, that I'm happy to announce I'll be making a sorta sequel to the game! I say sorta sequel, because the game will be doing a little genre switch. I wanted to make the games last longer (much longer), increase the activities that the heroes can do (especially during peacetime), and dynamically craft epic story arcs for heroes to take part in. After a lot of thought, I think this new game resembles a colony sim more than an RTS. The autonomous heroes greedily responding to bounties won't change, haha. Enough about the future - back to the present! Here's what you can look forward to in the new version. -- New Hero: The Dwarf. High HP and high attack values, but slow and low defense. (Think more berserker dwarf rather than armored tin-can dwarf.) Dwarves also are able to repair and improve buildings. -- New Hero: The Noble. The noble has pretty medium stats, but has a few special abilities. First, the noble is allowed to insist that monsters fight him one at a time. When the noble activates his Duel ability, then only a single monster will attack him as long as he is Dueling. If another monster had already targeted him, that monster will change missions. Second, the noble is allowed to gather taxes from trading posts. Note that he just keeps these taxes for himself, but it can come back into your economy when he spends it. (Although, note the Noble's Level 10 ability below.) Finally, the noble loves dogs. If he has at least 200 gold and he's nearby a dog, then he will commission a custom set of armor for the dog. This will allow dogs to get to the first level of gear upgrades. -- These two heroes can replace all the functions of the merchant! Well, mostly. When the noble gets taxes, it'll take longer for that money to trickle back into your coffers. (Hint: make sure to bring a dog or two along.) Also, Dwarves might be out adventurin...
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• Announcements·15 Dec 2023Official

  New content in the works!!

  Hello all, It's been a few months since I've put an update out for Within a Dead City. I've been hard at work on a new game called Neongarten, a vertical cyberpunk city builder. You can check that out at https://joshuagalecki.itch.io/neongarten. But, now that I've belted that out, I'm happy to get back to Within a Dead City and add some new experiences to the game. Expect something new to pop out after the holiday rush is over :) I've got a couple of cool ideas for what to add to the game - feel free add any suggestions in the comments. I always like hearing what the community comes up with.
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• Patch Notes·30 Sept 2023Official

  Minor Patch v 1.3.4

  This patch fixes a few bugs from the latest 1.3 version and adds a nice new feature for Wizards. - If a wizard would be killed by a monster and they have a Teleport spell ready, they will instead teleport back to the Guild Hall with 1 HP. - Support missions now end if the supported hero is resting at home. - Fixed a bug where legendary weapons only gave half the bonus they were supposed to. - Fixed a typo with the Thief's starting weapon. - Merchants now gain 1 Exp. each turn they spend improving or repairing a building.
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• Announcements·28 Sept 2023Official

  Version 1.3 Released!

  Version 1.3 has been released! This update focuses on the titular Dead City and fleshes out the exploration of it. It also adds two new heroes, four new spells, and a whole slew of Quality-of-Life improvements and bug fixes - many of these suggested by the community. Thanks, community! You're the best. The update introduces a new tier of Ruined Tower for heroes to explore. The Ruined Library contains loot that can upgrade a hero or a guild's capabilities significantly and even alter late-game strategies. There are six different loot drops that can occur when a Ruined Library is explored. - The guild gains a random Lvl 8 hero. This hero does not take up any 'slots' at the guild. - The hero exploring the library gains Legendary Gear. These add +10 / +10 to attack and defense, compared with +6 / +6 from gold gear. - The hero exploring the library gains a permanent speed boost - All future hero recruits now start off with a healing potion - All heroes (except the merchant) can go on Support quests and tag along with each other. - The guild gets an assortment of (new!) high-level, single-use spell scrolls Two new heroes have arrived to explore the ruins - the Thief and the Dog (woof). The thief is a ranged marksman who places a higher priority on raiding monster lairs. They'll wait to destroy monster lairs until they are a higher level as compared to other heroes. (For instance, a Warrior will try to raze a Level 1 Sewer when they reach Level 3. A Thief will wait until they reah Level 4.) Dogs (woof) love to roam around with other heroes, and get a large priority bonus to any Support missions. Dogs also start with the Support ability, as do Clerics and Bards. However, Dogs are unable to buy any equipment upgrades at the Blacksmith. They can purchase protection rings. There are new spells and modifications to old spells. As far as old spells go, the spell Homesickness has been ditched. Like its forgotten predecessor, Heroic Amnesia (lol), it was too unclear what the spell...
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