If you’re a fan of roguelite games, you may have heard of Curse of the Dead Gods. We’ve thrown together some of the best tips and tricks to help anyone starting out. And perhaps a couple of tips that may help someone with a little more experience too. Take a look at the table below for anything that jumps out at you.
Table of Contents |
Tip 1 – Taking Full Advantage of Light |
Tip 2 – Planning Your Route |
Tip 3 – Ranged Weapons Are Great For Beginners |
Tip 4 – Use Traps Against Enemies |
Tip 5 – How to Parry |
Tip 6 – How to Keep Your Corruption Low |
Tip 7 – You Can’t Dodge Through Enemies |
Tip 8 – Cracked Walls Coneal Secret Rooms |
Tip 9 – Best Blessings For Beginners |
Tip 10 – Keeping Your Greed Combo Going |
Tip 1 – Taking Full Advantage of Light
One of the most important mechanics to keep in mind while playing Curse of the Dead Gods is lighting. Whenever you take damage while in the dark, you’re taking an extra 50% damage from enemies. This doesn’t mean you can’t run into the shadows, but you should still watch for lightable braziers in each room.
Not to mention, certain weapons will have buffs providing them extra damage while in the light. Damage aside, another major mechanic related to lighting is seeing traps. Floor traps like spikes won’t become visible until it’s often too late if your torch isn’t out.
Tip 2 – Planning Your Route
Every run in Curse of the Dead Gods follows a route, room by room, that you can pick as you go. When you first start a run, you can pick a starting spot and plan how you’ll go from there. While curses can throw off your path by making unknown rooms, you should still plan a route. Before you start any temple, you can see the entire route by scrolling up and down.
You don’t need to plan every single floor, but you should have a general idea to prepare yourself. I like to aim for attribute rooms while making sure I still have enough gold to spend. And depending on how your run is going, you can change your plan by checking the map again.
Tip 3 – Ranged Weapons Are Great For Beginners
Any ranged weapon type is useful when you’re first learning Curse of the Dead Gods. You can poke enemies from far away without risking being hit as easily. Whether you’re using a primary throwing weapon, an off-hand pistol, or a two-handed bow, they all have their advantages.
As you play more, you’ll restore other altars that provide starting weapons to try. This makes it easier to find a ranged weapon right away. While certain melee weapons have higher DPS, I’m definitely a big fan of two-handed bows.
Tip 4 – Use Traps Against Enemies
One of the best weapons you can use in Curse of the Dead Gods is traps. As you get a good feel for how each trap works, you can start using them against enemies. They often deal high damage and have the potential to hit multiple enemies at once.
So long as you don’t find yourself getting hit by them in the process, they’re super helpful. Especially if you come across the relic that heals you for environmental kills. Sometimes it’s more of a hassle than it’s worth, but other times, it feels great to get away with.
Tip 5 – How to Parry
A common question people often search for this game is how to parry, despite the tutorial explaining it. We even threw together an in-depth guide here on the topic. Regardless, you can get pretty far in Curse of the Dead Gods relying on dodging. But, you should still know how parrying works too as it doesn’t require any stamina.
By default on PC, pressing shift right as an enemy attacks or barely before they do, will parry. If it’s a melee attack, you’ll stagger the enemy providing an opportunity. Whereas if it’s a ranged attack, you’ll block it and not take any damage, similar to a melee attack. Shields also make that parry window slightly longer.
Tip 6 – How to Keep Your Corruption Low
An extremely important mechanic to manage is your corruption, so you don’t get too many curses. If you reach five curses, you’ll steadily take damage until you’re at one health. That’s the last thing you need. Here are a few quick tips for reducing your corruption or keeping it low:
- Sacrificing relics when it says they’ll remove corruption.
- Getting relics that remove corruption with certain actions. Like the Ancient Censer that removes corruption with gold offerings.
- Not healing too much from fountain rooms as they give 10 corruption per heal.
- Avoiding purple attacks from enemies (dark attacks).
Tip 7 – You Can’t Dodge Through Enemies
This is a quick tip worth mentioning since it got me into a few rough situations before I knew about it. Enemies have collision which prevents you from dodge rolling through them. While this may not seem like a big deal, it can easily screw you over.
When a group of enemies bunches up and you try to roll past them, you may get stuck in a bunch of AoEs. This can quickly turn into you losing a lot of health. So do your best to roll away from enemies or parry if that works better for the moment.
Tip 8 – Cracked Walls Conceal Secret Rooms
If you’ve ever noticed gold tucked away behind a wall and wondered how to get it, you’ve spotted a secret room. Now start looking for a wall with cracks in it that you can destroy. There are a few methods for doing this listed below. Sometimes these secret rooms contain some gold, a chest, or an entirely new path altogether. This is why you may want to scout out a room before killing every enemy. If a room has a cracked wall in it, you’ll likely need some help.
- Traps with projectiles that are aiming toward it.
- Enemies with strong attacks and/or certain projectiles.
- Explosive pots.
- Possibly a two-handed hammer.
Tip 9 – Best Blessings For Beginners
The main form of permanent progression/upgrades in Curse of the Dead Gods revolves around blessings. These are similar to Keepsakes from Hades if you’re familiar with those. Before you can equip any blessings, you’ll need to get Crystal Skulls to unlock each one. Here are the best blessings you can get early on to help you get an advantage.
T’amok’s Protection | Fire illuminates farther. All damage taken is reduced by 20% while in the light. |
Favor of Sich’al | Gain 1000 gold and 5 Perception at the start of your exploration. |
T’amok’s Bones | Gain 5 Constitution at the start of your exploration and 1 Constitution at the beginning of each room if your health is below 50%. |
Tip 10 – Keeping Your Greed Combo Going
The greed mechanic in Curse of the Dead Gods is a great way to keep your gold high if you’re able to use it well. For every enemy you kill that doesn’t have a purple health bar, you’ll build a greed combo earning more gold. But, you have to do this without getting hit or running out of time. All you need to do to keep that timer up is hit an enemy, land a parry, or a perfect dodge. Taking full advantage of this mechanic will help you earn more gold so you can buy all sorts of buffs during your run.
A great blessing easily worth getting if you have 250 Crystal Skulls saved up is Reptilian Hunger. This prevents your greed timer from running out while out of combat And it also prevents it from resetting in between rooms. Aside from helping keep your combo high, it also provides a 1% damage increase for each combo count, up to 50%.
Hopefully these tips and tricks help you get further in Curse of the Dead Gods. If you have some tips of your own, be sure to let others know in the comments below.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.