Dead Weight – Ultimate Tips And Tricks Guide

Welcome to the Into Indie Games ultimate tips and tricks guide designed for beginners to have a solid experience in Dead Weight.

Dead Weight is a turn-based RPG featuring roguelite mechanics developed by Klukva Games and published by Spaghetti Cat and Klukva Games. You travel aboard your airship and explore the Doffernet Islands. Some islands feature special events, while others are occupied by enemies waiting to challenge you. For more information about the game, head over to its Steam page.

As this is both a turn-based RPG and a roguelite game, there can be many challenges during your adventure. Even finding the main event island that progresses the story can be surprisingly difficult. Due to that, we have put together several helpful tips and tricks that will make your experience much smoother and more enjoyable in Dead Weight.

---

---

---

Choose Arn As Your Hero

You get to select a hero while you are in the Abyss, and the best choice is going to be Arn. He has a very solid set of skills, and you can win fights much more easily by playing as him. His Push skill and Plunge ability are both excellent, but those are not the only things that make him stand out.

Arn has a special skill that consumes Fury instead of Energy. Since it does not require Energy to activate, you can use this powerful ability and still have your full turns available afterward. This gives you a significant advantage in combat because you can boost your attack power while still performing your normal actions during the same turn.

Once activated, this skill dramatically increases Arn’s attack damage and allows you to one-shot certain enemies. You can remove up to three health from stronger enemies in a single attack, which is extremely powerful and remains useful throughout your playthrough. To unlock this potential earlier, invest in the passive skills that generate Fury more quickly. Building Fury at a faster rate allows you to activate this ability more often and dominate difficult encounters.

Manage Your Fuel

One of the best tips we can give beginners is to manage your fuel carefully in Dead Weight. Fuel is consumed surprisingly quickly, and sometimes simply traveling to an event island can use up most of your remaining supply. If the nearest enemy island is not close to your current location, you may find yourself unable to travel freely.

Unless you have a spare fuel tank in your inventory, your options become very limited. You will either have to let the wind carry your ship wherever it chooses or burn one of your valuable resources to generate additional fuel. While the second option can save your run, it is generally not recommended because those resources can be much more valuable later.

That is exactly why planning your route and managing your fuel is extremely important. It may not seem like a major concern during the early stages of the game, but it becomes much more important as you continue progressing through the story. Good route planning saves both resources and time while preventing unnecessary setbacks.

Setting Your Ship Adrift Isn’t That Bad Of An Idea

When you eventually run out of fuel, it may seem like burning one of your supplies is always the better option because it immediately gives you more fuel. While that approach certainly makes sense, allowing your ship to drift is often the smarter choice because it usually guarantees that you will eventually land on an enemy island.

During one of our playthroughs, we tried this strategy for the second time before locating the Volcanic Island, and the drifting mechanic carried us directly to it. That saved a significant amount of time because blindly navigating through multiple directions while defeating enemies can take much longer than expected. Since there are several paths to explore, searching for the Volcanic Island manually can easily become a lengthy process.

Because of that, using this strategy early in the game is a surprisingly effective idea, especially once your character is strong enough to defeat the enemies you encounter. Doing this can help you reach Aluza much sooner and save your partner without spending unnecessary time wandering around the map.

However, once you have defeated Aluza, you will have to be more careful with doing this. That is because a new status, madness, will be introduced. So, every time you run out of fuel and set your ship adrift, you will be inflicted with madness.

Pushing The Enemies Is Much Better

As you continue progressing through the game, the enemies become much tougher and significantly more durable. Fighting them through direct attacks alone can take quite a while unless you consistently generate enough Fury to activate Arn’s powerful damage skill. While that approach certainly works, it is not always reliable because building Fury takes time.

Instead, pushing enemies into the abyss is a much more dependable method of defeating them. Many enemies naturally begin their turns close to the edge of an island, so all you need to do is position yourself correctly before using your Push ability.

This strategy is much easier than it sounds. We managed to eliminate many enemies simply by pushing them over the edge instead of trying to reduce all of their health. Removing enemies this way also makes larger battles much easier because there are fewer opponents remaining to deal with. You can even push objects positioned in front of an enemy, causing the object to shove the enemy into the next tile or directly into the abyss.

Before attacking with your weapon, always take a moment to examine the battlefield and determine whether pushing an enemy into the abyss is possible. In many situations, it is the fastest and safest way to win the fight.

Focus More On Defending Than Attacking

Since Dead Weight is a turn-based game, your first instinct may be to spend every turn attacking your enemies. However, that is not always the best strategy. During the early parts of the game, facing only two enemies usually does not create many problems, so aggressive play works well, but defensive play even in this condition is better.

Later in the game, however, battles often contain four enemies at once. At that point, more focus on attacking becomes riskier because you can easily become surrounded. Rather than focusing entirely on offense, your priority should shift toward defending yourself. This does not mean blocking attacks because there is no traditional blocking mechanic in the game.

Instead, your goal should be to stay outside the enemies’ attack range whenever possible. Most of the time you can move twice during your turn, allowing you to reposition into a much safer location. When several enemies are present, use your movement to avoid damage.

After repositioning, place yourself in a location where you can safely deal damage while remaining difficult to hit. If you find yourself unable to avoid an incoming attack, try pushing one of the enemies instead. Doing so can completely change that enemy’s attack range by forcing it into another tile.

Throughout the game, your primary objective should be staying alive rather than dealing maximum damage every turn. Smart positioning and careful defense will consistently lead you to victory.

Utilize The Lighthouse More

One of your earliest priorities should be unlocking the Lighthouse and upgrading it. After that, make sure your ship also has the Telescope installed and upgraded as well. Do not worry too much about spending your money because you will earn plenty of gold as you continue playing.

Investing your money into the Lighthouse is absolutely worth it because it provides tremendous value throughout your adventure. Every time you use it, you only need to spend 10 gold to clear away a large portion of the surrounding fog. Continue revealing the map whenever possible because, with a bit of luck, you may uncover the Volcanic Island or your next important quest destination much sooner than expected.

The Telescope is equally valuable because it allows you to reveal additional fog naturally while traveling across the map. Upgrading it further increases its effectiveness and lets you uncover even more of the surrounding area. Since the Lighthouse alone cannot remove all of the fog, you will still need to explore normally to reveal everything.

By using the Telescope, you can uncover much larger sections of the map while using less fuel overall. This saves a considerable amount of both travel time and valuable resources, making exploration much more efficient throughout your journey.

Hiring A Mercenary Is A Must

Once you have unlocked the Tavern, which you will unlock fairly soon, you need to hire a mercenary. For starters, you should recruit a Cook and a Cannoneer. These two will help you a lot, as the Cook can heal your hero while the Cannoneer can shoot targets from a distance.

Both of them can make your experience much better. When there are more enemies on the battlefield, you will also be able to use your other characters to divide the enemy army and make fights easier to manage. When you fight Aluza, you will have to face a lot of enemies, so having more members in your party is going to help you significantly.

Without at least one more party member during that fight, you may not be able to win easily. That is because your main hero can quickly get surrounded, and Aluza also summons more enemies throughout the battle. As a result, the fight can become very difficult if you do not recruit mercenaries beforehand.

Do Not Ignore The Items In Your Inventory

At the beginning of the game, Arn only has three health, and you will not be able to increase it right away. What you will need during the early game are useful items that can improve your survivability. One of the best items for this purpose is the Blessed Shirt, which increases your maximum health.

We used two Blessed Shirts, and Arn’s maximum health increased significantly. However, you will still need to use Bandages to recover your missing health because the Blessed Shirt only increases your maximum health limit. It does not restore any lost health by itself. So, make sure to use enough Bandages to recover your health before heading into the next fight.

That is pretty much it for our ultimate beginner’s tips and tricks guide for Dead Weight. Hopefully, these tips will help you throughout your journey, make your adventure much smoother, and improve your overall experience with the game.

---

For more interesting articles related to indie games, check out the links below:

• Into Indie Games Homepage
• Dead Weight – Walkthrough And Guides Hub
• The Mound: Omen of Cthulu – Beginner Tips & Tricks
• Denshattack! – The Ultimate Guide For Everything
• Moss: The Forgotten Relic – Walkthrough Hub