Challenge Mode

**Challenge Mode** is a mode introduced in the Supply Drop Update. In challenge mode, each room is affected by modifiers which make the game more challenging. Players can activate the Challenge Mode by speaking to Daisuke in The Breach and spending 6 . Daisuke will be available to rescue after interacting with the Icosahedrax shrine 3 times or by freeing him from a cell after defeating the High Dragun once.

Each room can have 1 to 3 modifiers active at a time depending on the floor. Additionally, bosses in the Hollow and Forge have unique modifiers that increase their difficulty.

Reaching the Black Powder Mine in Challenge Mode will unlock Chance Bullets.

Defeating the High Dragun in Challenge Mode unlocks Chaos Bullets and unlocks Double Challenge Mode, which increases the number of modifiers in each room. It is activated by speaking to Daisuke again after enabling Challenge Mode.

After 30 attempts, the cost of Challenge Mode is reduced to 1  and Chaos Bullets are unlocked automatically if they haven't yet.

## Unique Modifiers

Bosses in the Hollow and the Forge have special modifiers that modify their attack patterns.

* Most bullets travel much faster.
* The Dragun's stream of fiery bullets aimed at the player bounces off of the wall.
* It fires more bouncing bullets in quicker succession.
* It fires two rockets instead of one.
* It fires nine homing skulls instead of five.
* In phase 2, the circular safe zones are much smaller.

Dragun Rage is always accompanied by High Stress.

## Notes

* Shortcuts are blocked off if challenge mode is active.
* Wall Mimics can be affected by Long Live the King before being activated, preventing any other enemies from taking damage until the Wall Mimic is found.
* Upon entering a room, time will briefly slow to show the room's modifiers.
* Trap rooms (rooms that contain no enemies) won't have modifiers, regardless of what floor they appear at.
	+ This is due to the modifiers only activating in rooms with enemies.
* If enemies spawn into a previously empty room by using Lament Configurum, the Drill, or a Challenge Shrine, modifiers will activate. Gun Fairies that spawn from broken pots when no other enemies are present will as well.
	+ Each wave spawned by Drill will have a different set of modifiers, even if multiple happens in the same room.
* Certain effects won't be generated for certain bosses, as there would be no way to beat these rooms, for example Wallmonger and Zone Control.
* If the player stands within the intersection of multiple supply crates, the time it takes for all crates in the room to disappear quickens.
* Being put at 1/2 heart by High Stress will not make Blasphemy lose its sword beams if you would normally be at full health.
* If playing as The Robot or if Hazmat Suit has been acquired, the player is immune to the shockwave effect and can cross the shockwave links safely. However, the bullets linking the electricity will still deal damage.
* If a Shockwave bullet is erased, the electricity will remain linked to the place the bullet was erased.
* Despite having no hearts, The Robot does die from getting hit twice in a High Stress room. One piece of armor will be destroyed once hit, and the remaining armor will visually disappear briefly.
* If a player has Remote Bullets with Unfriendly Fire, bullets that hit walls will still follow the player's crosshair.
* Sniper Shells on top of the Wallmonger can be killed by using Big Boy.
* The bullets released by enemies when Final Attack is active will always be identical to whatever type of bullet they attack with (e.g., King Bullat with bouncing bullets, Skullet with sharp-tipped bullets). Therefore, enemies such as Blobulin do not release any bullets.
	+ Final Attack works differently on Shotgun Kin; instead of making them shoot out a normal ring of bullets, it always makes them burst into 6 bullets like they normally have a chance to (unless they are a variant which does not burst into bullets, in which case they will release a ring of bullets as usual).
* Explosive Pyres effectively nullifies Final Attack and/or Ghost of the Shell if they both activate in the same room, as the explosion will erase the ring of bullets or kill the Hollowpoint released by the enemy.
* If Gorgun's Gaze and Shockwave appear in the same room, they will take turns activating.
* If Cursed Ceramics appear in a room that already has Cursed Pots in it, additional ones won't spawn.
* Cursed Pots created by Cursed Ceramics will be affected by Pot Shots.
* Blasphemy can destroy an object and erase its resulting Pot Shots bullet with one swing.
* Supply crates spawned by Zone Control can block Minecart Turrets from moving if they spawn/are pushed onto the tracks.
* Each phase of the Lich boss fight will have 3 random modifiers instead of a unique one.
* The 'Last Bullet Standing' can be killed before defeating other enemies by pushing it into a hole.
* In a room with the 'Long Live the King' modifier, enemies that are not the king can be killed by getting pushed into a hole.
	+ Similarly, in a room with "Last Bullet Standing", the invincible enemy marked with X can also be killed prematurely by pushing them into a hole instead.
* The 'Long Live the King' modifier doesn't prevent the player from devolving enemies that aren't the king. These spawned Arrowkin can be killed even before defeating the King.
* If a room has Blobulin Rancher and Don't Blink active, the player can purposely miss shots to get infinite money by killing the jammed Blobulins. This is not highly recommended if the player does not have contact damage immunity.
* Chance Kin, Keybullet Kin, Pinhead, and Nitra will not be affected with Long Live the King or Last Bullet Standing modifiers.
* If Poison Pursuit is active in the second phase of the fight with the Resourceful Rat, the player may take significant, unavoidable damage or die since the poison trail appears before the player is given control. This should be taken in consideration when attempting this fight in Challenge Mode.
* If Ghost of the Shell is active in the second phase of the fight with the Resourceful Rat, the Spent he spawns can become Hollowpoints, which can make this fight extremely difficult without a way to clear them immediately.
* In a room with Thermal Clips, the player can still reload an empty clip without spawning fire by switching into a secondary gun after emptying a clip but before pressing reload, then switching back to the first gun after waiting past its reload time.
	+ Alternatively, the player can simply reload obsessively.
* If Rat's Revenge is active during the second phase of the fight with the Resourceful Rat, the fire traps will be invisible, making them much harder to avoid.
* If Zone Control activates in the room with the trapdoor leading to the Resourceful Rat's Lair, during the controlling, you may notice a square in the floor which doesn't color in yellow, exactly where the trapdoor is located.
* With Unfriendly Fire modifier, friendly bullets turned hostile won't damage the player if their bullets were imbued by Battery Bullets and the player has electric damage immunity (which Battery Bullets also innately provides).
* With the Unfriendly Fire modifier, it is very easy to damage a partner in co-op mode, since each player's bullets will inflict friendly fire damage as soon as they leave the gun.
* Beam weapons such as Unicorn Horn and Moonscraper will never inflict friendly fire damage under the Unfriendly Fire modifier.
* If a player dies in co-op mode while the Gun Queue modifier is active, any guns they were holding will be lost. Upon revival, they will only have their original starter gun. For this reason, it is recommended that a player with low health either give their guns to the other player or heal to avoid this.
* Invincible enemies in rooms with modifiers like Long Live the King or Last Bullet Standing can be hindered by status effects like freezing.

## Quotes

If Daisuke is spoken to after activating the mode, he will randomly say any number from 1 to 20. Some of them have special phrases:

* 1: "Hahahaha... 1."
* 13: "13. Bad luck, (character name)."
* 14-16: Nothing special.
* 17-19: The number with an exclamation mark.
* 20: "20! Wow, that almost never happens!"

## Trivia

* Daisuke is a D20, a twenty-sided die that is commonly used in Dungeons and Dragons. When spoken to, his responses reference D&D wherein a 1 is a critical failure and a 20 is a critical success.
* Blobulin Rancher is a reference to the game Slime Rancher.
* Cursed Ceramics is a reference to Curse Jars from Dark Souls II.
* Explosive Pyres is a reference to the game Destiny.
* Ghost of the Shell is a reference to the anime Ghost In The Shell.
* High Stress's effect and icon are a reference to the game Darkest Dungeon.
* Extremely Bad Chess is a reference to the game Really Bad Chess.
* Don't Blink is a reference to a Doctor Who episode.
* Thermal Clips is a reference to the Mass Effect series.
* Night's Watch is a reference to the Night's Watch who patrol the great Wall in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, and its TV show adaptation Game of Thrones.
* Dark was the Night is a reference to the song "Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground" by Blind Willie Johnson.
* Hammer Time is a reference to the catchphrase "Stop, Hammer Time" in the song "Can't Touch This" by MC HAMMER.
* Something Wicked is part of a quote from Shakespeare's *Macbeth.*
* Dragun Rage may be a reference to the Pokémon move Dragon Rage.
* Daisuke's name is a pun on a common Japanese name and the English word 'dice'.