Slay The Spire

Slay the Spire is a roguelike card game developed by indie studio Mega Crit, and one that is sure to eat up hours of your time. In this addictive strategy title, you're tasked with climbing the eponymous spire and defeating everything in your path to the top. The spire is composed of several floors, each a collection of branching rooms full of deadly creatures, valuable loot, and random events. Armed with your ever-growing deck of attack and defense cards you'll head into the spire time and time again, trekking further each time. A deceptively addictive gameplay loop and great trickle of new content makes Slay the Spire an irresistible experience for card-game aficionados, fans of the roguelike genre, and those who appreciate a good power trip.

The story in Slay the Spire is pretty light; you play as one of three characters attempting to ascend the dangerous spire on a never-ending quest for better loot. Each character has a unique bonus ability, as well as various cards that can only be found while playing as that character. There's “The Ironclad”, a soldier with demonic power, “The Silent”, a huntress who's proficient with poison, and “The Defect”, a sentient machine with an electric spark. While there's a strategy to be found with each character, those who are looking for quick progress will want to experiment with The Silent's poison cards.

Like other roguelike games, Slay the Spire is meant to be played over and over again, where losing is a necessity for progressing. Every time you start up the game and choose your character, you'll be presented with a randomly generated map and presented with the option to choose your starting location. Each floor always ends with a climactic boss battle, but the path you take to get there will be different every time. Based on the icons on the map you can plan out your path to the boss, making sure to stop by a few shops and healing bonfires along the way. Since each run of Slay the Spire is random in nature, you'll have to adapt on the fly and form new strategies as you play.

In fact, quick-thinking is one of the biggest aspects of Slay the Spire, as you don't spend a ton of time building your deck. For a card game, Slay the Spire is exceptionally fast paced, and the strategy comes from learning how to build synergy between cards and upgrades rather than painstakingly crafting a deck. The turn-based combat system is easy-to-learn and tons of fun to master, offering a refreshing card game that is surprisingly action packed. On each turn, you'll draw some cards and play them, only limited by the amount of energy it costs to play each card. After successfully defeating an enemy or encounter, you'll get to pick a new card to add to your deck. Your entire deck is reset every time you lose, so thinking on-the-fly and learning how cards work together is a huge part of the experience. Luckily, the cards and their effects are relatively simple, ensuring you'll never feel overwhelmed or confused.

Although Slay the Spire might seem confusing at first, you'll likely fall in love with it after a few quick plays. Very few games have managed to bridge the gap between fast-paced gameplay and and card-based mechanics, yet Slay the Spire manages to nearly perfect it. If you're a glutton for games with significant challenge that force you to think on your toes, you should definitely play Slay the Spire.

Originally released for Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PCs, in 2019, Slay The Spire is a single-players, roguelike, collectible card game that found success and high praise from the entire industry. Developed by MegaCrit and published by Humble Bundle, since its release the game has been nominated for multiple awards, including “Game of The Year”, “Best Indie Game”, “Innovative Gameplay” among others at the most prestigious gaming awards in the world.

Adapt, Improvise, Overcome

Jumping into any roguelike title is a daunting adventure, especially since the genre has developed a bad - but not unfair reputation of crushing difficulty, and frustration. Mixing cards with procedurally generated enemies and levels is a unique combination to say the least, while it makes effective use of the roguelike genre’s tactical approach masterfully, deck-building, as you go, could be tiresome and grueling, but it is not.

Slay The Spire has a gamer-centric feel to it, because it was developed with the players in mind, developers went through great lengths to study, balance, and design a game that would feel rewarding, and challenging at the same time. Working closely with veteran card-game players ensured that the challenges, decks, and combinations feel fair and easy to navigate. Like many titles of the genre, the game can feel overwhelming at first, yet unlike its peers, the learning curve seems easier to navigate, and improving your knowledge and ability feels natural.

Playing Slay The Spire requires a lot of patience, knowledge, and flexibility, since two runs are never the same players are invited to quickly recognize patterns and a strong combination of cards and spells. Building a deck that has synergy is a very satisfying experience, given that players need to identify the possibilities early of the potential the deck or run has. Adaptation is key here, but like most games of the genre there are legendary runs, and utterly abysmal runs, the good news is that they are both fun to experience, and winning or losing runs count toward progression to unlocking permanent bonuses such as characters, relics, and cards.

Be The Builder

Games like Magic The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Hearthstone, and other card games don’t rely heavily on the deck-building aspect in gameplay, mainly because you go into matches with already built decks, and composing them through adaptation often takes place after the game is done, instead of while the game is going.

Every level, or round is played in turns where each player receives a fresh hand of cards and three energy points, which are mana points used to activate cards. Players can then play any number of cards, and whatever is not played is sent to the discard pile. There are offensive, defensive, buffs, debuff, which have to be carefully chosen in order to not get wiped, the round ends when the health points reach zero and players have to return to the bottom of the spire. During the run, there are also campfires that heal or upgrade your cards, shops where players can edit their deck, and buy new cards, finally random chests which provide loot. Gameplay is fairly simple, once you understand it, and even combinations are easy to recognize and strategize around.

Pros:

• Diverse Strategies
• Easy To Learn
• Challenging Yet Fair
• Rewarding Progression
• Fun Combinations
• Great Sound Design

Cons:

• It Can Be Frustrating for Newcomers
• May Not Engage Every Player
• Lacks a Well Written Narrative