How to play Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Slay the Spire: The Board Game is a cooperative, deck-building game.

Title: Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Year Published: 2024

Designer: Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, Casey Yano

Publisher: Contention Games

Players: 1-4

Game Time: 60-180 Minutes

Set-up Time: ~10 minutes

Ages: 12+

Theme: Slay the Spire, The Video Game

Mechanisms: Deck-Building

How to win: Reach and defeat the boss of the final act

Game Description

Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and finally become strong enough to slay the Spire!

How to play Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Learn how to play Slay the Spire, the board game.

Main Mechanisms

Deck-building is the main mechanism. It’s how the game is run and your deck and the character are the key to success in the game.

USP

I’m not sure of a game that uses deck-building where the play is reset over and over while the deck continues to change over time. Also, it’s a rogue-like in board game form which is not done too often.

Theme

It’s based on the video game and does a good job of implementing the game in cardboard form.

Setup & Rulebook

Setup can take quite a while, there are a lot of cards to dig through and you need to place quite a bit out. It’s not too bad if everything is put away neatly! If you play 3 acts, this setup process needs to be repeated 3 times which is why the setup time is so long.

Components & Artwork

The cards and tokens are quite standard. As the cards are double-sided the game provides quite nice deck protectors with a branded opaque back.

The art is taken straight from the game… I’ve never liked it!

Ease of Teaching

If someone has played Slay the Spie digitally this will be very easy to explain.

If someone has played a deck-building game this will be quite easy to explain.

But, if someone hasn’t played either, this will be a pain to teach!

Similar Games

You could include any co-op deck-builder, such as Hero Realms. Maybe even Legendary Encounters due to the table talk required.

It reminded me a bit of Xenoshyft: Onslaught in that you’re working together to defeat a bunch of enemies with cards.

Slay the Spire Review

Positives

Fun and familiar gameplay for someone who enjoys deck-building games.

It’s a faithful adaption of that video game and will be enjoyed by people who like that game.

The video game is solo so being able to play Slay the Spire with multiple players is fun.

The box holds everything really well while also allowing you to quickly get everything out.

The collector’s edition has nice components…

Negatives

…but some are a bit pointless I’ll never use such as a neoprene merchant board and foil cards.

There are a lot of unlockable elements that I would rather not touch.

It’s a long game if you play all 3 acts.

The upgrade book shows all the upgrades so you don’t have to take the cards out the sleeve to look at the other side. But that next is small and if it’s an upgraded uncommon card it’s green text on a blue background and it’s hard to read.

I will mostly be playing this solo… and I already own the easier-to-play video game version that costs a fraction of the price.

Slay the Spire Round-Up

A very fun deck builder that brings something different to your collection and you don’t need to be a fan of the IP to enjoy it.

Rating

I give it 6/10