Slay the Spire is a very fun digital roguelike deck-building game.
This is my playthrough and review.
Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!
Slay the Spire Game Play
In summary, Slay the Spire is a roguelike deck-building game where you need to survive 3 levels of the Spire to win. On the way, you need to buy new cards, upgrade existing ones and try and keep your health above 0.
Theme
The theme is weird… No explanation why you’re trying to get to the top of the spire I believe. All the characters are weird and wonderful but most importantly, weird.
But, it doesn’t really matter.
Visuals
Very weird.
It’s a very unusual art style but I will give them props for not using the standard tropes for baddies I guess. Some of them are humanlike, some blobs, some random shapes…
This is a low end game graphically.
UI & Ease of Play
Everything looks great and makes gameplay very easy. The cost of the cards and their effects are very simple to read.
The actions the opponents are going to take are clear allowing you to quickly look, understand, and get on with taking your turn.
Everything is straight forward and valid targets highlight when you hover a card over them. The remaining health and icons for status effects are all clear. Those icons have a really good explanation of what they do on hover.
You know exactly where you stand at all points which is exactly what you need. You don’t want a game like this to be a chore to play.
Slay the Spire Summary
Positives
There are several characters to choose from and each is very different from the rest. The earlier ones are easier to use and as you unlock more you have to change your play style a lot to maximise their benefit.
The artefacts you pick up during the game can change the game a lot making each run unique. Some will affect certain cards making them more useful to you while others have a nice, passive effect.
On top of this, the cards available to you can change your deck greatly. It means different runs can often feel like playing a completely different game.
The path you take through the spire is more key to gameplay than I first thought. Yes, pick the easy path and look for campfires to heal is the obvious route. But, those tougher battles are beatable most of the time and give you better rewards. These fights are key to defeating the final boss of the run.
I like deck-building games and having cards upgrade in your deck and stay permanently upgraded is very interesting.
Negatives
I don’t like the look of the game, I’d prefer something… better. Cleaner. Smoother. Nicer.
While not random, the different game elements can either come together and help you out… or it can be very unhelpful. For example, in a recent run, I happened to start with a random ard that increased my strength. I got 2 more cards early on that did a similar thing. Then, mid-run, I got a card that doubled my strength. It all worked well.
It’s VERY hard, even at the first level. I’ve only won 1 in about 40 runs! 🙂
Summary
I played this a lot until Monster Train came along, another roguelike deck-building game that is better in my opinion.
I still play this and I will probably pick up the real card game version of Slay the Spire when it comes to Kickstarter, we’ll see.
It has made me look at other games from Mega Crit though, of which there are none 🙂
Still, if you only make one game and it’s this one you’re doing well!
Jesta ThaRogue