PC/Mac/Linux •
I still haven’t figured out how to use Steam. I mean, I play games on Steam quite a bit, but scanning the store for new arrivals and Early Access gems isn’t something I’ve acquired a skill for. As such, I have to wait until I see someone tweet or post about a Steam title before I’m aware it exists. Slay the Spire is a recent example. I’ve been playing the Early Access version for a couple days, thinking I stumbled onto something special, only to find that it’s been available for 2 months now and we’re the only damn site that hasn’t written up something about it. So, just ignore the fact that Slay the Spire isn’t a brand new release and play along.
Slay the Spire is a roguelike deck-builder which is a combo that should get your blood pumping because it’s the same magical duo that powers a certain gem with terrible artwork. Yes, I’m talking about Dream Quest, and Slay the Spire has much of the same feel. Luckily, it adds enough new mechanisms that while the thrill remains similar, gameplay feels completely different.
As in most dungeon-crawling roguelikes, you play as a single soldier drawn from one of three available classes. You’re offered a map with multiple starting points that twist, converge, and diverge all on their way to a boss at the top. You get to pick which paths to take, with the map clearly showing if you’ll be battling a monster, an elite, nabbing a chest, or whatever. The map is also filled with question marks which can be anything, but often seem to be choose-your-own adventure style events where you get to pick your own destiny. Everything you do leads to more gold, magic items, and cards. You’ll get to add new cards after just about every encounter, while other encounters will let you upgrade cards you already own or discard fodder from your growing deck.
Combat is a simple affair from a rules perspective, but isn’t something you can wade into just tossing cards from your hand willy-nilly. First of all, you have a small pool of energy to draw from each turn, and each card you play will drain some of it. Your starting cards are either “defense” or “attack” cards, so you’ll have to decide if you want to use your energy this turn to protect you from the enemy’s oncoming attack, or do you go on the offensive? As you earn cards and items, the game’s depth begins to emerge. You’ll be looking for combos with your own cards, but also need to be aware of special abilities that your enemies are throwing at you, making some of your cards less effective than they should be. Each battle is a new puzzle to unravel and it’s great.
A big part of what makes Slay the Spire so damn good is the sheer variety of options offered each encounter. The game has over 200 cards, over 50 unique encounters, over 100 different items to find, and every level is procedurally generated so you’ll never see the exact same sequence of events twice.
Slay the Spire is currently in Early Access on Steam for PC/Mac/Linux. We’re not sure when it will be going into full release, but I’ll say that the EA version is pretty polished as-is. I haven’t encountered any crashes or bugs yet, and I’ve been playing the hell out of it. We’ve put in a call with developer, Megacrit, to see if there’s a chance Slay the Spire would ever appear on mobile. It seems like it would be a perfect fit, particularly for tablets, but we haven’t heard back [Dave sent them an email only a few minutes ago, so it’s not their fault.- ed.]. We’ll keep an ear out, and will most likely be posting an in-depth review when Slay the Spire has its full release.
It’s an excellent game, with a dev who’s very active pushing weekly updates and communicating on the game’s Discord channel.
What’s a discord channel
Discord
Slay the Spire Discord channel invitation
The gateway to the Fifth Circle of HELL!
I’m sure there’s some folks who like it, but I lasted less than 45 minutes on Discord. Too many clowns afraid to have an unexpressed thought.
Re: The actual post. Nice find. Investigating now. Since, you know, it’s not like I have an “Unplayed, Please Play Me” folder of games …
Dave’s making a “funny” since we just added a Discord channel.
Doesn’t everybody have such a folder @TheDukester?
Holding out hope for a switch or mobile version, but last I heard that wouldn’t even be considered seriously until the pc version is out.
Based on this review I went and bought the game, and immediately spent my next 6 hours playing it!
Really fantastic, finally the successor to Dream Quest that I have been waiting for. My only complaint is that there are only 2 character classes. I am ready for more
There’s a third character already in the works, but it seems like that’s the only additional one planned.
That’s a downer. For it to be a DQ-type experience, it seems like more classes would be vital. Part of that game’s charm is how very different each class plays, and there’s so many of them.
In case anyone is interested, this works quite well on ipad with touch controls via the steam link app.
It’s also coming to Switch on June 6th with touch controls!
Right, and I had been waiting for it to come to switch. But when I finally saw the announcement for the switch release, I realized I could instead play it on iPad via steam link or PS4. Those options haven’t been available for all that long. So I decided not to wait any longer. In all likelihood, I will get it on switch as well.
Actually, just FYI and just for completeness of information; StS and basically any computer game on PC or Mac, has been available for stream play for many years now by via other apps such as Splashtop, chrome Remote Desktop, VNC viewer, and team viewer. Steam link actually does little more than those apps, and they’ve been around for years. They even all 4G internet play, which steam link is only just about to allow (if not already?? It did in the beta). Also, some of those apps imo offer a better control scheme.
I’ve been using Splashtop with my Mac and iPhone for about a year now and settled on it because I liked the way it simulated the mouse control.
Basically any “mouse only” input game that is turn based can be played using these apps quite well. I play StS and Into The Breach remotely to my Xs Max.
Anyway. Yes. StS is incredible and I can’t wait till it releases on phone supposedly later this year. Until then, on iOS there’s Dream Quest, night of the full moon, pirates outlaws, Card Quest, lophis roguelike, dimensions of dream, spellsword origins, Silent Abyss and Royal booty Quest (is a clone of StS with terrible graphics and some changes up basically because they just couldn’t quite copy it completely in all its intracies).
Ok, sure, this particular method. I’ve actually used splashtop (not recently, mind you). I’ve also used the physical steam link hardware. The new app is better than either of those experiences.
I’d happily play an updated version of dream quest. Can’t get past the programmer art.
I am the person who asked him for a way to give him more money. I love this game.
Interesting game … but all conversations about its future have to begin with the “art.”
But if he is working on an art update, which he obviously is, I’d gladly shove a wad of cash at it. I’ve never played, but it is basically the grandfather of a genre, and many love despite how awful it looks. I mean, it HAS to be good to get past that. I recall people describing monster slayers as a lite version of Dream Quest.
And thanks for that @Shadowfax
It’s the game that makes me understand why people love Dark Souls. It is brutally hard and that makes every triumph truly awesome and exciting. And every character, every enemy, they all play so drastically different.
Also, call me crazy but I love the art. I hope if he changes it he adds the option to keep the old stuff. It had charm, and hey, he was letting his daughter do it.
Lol, sounds like a perfect option to have a donation unlock.
I really enjoyed the art. It was effective, and unique.
Exactly!
It has been talked about as nauseum so nothing I say is new, but I’ll add my two cents: I haven’t played it and likely won’t until the art changes. It may sound shallow, and I may fully understand and appreciate the reason the art is what it is, but there is enough entertainment out there that I don’t need to bother with something that looks like a bad prototype. In what other medium would this be acceptable? Would we all be in love with a car that has the most comfortable drive but looks like a rusted-out Reliant Robin? Would we all yearn for a house with a great floor plan that looks like the Addams Family mansion on a bad day? How about a Casablanca remake starring Johnny Knoxville and Miley Cyrus?
Substance is certainly more important than style to me, but not exclusively.
Yes to the first two hypotheticals; if a car rides great and a house is huge and comfortable, why would it matter that it wasn’t pretty? The third is a bit of a stretch.
I won’t pretend to be completely beyond shallowness. But it’s a shame to let surface impressions keep you from something.
It counts, though. And it’s silly to pretend otherwise.
The guy released a game with absolutely embarrassing art. That was his choice — and he doesn’t get a free pass for it.
That being said, I’ll agree that the product itself rises above it and is worth trying. But it took me a while to get there, even at what was/is a pretty reasonable price.
Beyond the art, I actually had some gameplay issues once I got into it. Heresy, I know. I just kept waiting for this slice of perfection that others were experiencing — and it just wasn’t happening.
I’m glad it was such a hit, though. If nothing else, we need success stories from independent publishers who can make a dent in what is otherwise a landscape mostly full of F2P garbage.
For me, it’s more than a surface thing. It plays in heavily to my enjoyment. And as @Mirefox said, there are sooo many options out there. To give a different example, there are many games I’d love to play on iPad that I refuse to buy because they don’t support landscape (especially infuriating when they have a pc or console version formatted that way). In case it isn’t clear, I’m thrilled the game is getting updated and hope to have a new reason to throw money at it.
To put this Dream Quest art thing in to perspective a bit, and well this is coming from just me but I’ve seen it said numerous times elsewhere; Dream Quest is arguably better than StS if not at least just a different flavour, while all the other deck builder rogues are second tier imo. Dream Quest has what the others have, but it’s ultra tight in design (a good thing), and subtly offers it’s own tight gameplay edges. I won’t list all the things it has because these days they all have it (branching pathways, Card synergies, events etc), but with all that, DQ has it, and it’s just done it right. You are rewarded greatly for getting intimate with the game. Sure others do that, but not in the way DQ does it, and not with so many different heroes on offer and not with such a range of differences to those heroes decks.
Also, the Art. What’s funny, is that the art serves its purpose so well. Cards are instantly recognized without having to be picked up from the hand. Unlike other games where a card might just appear like some red card with some generic art until you zoom right in.
Anyway, art or not, it’s simple that those that don’t want to give it a go (yet) are missing out on a great game, closest rival if we had to put it that way is yes, StS, but like I said DQ has its own gameplay.
Hopefully an art update comes for you guys, and looking forward to hearing how you find it then when you really get in to it.
I would just like to say I’ve been obsessed with it ever since I grabbed it on Humble Bundle recently.
In terms of art… yes, it’s taxing. I do, however, know people who appreciate the style. It’s certainly unique enough to distinguish it from other games of the genre. The game is also better than the other card-based dungeon crawler rogue likes.
So overall Ugly/10 would recommend.
I think it’s interesting that Dream Quest continues to inspire discussions like this a few years after its release–I don’t know of many other games that do that. It might be nicer to be acknowledged as an unquestionably great game, but there’s something to be said for being a game that inspires a strong reaction from everyone.
I agree with @Shadowfax–DQ does what it does better than most, maybe all, deck building roguelikes. That’s pretty impressive considering DQ was there before most of these games. DQ may not have quite created the genre (I don’t know my gaming history well enough to know), but it certainly elevated the genre.
I get both sides–I was in the “this art’s too damn ugly” camp for a while but loved the game as soon as I played it. To each his own, though. There’s more than enough games out there for people to concentrate on stuff they really like.
Didn’t he have his kids help with much of the card art in order to get them involved during development?
It’s amazing how good the underlying gameplay is that is spawned so many other games as card rogue-likes. I still have yet to beat it will all the classes.
What do you mean beat it? If you mean complete all three floors I have definitely done that. But if you mean actually defeating the LoD that would be a massive undertaking. I have only done that with Professor, Dragon, Wizard and Bard.