Slay the Spire – a roguelike deck-building video game | Hacker News Reader

Slay the Spire – a roguelike deck-building video game

megacrit.com

7 pointssogen15 comments

This might be my favorite game of all time.

The "roguelike" label isn't wrong, but seems a bit tacked on from when every game had to be a "roguelike." Also, the art style isn't really my bag, but that's a matter of personal taste. I mention these two in case they put anyone else off.

Anyway, StS is amazing because it's the "tightest" game I've ever played. The tradeoffs for any one decision are well balanced, but if you aren't thinking of all the tradeoffs you have already made, you are probably going to crash and burn (but have fun time doing it).

It's great on the phone, but you miss out on some great mods, like Downfall. Well worth the cost of entry, in my opinion.

It is really good, a whole run is between 1h - 2h so can be played while commuting for example.

The only downside I can find is that you can't really rest/recharge like in some more traditional roguelikes, you always have to go forward, whatever the cost and your character health. That can be quite punishing if the run took a wrong turn earlier, you don't really have a second chance (unless you get some really good artifact/card randomly), but this is balanced by the fact that the runs are quite short.

I have found over time that playing aggressively without blocking can often lead to the same health point result or better at the end of the fight. Sometimes playing it safe is a trap that will cost you more health in the long run. For example, if you are at > 50% health, it is probably a better value to upgrade a good defensive or healing card than resting yourself.

A good Roguelike needs to push you forward. Those that reward exhaustive preparation are frustrating, because you face a different kind of tradeoff: should I sink yet another hour into preparing this character, or accept a slightly higher chance of losing all those hours preparation?

So I think it's one of those things STS does right.

What do you mean by tacked on? If you're talking about the framework, I can't imagine it'd be remotely the same game if it wasn't one; if you're talking about the label itself, making it a roguelike was pretty clearly a driving principle in its design.

What I mean is that this game is not what comes to mind when I think of the word "roguelike," but perhaps that's just me. During the pre-release and early release of this game, it also felt like nearly every game was touting itself as a roguelike, thus the definition appears to have expanded.

To me, it's more like a card game. Because it is.

Ah, you've got your eras mixed up. 'Roguelike' has meant short, random, and permadeath at least since the Binding of Isaac.

I don't think there's a game I've sunk more time into. Once you decide you want to beat A20 on all four classes you're in for hundreds of hours.

There are so many 'viable' play styles for each class, and the fact that each deck is different it truly feels like a different game every time.

Roguelike has come to mean anything from "permadeath + random" to "top-down turned-based ASCII dungeon-crawler". At least some people stick with "roguelite" when there is permanent progression (e.g. unlocks and powerups between runs) but not always.

Slay the Spire is like Rogue in that you start from scratch and crawl a random dungeon level-by-level and start over if you die. It definitely doesn't look like Rogue, but it's more of a roguelike than many modern "roguelike" games.

A wonderful, wonderful game. The cards are so simple. Gain 8 armor. Deal 5 damage each time you play at attack this turn. But, they synergize in amazing ways.

You realize, wait a minute, I could build my deck around drawing and playing as many cheap attacks as possible each turn. If I do that, then “Deal 5 damage each time you play at attack this turn” cuts them down even faster.

Finding these possibilities is so exciting. Highly recommend.

FYI they were working on a physical card game. They announced it January 2021 so it's been a little while: https://contentiongames.com/games/slay/

This seems to be the most up-to-date information: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2726365/kickstarter-date-de...

There is always the original build-your-deck-as-you-play card game, Dominion. It's still getting new releases, 14 years later. The author is very, very good at playtesting and balance, which is a lot more important in multiplayer (in StS it's OK, fun even, to occasionally get a lucky game-breaking combo)

One of the best roguelite card game

I just wish they'd add more content

A shame really

It has an enormous amount of mods and a bonkers daily challenge. Tuck in.

Today's daily challenge is hilariously bonkers btw. Cursed plus the card duping and if you go for broke on that like I did, dead branch and blue candle very early in the ? rooms.

I ended up with like 240 HP and an insane strength.

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