The Addictive Loop of Slay the Spire

Roguelikes. A genre built around trial and error. Fast, short, and brutal, they’re all about rolling the dice and honing your skills to their utmost.

Deckbuilders. A genre built around patience and strategy. Slow, meticulous, they’re all about careful planning and combinations, about optimizing your cards to bring out your deck’s maximum potential.

One is peanut butter. The other is chocolate. Looking at it like that, you’d think the marriage between the two would have been obvious. But I could never have anticipated just how delicious it truly would be.

Slay the Spire doesn’t really have much of a story. There is a spire. Climb it. Slay monsters. That’s it. There are some story events you can encounter in your playthrough, and some lore is sprinkled in the character descriptions and card artwork, but none of them make for a cohesive narrative. Besides, they’re all completely skippable.

First, pick your game mode. Standard mode is a basic run, giving you the dev-intended experience. Daily Climb is a competitive mode wherein you’ll play a run with a set character and altered ruleset; if you want to compete for the highest score, this is the mode for you. Custom mode allows you to alter the rules of your run, making things easier – or more likely harder – for yourself.

This game doesn’t waste your time. Pick your mode, choose a character, then bam! You’re in the game. Here’s your starting deck, now go slay the Spire! Good luck!

Speaking of: the playable characters in this game are great! They’re all entirely unique, with their own cards, events, and mechanics! Each one feels like an entirely separate game, they’re so diverse!

The Ironclad is your starting character. But he is far from a standard fantasy knight. He can be a block-stacking goliath, a flame caster, a glass cannon, and more. Simple to learn and easy to master, he’s a beginner’s best bet at conquering the Spire.

After him is the Silent. This deadly assassin relies on daggers and poison. Weaken your enemy until the toxin in their veins kills them, or whittle them down with a thousand knives. While a bit trickier than the Ironclad, she’s still very accessible and, if you play your cards right, exceedingly deadly.

Next up, the Defect. This automaton uses orbs to channel technological power. From hurling lightning to building a shield of ice to throwing a miniature black hole, this caster is as rewarding as he is tricky to play.

Finally, the Watcher. This powerful warrior switches between stances in battle. Rage increases the damage you deal as well as the damage you take. Calm gives you an extra energy whenever you exit the stance. With certain cards and buffs, you can enter Divine stance, a one-turn maneuver that triples your combat effectiveness. Masterful stance switching is essential to success. However, in order to unlock them, you first need to finish a standard run with one of the prior three characters.

With your hero selected, you entire into the Spire. Your objective is simple: climb to the top of the floor and kill the boss. Do this three times and you unlock the true final boss. Do one more run and kill them and you beat the game. Easy, right?

Ha, ha. No. Not at all.

To progress, you’ll move forward on what is essentially a board game map. Each spot presents you with a challenge and an opportunity. Campfires allow you to recover your HP or upgrade one card from your deck. Shops allow you to buy new cards, potions, relics, or remove a card you don’t need anymore. Elite enemies present a greater challenge with the promise of huge rewards, but will bring your run to an early, gruesome end if you’re not prepared. Mystery spots are a roulette; you could get an event, a shop, a treasure room, or a combat encounter. Thankfully, you get a full view of the map right from the start, so you can carefully plan your route to stack the odds in your favor.

Play your cards right (ha ha, get it?) and you can create some insane combinations! For example, my first winning deck with the Ironclad was what I affectionately dubbed the ‘Debuff Inferno.’ I set up a buff that deals fire damage to all enemies every time I drew a Cursed or Status card, then stacked my deck with cards that add said effects. Some turns, I would draw a full hand of useless cards, sit back, and watch the enemies melt. It was almost too efficient; I hardly had to play!

Almost being the operative word. Trust me, you’ll need every advantage you can get. Slay the Spire is not an easy game by any means. Even if your deck is somehow one-hundred percent optimized, one bad hand is enough to end your run in an instant. Hope you’re feeling lucky, because you’ll need it.

With all of that, Slay the Spire is already a super replayable and addictive game. But wait! There’s more! See, the devs weren’t satisfied just making a game you can replay for a while. They set out to make a rogue-like deckbuilder that you could play forever! How?

One word: mods.

If you play on PC, you’ll have full access to the modding community. New playable characters, events, relics, cards, you name it, modders made it! Such as the Hermit, a gunslinging sharpshooter so polished that you’d think he was in the base game! The replay value of this game was already insane, but with this, it’s basically infinite!

Of course, none of that would matter a lick if the game weren’t any fun to play. Thankfully, every single run is a total blast! Discovering new super-powerful combinations and seeing how far you can get with it is incredibly satisfying! Even after my most devastating defeats, I couldn’t help but want to leap straight back into it and roll the dice again!

Slay the Spire is one of the most addictive games I’ve ever played. Quick and exciting, easy to learn yet tough to master, and loaded to the brim with content, it’s a wet dream for deckbuilders and rogue-like fans alike! All for a decent bargain! It’s an indie gem through and through!

Just don’t get to attached to a run. Sorry Yugi, not even the Heart of the Cards can protect you here!