Slay the SpireSlay the Spire is a deckbuilding roguelite that I've been interested in recently. I've been watching one of my favorite Youtubers play it, and I decided to pick it up myself. It's Early Access, but it's been in development for two years according to the dev and the current build is fairly robust. The jist of it is that you start out with a very basic deck of attacks and defends and then you move through combat and events, adding cards or removing cards from you deck one at a time to get stronger, along with finding relics that give you passive benefits. The game is structured around a map that shows you all of the floors in the current area. Each area has 18 floors (plus an end boss), and can be one of several types: enemy, elite enemy, merchant, rest, treasure, or unknown. The Unknown locations can be one of any of the other room types or a random event. Some events will give you a relic or a card or money, some let you trade some of your resources for other resources, and occasionally you might get one that's just straight up bad.
Combat is turn-based and card-based. Each turn you draw a hand of cards and are given 3 energy to play whichever cards you want (relics and card effects can increase the amount of energy you have). Energy costs on cards range from 0 to 3. You draw 5 cards each turn and then play the ones you want, and then pass the turn to your enemy. All of your cards, played and unplayed, go into your discard pile. You continue to draw a fresh hand of cards every turn until your draw pile is empty, and then your discard pile is reshuffled and becomes your draw pile. The exception are Exhausted cards. Exhaust is the equivalent of Exile in Magic the Gathering, these cards are effectively removed from the game until the end of the match. Cards with Exhaust generally have more powerful effects that normal cards, with the drawback being that you can generally only use them once per combat. Some cards also have the ability to exhaust other cards.
When you start the game, you're given a basic deck filled with Strikes ("Deal 6 damage to target creature") and Defends ("Gain 6 block"). Damage works exactly as you'd expect, Block absorbs that much damage for that turn and then any remaining Block is removed at the end of the turn. From there, the cards increase in complexity, although they're all very easy to understand and divided into 4 types: Attacks, Skills, Powers, and Curses. Attacks attack (duh). Skills are defensive cards and all other utility cards (card draw, buffs/debuffs, etc). Powers are the equivalent of Enchantments in Magic the Gathering, the give you passive benefits that last for the current match. Curses are bad; they can either be put into your deck until end of combat or permanently (until you can remove them) are dead cards in your hand that also sometimes do bad stuff to you when you have them in your end (deal damage to you, debuff you, etc).
Combat continues until you or your enemy are dead. It's a roguelite, so death is permanent of course, but there are things to unlock and randomized relics and cards to find on every run. The crux of the game is risk vs. reward. Do you fight an elite enemy and possibly take a lot of damage to get a guaranteed relic that could be a powerful passive effect you need for your build? Do you go to the campsite instead and regain XP to stay alive longer? The Unknown rooms are interesting because the range from really good to kinda bad with lots of options in between. The Campsites also give you an interesting choice, you can either rest to regain XP or upgrade a card in your deck to make it stronger. The merchant sells cards, relics, and potions (one-time use effects that can be used at any time and don't cost energy). They also sell the ability to remove cards from your deck, which is good from getting rid of curses and underperforming cards.
Boss fights, at least at the moment, are extremely difficult and you will not win a run with a half-assed deck. Some decent play or a little luck will get you past the first floor, but it's very possible (indeed likely) that you'll get to the 2nd or 3rd boss and be unable to win with your currently constructed deck, no matter how optimally you play or how much RNGsus blesses you. Bosses are random, and are strong or weak to different strategies that you can't possibly know ahead of time, so you could just be screwed. You may like this or you may not, I'm having fun trying different things and seeing what works. Even a losing run gets you closer to more unlocks.
