Console Corner: Review of Slay the Spire

This blog likes expandable card games. Go look. It loves Seasons, Flesh and Blood, Ashes Reborn, and pretty much anything by FFG (Android: Netrunner, Warhammer: Conquest, Star Wars: Destiny, etc.). There is something about taking a set of first principles and layering onto it a system of cards that allow for dynamic, tactical card play against a competitor. It tickles the spot in my brain which looks for efficiency, optimization, and opportunism. When I heard that a similar experience was available in video game form, my ears perked up. Let's look at Slay the Spire (2019).

Slay the Spire is a card game that takes the idea of a standard deckbuilding game and adds to it the possibilities available only in digital format. Think Hearthstone, but in a single-player, campaign-based experience. In each campaign, players start with a basic deck of cards. It features a few attacks, a few blocks, and a couple cards with special powers. The campaign starts at the first level of a spire, with each level of the spire featuring enemy encounters, from garden varieties to elites to bosses. In an encounter, players use their cards to to reduce the enemy's hit points to zero while preserving as much of their own hit points as they can. Beating a level results in the possibility of adding a new card to your deck, as well as potions and other buffs, and thus potentially having a stronger deck to fight enemies. On their path up the spire, players will likewise encounter merchants and treasure chests that can grant powerful relics and allow players to refine their decks. The overall campaign is divided into three acts, with a boss waiting at the end of each act. Defeat all three bosses and you win. Sounds easy, right? Right....

Slay the Spire is deceptively difficult. More than just playing Attack and Block cards, only players who build synergy among their cards and curate their deck to the nth degree have a chance of getting to the third and final boss, let alone defeating it. Slay the Spire is likewise a rogue-lite game, meaning no two campaigns are the same. Every spire climb is different. At every level enemies, elites, bosses, merchants, etc. are randomized, as are the paths between them. Likewise, the cards players are offered and which can be purchased are randomized. So too are the potions and relics. And while the actions of each enemy can be studied and predicted to a large degree, it's never to the exact degree. And this is all on top of the RNG of card shuffle. So while there is a definitive level of strategy required to win Slay the Spire, a degree of luck is absolutely needed to climb to the top.

The final aspect nailing home the deceptive complexity and strategic satisfaction of Slay the Spire is that there is no concrete formula for success. Play this and do that and you will always win is not possible. There are multiple strategies players can use, depending on the cards they are offered and purchase and the hero they are using (more in a moment). Finding ways of making the situations the game deals to players on any given climb work is likely the most satisfying aspect of the game. On top of forcing players to try new, interesting tactics, it expands the game's design space, making for something richer than the cover description might make it seem.

When players first fire up Slay the Spire there is only one hero to play. But as they have success, getting higher and higher into the spire, they will unlock three other heroes. Each unique with their own unique starting cards and relics, they offer satisfying layers of gameplay. Rather than a one-note song, Slay the Spire has four notes, each with multiple, viable deckbuilds that allow for spire success. The Ironclad is the starting hero. The most basic, he works with modified Attacks and Blocks to smash his way upward. Silence adds nuance to attacking and blocking with poison mechanics as well as many small, free, low damage attacks. Thirdly is Defect. An android, it works with an orb system that benefits players who plan ahead; rotate and charge orbs appropriately and players can be both ready with blocks and attacks. And lastly is Watcher. A stance-based hero, she deals massive damage while in Wrath stance, but enemies likewise deal double damage. Better kill them before they kill you.

While each spire climb is individual, Slay the Spire is loop-based gameplay. Choose one of the four unique heroes, start a climb of the spire, get as far as you can, DIE!, and try again—to get back on the horse and try for better synergy of cards, potions, and relics. With each climb taking 30-60 minutes, depending how far you get, there is an addictive quality to this loop. Just one more time...

There are a couple of potentially disagreeable aspects of Slay the Spire. The first is the manner in which new cards are unlocked. No, it's not pay to win, thank goodness. It is, however, play to play. Better cards are unlocked via progress. Make it past a certain stage in the game and new (i.e. powerful) cards are unlocked, cards which can then be used in future climbs. There is a limited pool to unlock, but for the first several climbs, not all the pool is available. Another way of putting this is: we're going to force you to die in sub-optimal conditions in order to increase your potential for success in the future. It doesn't feel 100% fair—maybe 70%. This release of new cards, however, does form some of the game's addictive character. Like drip feeding narcotics, ooooh, look at that one...

The second potentially disagreeable, or at least unlikable, aspect of Slay the Spire is art. The game takes a cartoonish approach to dungeon climbing, which is fair, but perhaps not optimal. The heroes look unique and are mostly consistent with the background/setting. (I would argue, however, Defect is out of sync...) Looking deeper at enemies, minions, and NPCs, however, and the game starts to lose its artistic consistency. The heroes are human-esque in form, and so are some of the enemies—the slavers, thieves, knights, wizards, etc. But there are also some less human enemies: balls of slime, dogsharks, psycho-plants, and fungus infected rats. These in themselves would perhaps not be so bad if it weren't for the significantly more abstract enemies waiting: a giant hand holding a giant knife, a smoky sphere, magical obelisks, snake birds, a bird man holding sticks, a massive stone head... It's all over the place. And so while it can be appreciated that the designers didn't use a vanilla dungeon motif, the game's art remains incohesive.

The third aspect which some players may find disagreeable but I would describe as something players must accept before playing is RNG. Given Slay the Spire is a procedurally generated game and deck shuffle is always randomized, there are times when the stars do not align. In the game's terms, this means there will be climbs when everything is going your way. You're getting good relics. You're thinning your deck of poor cards. You're not taking a lot of damage. You're blowing through hallway fights. And then suddenly, upon coming to some innocuous mid-level enemy, you get a bad hand three turns in a row (blocks when you need attacks, attacks when you need blocks, etc.). Suddenly, your health bar is dangerously low and you've got an elite enemy next—an enemy you would normally defeat with even half a health bar. But no, after just a few turns the elite knocks you down—just four combats away from the third and final boss. That is the sufferable (or insufferable) reality of Slay the Spire. Nothing to do but get back on the horse.

In the end, Slay the Spire is a deceptively deep card game that can be both satisfying and addicting. It will not be for everyone, but I would encourage anyone who enjoys tabletop deckbuilders to try. The pedigree of games like Dominion, Star Realms, Clank!, Ascension, etc. is front and center, but Slay the Spire takes advantage of the digital format to do a couple more things that cardboard cannot. For those with only such analog experiences, it's deckbuilder+. The game's art, regardless whether you enjoy it or find it incohesive, does not deter the game's successes. Anyone can play, but only the sharpest and cleverest will get to the top of the Spire.