Slay the Spire is one of the top representatives of the well-known rouge-like genre. It competes only with such brilliant roguelikes as The Binding of Isaac, Darkest Dungeon, Risk of Rain and other reviews of which can be found on https://agrcode.com/. Slay the Spire captivates with its dynamics, pleasing randomness and original drawing.
Rooms
RPGs are distinguished by the random generation of everything in them. Slay the Spire is not inferior to its brethren, but it has its own peculiarities. Not all of the cards in the deck are distinguished by randomness. Generation is observed in the dungeon card portion, as well as the rewards from battles. As standard, each card has at least one chest and a camp.
The game has many different types of rooms. Thus present:
- rooms with simple opponents (rewards are low due to high frequency of occurrence);
- rooms with strong opponents (rare with higher rewards);
- merchant (ability to freely spend gold without consequences);
- treasury (gaining from a single relic);
- camp (healing);
- the location of a random event.
The outcome of a won battle is a reward. This consists of a handful of gold, as well as the opportunity to choose 1 of 3 cards. A potion or relic can also be obtained.
Card deck
Essentially, Slay the Spire is based on a card deck. It provides weapons, abilities, and the state of the hero. Since random location generation is present, the deck is collected in a variety of ways. These can be rewards for battles won, purchases, special events.
The deck is made up of different cards. They differ in their strength or power. Simple cards help deal damage or provide protection, i.e. any supernatural effects are excluded. Rare cards, on the other hand, can significantly help or altogether change the course of events during a battle.
Building a deck with only rare cards is impossible, and makes no sense. It’s the balance that keeps the game interesting and allows for different strategies. With damage and special effects cards you can adjust your tactics.
Combat system
Starts the race with a layout that includes 3 mana units as well as the base deck. A card is drawn according to the amount of mana and a target is selected. Victory goes to whoever manages to achieve ‘zero health’ for their opponent.
The basic deck includes different types of cards, as follows:
- attack – target selection and damage;
- skill – a variation of bonuses to sustain your character;
- talent – a passive ability for the whole battle;
- curse – a negative effect;
- status – a shortened counterpart to a curse (only for one battle).
Despite the lack of randomness on some of the cards (they provide the target selection), it is still possible to make a simple mistake when trying to pick the right card quickly. It is therefore advisable to be deliberate when picking, up to and including skipping rewards if it creates a hindrance.
Gameplay
Normal opponents in combat use standard tactics, and therefore there is not much difficulty in defeating them. With elite enemies and bosses will have to “try”. Some of these characters have unique skills that can apply in battle. So you have to be very careful and try to be original yourself.
Some of the moves have a certain order. The player takes the first move and the opponent takes the second move. If there are several opponents, attacks or effects are also carried out one at a time. There are 4 characters themselves, but only 1 at the start – the Latonosaurus.