Slay the Spire

My experience is quite the reverse to Tortilla’s: I find that the foes are very predictable. Some are beyond that: boss opponents always follow the exact same patterns, so much I know whether I will survive or be dead before the fight starts, oftentimes.

I’ll second what Coldsteel said about learning the synergies of the cards, adding that the artefacts are really what can make or destroy a lot of the cards as well. A seemingly useless card can become the star of the next deck that way. The newest culcript of this in my case has been the Silent’s Grand Finale, which I finally discovered how to properly use two days ago. What a revelation that was!

Adaptating and coming up with new deck builds has been really rewarding, and I am still discovering new strategies and interactions I didn’t think about before, all the time (I am not exaggerating), even after God know how many hours of playing it. Preparing for, and exploiting some of the enemies can be very rewarding too.
A tricky part for me has been that some mechanics of the blocking game were not described, sometimes even counter intuitive. But once I got over that fence, I never felt cheated.
The most tricky part is that I spend too much time pondering, as most of my runs last well over an hour.
And I have been still stuck, all this time, to Ascension 2.

This reminds me, I keep seeing references to being on “Ascension 14” or something. What is this?

if you keeping winning you unlock ascension difficulties, each of which tweaks the game in some slight way against you. I think it maxes out at 14 currently. The best I got is…4 I think? On the Ironclad.

I’m on Ironclad 5 and just unlocked Silent 6.

It’s honestly surprising how much the game changes from these little speedbumps. “Elites are more deadly.” Okay, uh, what’s that mean? Not all that much, until it stacks with “Normal enemies are more deadly” and “Bosses are more deadly” and “Heal less after bosses” and &c &c.

Sustain becomes much more of a thing. Burst becomes more of a thing. Adaptability becomes more of a thing. Consistency becomes more of a thing. You start to realize certain truths about the game, like when you should add cards and when to walk away. You get a better sense of a run that’s going well and could use a more conservative style, and when to get aggressive because you need some breaks to crack the next ceiling.

I dunno, y’all. I really love this game, and that’s after really loving but ultimately checking out of Monster Slayers (after like 100 hours, tbf). And that’s not even counting the Defect, who I played like 3 beta runs with and can’t wait till he gets brought into trunk.

Played this for 6 hours over the weekend and I think it’s pretty good. Managed to beat the game using both classes, I liked the poison character more.

The only reason i can explain this getting the overwhelmingly positive feedback it has is that most people haven’t played dream quest. I think in most respects dream quest is the more interesting and fun game. Comparing the two :

  • I prefer the dream quest approach of many classes and a pool of shared cards that are bigger than in this game.
  • slay the spire is really missing an interesting world between battles. You appear to be able to select paths, knowing what is ahead, but in dream quest you run around a level and can strategically choose when to activate or engage things.
  • slay the spire lets you know what the enemy is about to do, I’m not sure if that improves things.
  • dream quest monsters have actual decks, which I like as you can affect /steal their deck with certain cards/classes.
  • slay the spire allows for multiple simultaneous monsters, I guess thats a plus.
  • I like relics, does dream quest have something equivalent I cant remember?
  • graphics are obviously better in spire.

Not trying to slag the game as it is good, but anyone who enjoys this needs to also try dream quest!!! It was originally an ios classic, but it was ported to stream a couple of years ago.

I am on the other side: I liked Dream Quest, but I like Slay the Spire a lot more — but I also think they are appealing to different tastes.

For most of the classes, it felt to me that Dream Quest’s challenge was to try and crack the right way to play them. Slay the Spire is about improvising and dealing with what you are… being dealt, in a much more confined space.

I confess I hardly ever played a class again in Dream Quest once I (finally, after many, many, many tries) cleared the game with it. I felt like I was done. Meanwhile I enjoy playing over and over Slay the Spire and figuring new strategies every time… while I now notice that there are no meta-progression to emphasize repeated playthroughs, unlike Dream Quest.

Before playing it, I was one of those people who dismissed Slay the Spire as a straight copycat to Monsters Slayers or Dream Quest, and I am a bit angry at myself about that. I am glad I grabbed it eventually, as I think this game is offering a very distinctive experience.

Same, I picked this up recently and haven’t been able to put it down.

This is what blows my mind about Slay the Spire. Before playing Spire I would have agreed with this, but only because I thought the other approach was doomed to fail. Instead I found out it’s not only possible, but now I prefer it.

The 3rd character is here! You have to beat the game with the Silent to unlock him. If you already have, you still have to play a run with the Silent, but you don’t have to win, he’ll still unlock. At least, that’s what happened to me.

On my first run with the new guy, he’s pretty cool. Got a different thing going on.

For anybody tired of reading fanboys crying with joy in this thread, Three moves Ahead had a show where you can listen to four fanboys panelists crying with joy.

Julian Murdoch went back for the occasion.

For people who don’t read patch notes, you can now enter ‘DRAFT’ as the game seed to draft your starting deck (or even ‘MEGADRAFT’ to draft from all characters cards!). There are a bunch of other magical seeds:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=646570

… damnit (and thanks for reposting it here).

I wish I had a more stimulating opinion to post but I need to just gush and say that Slay the Spire is So. Good.
Why did I wait to so long to buy this??

Also, that 3MA podcast was great background to my first set of runs last night! And I got some good tips out of it.

That is VERY cool. I had uninstalled it to keep it fresh for a 1.0 launch, but… well, fuck it, I’m giving this a try this weekend.

Every time I see new posts, I’m hoping it’s left EA. :(

I think the game is definitely good enough to be released. It is very near a final product. I wouldn’t suggest hesitating over that, this game is very feature complete and will give you a lot of good gameplay

Do give The Defect a shot if you haven’t yet.

I did, I actually beat the game with him and beat every boss and got a huge chunk of the achievements. I love it, but 50+ hours and the game isn’t even out of early access. ;)

Ahhh, I didn’t notice your excited post a ways back was a month ago. Ha, 28(ish?) days since you’ve got it and 2 of them were spent playing it!

Not bad for 15 bucks, eh?

Edit: I should add that I have, uhh, 77 hours. Gosh. That is a lot of hours.

Thanks! Maybe a Fathers Day gift for me then, heh!