So I Tried... Slay the Spire

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never tried before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I'll take a full half hour, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. This time I went for a game that is said to have inspired many games that came after it: Slay the Spire.

What I thought it was

I had heard that Slay the Spire was an amazing card-battling game that was released in 2019 and revolutionised the genre. Personally, I haven’t played too many deck-builders, so I was curious to see if only huge fans of the genre would enjoy this title or if it would make me become a lover of turn-based strategy games like this. You begin at the bottom of a spire and try to defeat all the enemies through card battles to reach the top, it doesn’t sound incredibly exciting, but we will see.   

What it actually is

You start at the bottom of the spire as The Ironclad, one of the four characters you can unlock to get through the multiple floors to reach the top. Each floor will have you battling enemies with your deck of attack and defence cards. During your turn you have three action points to use before the enemy gets to take their turn. Each card costs a different amount to use, usually ranging from one to three points, but there are a couple that let you use the card for free. There are three paths that you can select from, you can select from, which you can see when you fight enemies, go to the merchant, or visit a campfire where you can replenish some health or upgrade one of the cards in your deck. Whenever you win in battle, you will be rewarded with new cards or relics that will give you additional perks to use when you are fighting, like increasing the amount of points you can use up to four, or allowing each card you play to be used twice. 

Slay the Spire is a procedurally generated game where no two runs will feel the same. There are a huge variety of cards to collect and try out to find out which ones would be the best for you especially when you are fighting against the boss of that floor who will have a lot more health than the smaller enemies you were fighting up to that point. Once you complete a floor you can save your progress in case you want to take a break and come back to it later. But, if you are defeated in battle, you will be sent to the bottom and you will have to make your way back up.

Will I keep playing

Slay the Spire is so addictive and fun, I will definitely keep playing. I love the huge variety of cards that you can collect and use, and I look forward to unlocking the other characters to see the differences in their deck. There is a lot of strategy involved here, so it doesn’t just feel like you are selecting random cards and easily getting through the enemies. Being able to choose the route that you want to take to get to the boss really added to the replayability along with it being procedurally generated, this is a title I will be playing for a long time! I understand why this title is so loved and now I am definitely a fan of deck-building games!