Don't sleep on this fantastic little run-based deck-builder with random events and stuff.

As someone who enjoys but gets stressed out over games like FTL and Rogue Legacy, the turn-based combat of this game brings a welcome slowing of pace. It's also not as dark and brooding as something like Darkest Dungeon.

I've gotten a little bit obsessed with this game lately, which is quite rare for me. I never was into card games.

Even though it's in Early Access, it is as polished as it is addictive, meaning "very". There are three different characters planned, with two already in the game. Both have their own sets of cards, and like some of the games mentioned previously you have to make good runs to unlock more cards that are then added to future runs.

You can watch me fail an attempt at completing the game with the character "The Silent" in a block-and-poison build. Warning: Not a member of esports/MLG!

Highly recommended. I know we're just a week in, but this will definitely be on my top-10 GOTY this year.

@eloj: This looks pretty neat. Thank you for the recommendation.

I've been disappointed by early access one too many time, so I might just wait for it to be 1.0 before buying it, but it still seems like my kind of thing.

Do you have any idea of how much or how often the devs have updated the game since launch. Are they good about communicating updates?

great game, just won for the first time

First off, "thanks" to whoever moved my post where it can't help discovery at all, some great thinking there.

Second, devs commit to an update at least every two weeks on the Steam page, but they've been keeping a mostly weekly update going. The latest one just came out.

I hope they don't make the mistake of keeping making it harder and harder. The people who are playing now (and keep on playing) are very dedicated, based on at least 2.6% having the 'hardest' achievement last I checked. It's going to be a mistake to tune the game to the early fanbase, IMO. I seem to remember this being one of the Early Access pitfalls pointed out by the Darkest Dungeon guys.

Finally beat it for the first time.

Now to do it again with The Silent.

EDIT: This just in; official MrMooEars endorsement!

This week's patch is out (patch notes). Aside from bug-fixes, the big feature is leaderboards (not my thing), and color-less cards have an upgrade path.

The 2nd character is a good deal different and fun too.

Love messing around with poison.

Started playing yesterday after seeing some Twitch streamer named Austin stream the game for 3 hours and win earlier this week and having seen this thread before. Only completed three runs, best was about halfway through the second level, and totally second @azrailx's comment above about poison being fun. Poison got me through one fight I had no business winning...only to get slaughtered on the next level but that's okay!

I picked this up immediately after Austin’s stream this week. I’ve always liked card games but many of them turn me off as it’s often a race towards an ideal deck build, particularly if they are multiplayer.

FTL is one of my favourite games of recent years and this has a very similar feel of having to do the best you can with what you come across. The relic system provides a really cool amount of variation to the strategy as well so you don’t just fall in to trying to build the same type of deck over and over.

Just wanted to jump in to also give high praise to the game. After watching that Austin stream, even though i never any played deckbuilding games, i couldn't stop thinking about it. Having a build "click" is a great feeling.

The first time i completed it was with an Ironclad with a block build, and after a few turns, i just couldn't stop. Killed the last boss with a 110 damage attack. Actually laughed at the absurdly overkill move i did to kill this dude that a just few turns ago i was scared of. Second one was with the Silent, becoming an elephant's foot of toxicity and poisoning everything that looked at me.

Looks like a nice little update this week.

Features:

• Run History: You can now view your past runs. Simply select the option from the Main Menu.
• Boss icons on the map now reveal which boss you are up against in the current Act.
• Fast Mode.
• Twitch integration (voting)

EDIT: Seems they removed the bosses from the stats screen, disappointing. Oh well, here's the run history:

Super cool game that I picked up after watching Northernlion play it for a bit. I thought it would get boring after unlocking everything but with Ascension mode out it really gave me a few more dozen hours to really try and go for it. Loving the weekly updates and most of the balance changes have been pretty sensible so far between making certain encounters tougher or more reasonable and nerfing overpowered cards.

Really looking forward to the 3rd class!

This game, is pretty good. Been playing it pretty much every day for the last 2 months or so. Not always completing a run, but since you can save and quit and come back to any run in progress, it's been a good cool-down game.

So far, the newest update seems good, giving you more to do. And with each class being completely different play-style wise, its got some decent depth too it. Whenever we get the 3rd class I expect another 10-15 hours from that alone.

As is I've sitting on 27 hours (accord to steam) have fully unlocked the Knight/Red/Iron clad deck and am 2 unlocks away from unlocking the Rogue/Green/Silent deck. What I've found to be true of the game so far is..

Both classes have a pretty decent easy win combo, if you get the cards, which benefit from choosing to not add a card to your deck most of the time. The Iron clad's 'is an enemy attacking? +3/+4 strength" mixxed with "Double your strength bonus" ends up being brutally effective. The Silent on the other hand relies on getting cards that let you play 10+ cards in a turn, plus any finisher that benefits from them (Choke, Finisher).

Alternatively, it does seem perfectly possible to just take the best card your offered each time and beat the game with whatever deck you can build. It does come down to some luck, especially if you can't clear several low impact cards later on in the run (drawing 4 defends and 1 strike, all un-ungraded on the one turn your primed to go all-out).

That said, advice wise. Use the skip feature when your not given cards that you really want in your deck. Don't rest as often as you initially think you need too, every fight but the boss you should be able to get by taking next to no damage, elites should take off at most about half your health, the more health you have going into the boss the better, rest accordingly. Fight Elites whenever you can get away with it, the loot they give is worth it. Avoid monsters whenever you can, they are rarely worth it. Hit every ? you can. They are by far the single best locations on ever map.

Ideally you want to chart out the path your gonna take before you start. Hit as many Elites, ?, camps and and shops if you are ready/wanting to spend money (either saving to buy an item, or deciding to spend it all on card-removal). Upgrade more then you rest. Fight as few normal monsters as you can get away with. That got me through the non assention-ranks. (and honestly since Assention Rank one just add's more elites it makes this strategy easier).

Also, once you've gotten the enemy paterns memorized, always favor defense over damage if you know you can afford it. Part of the key to not having to rest so often is to see every point of block you put up as hp gained. While its not usually possible to avoid taking some damage vs elites, learning to favor defense over offence when choosing what cards to play in a given turn, and when you can afford to go full offence is key to getting to the end.

That's it, if this kinda game appeals to you, buy it. Its fantastic. Early Access in that the full product isn't in place but what is there is feature-complete. There is more then enough there for 40+ hours it looks like.

As a parting thought. With the "Fighter" class having an armor/strength upgrade focus and the "Thief" class having a card-draw/discard focus. What does everything think the assumed "Mage" class is gonna focus on? What other kinds of cards might the game include to change things up drastically?

It's not anything big, and it kinda robs a lot of the appeal, but i wish it also had another mode where you can just build the deck you want from the start. Test stuff out, or just have an easy climb.

Weekly Patch 14.

"Daily Climb

Once a day, a difficult challenge is created by combining several rule bending modifiers. The same seed is utilized by everyone so the Daily Climb allows players to see how well they stack up with the same choices.

This a work in progress and modifiers will be added and tweaked, randomization will be reduced, and leaderboards will eventually be added as well."

Very fun daily today, collecting curses to level up your strength. Very easy to win, great for unlocks. Only about three hours to go though.

Got some unlocks and the "You are nothing" and "Perfect" achievements for killing a boss in the first turn, and not taking damage doing it.

The latest Three Moves Head podcast, featuring one Austin Walker, is dedicated to Slay The Spire.

Tom Francis column: "What Works And Why: Juicy maths in Slay The Spire".

Also he had an interesting run here:

I respect your hustle OP, having just bought this game and sunk double digit hours into it I'm already bothering everyone I know with suggestions.

I've only just reached Ascension mode so I haven't sunk my teeth too deep into what is probably the real meat of the game but goddamn if this game isn't almost pitch perfect for my sensibilities.

I feel pretty good about having waited to buy it now that custom mode is a thing, which is great for being able to test out archetypes and such.

I've sunk over 150 hours into this little game so far and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.