- Pronouns
- He/Him
FTL was one of my favorite games in a while, an excellent roguelike. I've also been fond of deckbuilding games. So I was quite pleased when I ran across Slay the Spire on Steam, which is still in Early Access.
The strategic level resembles FTL. You have to proceed through 3 sectors got your 'sector' analogue:
You got your shops and their piles of choices that are often more nailbiting then the actual combat:
And then you got your turn-based combat:
The core combat is:
*Spend energy to play as many cards as you can afford to play, primarily to inflict damage or provide block that neutralizes incoming damage for this turn.
*Discard remainder of hand.
*Draw back to 5 cards, reshuffling deck as needed. Go back to full energy.
Like Dominion, you have a starter deck of 10 cards, which you will be adding to, upgrading (cards generally can be upgraded to a more powerful version, but only once), or removing. You also get Potions that are one-use consumables that don't cost an action to use, and Relics which provide key bonuses though they sometimes have negative effects too, reminiscent of Binding of Isaac. Some cards Exhaust themselves or other cards, removing them from your deck for the remainder of the Encounter, which can be a good and/or bad thing. Attacks deal damage, Skills block or do various effects, Powers are costly but once played stay out for the remainder of the Encounter providing passive effects and not clogging your deck. At the end of combat encounters, you get various rewards plus the opportunity to pick 0-1 of 3 proffered cards.
As noted before, the strategic structure resembles FTL. You have an HP bar that carries over from encounter to encounter. Instead of multiple ships, there are several (2, going on 3 by release) characters each with a huge deck of cards unique to them plus 'colorless' cards available at the merchant for anyone. There are a large number of builds, but at the same time there are a lot of enemy encounters, many of which punish or counter some strategies while being vulnerable to others. There are tons of cards which scream 'build around me' and tons of various synergies to exploit. That said unlike FTL certain elements of randomness are removed, which is a good thing as the game is laden with a lot of randomness so making some things more predictable enhances strategizing. On the strategic map, the approximate contents of locations (standard encounter, tough encounter, non-combat encounter, shop, rest spot) are made clear though its guesswork what they'll specifically have. Meanwhile in tactical combat enemies clearly communicate their planned action, allowing you to kill them, initiate blocks, or otherwise act as needed.
So far I'm still pretty early in, having played three games and getting to Sector 2 in two of them, but overall I can already tell this game is gonna be a good time sink and I'll be getting my money's worth. The graphics and sound are quite solid by indie game standards, if a tad repetitive. Has anyone else here played it? If you like deckbuilders (a la Dominion or Thunderstone, not MTG or Hearthstone) or FTL or turn-based dungeon hacky roguelikes. Now that I'm done chattering about how awesome it is I need to go play it some more.
The strategic level resembles FTL. You have to proceed through 3 sectors got your 'sector' analogue:
You got your shops and their piles of choices that are often more nailbiting then the actual combat:
And then you got your turn-based combat:
The core combat is:
*Spend energy to play as many cards as you can afford to play, primarily to inflict damage or provide block that neutralizes incoming damage for this turn.
*Discard remainder of hand.
*Draw back to 5 cards, reshuffling deck as needed. Go back to full energy.
Like Dominion, you have a starter deck of 10 cards, which you will be adding to, upgrading (cards generally can be upgraded to a more powerful version, but only once), or removing. You also get Potions that are one-use consumables that don't cost an action to use, and Relics which provide key bonuses though they sometimes have negative effects too, reminiscent of Binding of Isaac. Some cards Exhaust themselves or other cards, removing them from your deck for the remainder of the Encounter, which can be a good and/or bad thing. Attacks deal damage, Skills block or do various effects, Powers are costly but once played stay out for the remainder of the Encounter providing passive effects and not clogging your deck. At the end of combat encounters, you get various rewards plus the opportunity to pick 0-1 of 3 proffered cards.
As noted before, the strategic structure resembles FTL. You have an HP bar that carries over from encounter to encounter. Instead of multiple ships, there are several (2, going on 3 by release) characters each with a huge deck of cards unique to them plus 'colorless' cards available at the merchant for anyone. There are a large number of builds, but at the same time there are a lot of enemy encounters, many of which punish or counter some strategies while being vulnerable to others. There are tons of cards which scream 'build around me' and tons of various synergies to exploit. That said unlike FTL certain elements of randomness are removed, which is a good thing as the game is laden with a lot of randomness so making some things more predictable enhances strategizing. On the strategic map, the approximate contents of locations (standard encounter, tough encounter, non-combat encounter, shop, rest spot) are made clear though its guesswork what they'll specifically have. Meanwhile in tactical combat enemies clearly communicate their planned action, allowing you to kill them, initiate blocks, or otherwise act as needed.
So far I'm still pretty early in, having played three games and getting to Sector 2 in two of them, but overall I can already tell this game is gonna be a good time sink and I'll be getting my money's worth. The graphics and sound are quite solid by indie game standards, if a tad repetitive. Has anyone else here played it? If you like deckbuilders (a la Dominion or Thunderstone, not MTG or Hearthstone) or FTL or turn-based dungeon hacky roguelikes. Now that I'm done chattering about how awesome it is I need to go play it some more.
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