Slay The Spire (2019)

Slay The Spire (2019):

"It's a combination of roguelike-like gameplay with a deck-building card game. It requires players to develop a strategy for their deck on the fly based on the cards they can obtain from loot.”

Slay The Spire is basically a Souls-Like game with cards. You begin the game by selecting a class. Your class determines what skills and abilities (Cards) you have. There's The Ironclad. He's your Tank character with heavy attacks. There's The Silent. He's your Rogue (DPS: Damage-per-Second.) guy with quick attacks and good abilities. There's The Defect, your “Mage-Type”, with weak attack but heavy on spells and abilities.

The one class I haven't gotten yet is The Watcher. But, I assume it's a support-type character. The Monsters you face are fierce, and can do lot of damage usually, just like a Souls-Like. You'll need to balance your block and attack cards each turn. If you don't block, you're dead. If you can't attack, you're dead.

Some monsters can attack and exhaust your cards or steal your cards. Some mini-bosses have special abilities like reflecting attacks back at you or just dealing truckloads of damage. But, fear not. each level of the Spire is like a board, and each defeated monster drops loot. Not every space on the board is a monster encounter. You can have mystery encounter spaces, where something happens whether it's meeting a demon who curses you, but gives you abilities, or a gambling game that can get you new cards. (Or something like that.) Each such space is usually random.

You can also buy potions, cards, and abilities from merchant spaces if you land on them. My favorite spaces though, are campfire spaces. Here, you rest and heal, or upgrade your cards, making their effects more powerful. These are usually good before boss fights or mini-bosses. You can either rest, or upgrade. You cannot do both.

Overall, it's a good game. A tough game. You die a lot. But, it makes me want to replay each time to see if I can do better. I always want to get better cards or try a different class. “Git Gud”, as the gamers say. Give it a try. Check it out on Steam.