There’s a noticeable and satisfying difference when a new card is played as actions become more powerful. While the game lacks a traditional leveling mechanic, each card earned feels like a significant increase in power when decks are small. The three separate classes have their own separate pool of cards tailored to fit their play styles, but there are universal cards that can be obtained through events and shops. These more advanced cards begin adding wrinkles to general strategies and open up many new possibilities. Every monster defeated grants some gold to the player and the choice of one of three cards to add to the deck. While basic in its implementation, Slay the Spire‘s combat quickly evolves into something far more engaging. When the character’s deck runs empty, the discard pile is shuffled and turned into a new deck from which to draw.

At the end of the character’s turn, the remainder of the hand is discarded and a new hand of five cards is drawn. Players play cards from their hand until they run out of energy, run out of cards, or choose to end the turn prematurely. Helping the player to plan their turns are symbols hovering over each enemy indicating what action they will perform next. The basic cards, Attack and Defend, either deal damage to a target or give a one turn protective shield for the amount listed. Cards are played from the hand using energy, which by default is three. The player’s actions are dictated by a deck of cards from which the character will draw a hand of five each turn. In Slay the Spire‘s combat, each round consists of an attack from the player followed by a retaliation from the opponents. To understand how the classes differentiate themselves, it is crucial to know the meat of the game.

While playing as the Silent, shivs are plentiful. While the list of classes is one of the game’s few shortcomings, the amount of customization and variety found within each class more than makes up for what at first appears to be a slight list of character options. The three classes all fit into the traditional RPG molds: the Ironclad is the beefy tank, the Silent is a slippery rogue, and the Defect a mechanized take on the magic-wielding mage. Instead, the game immediately grants the player a choice of class - one initially, three in total - before plopping them in front of a talking whale and bringing them right to the game.

There are token paragraphs dedicated to some menace sitting atop the titular spire, but nothing in the presentation offers anything more than a dialogue box to be skipped. Slay the Spire offers little in the way of storytelling, opting instead to head right into the action. While not the first to attempt a melding of these two concepts, Slay the Spire is an absolute knockout of a devilishly simple concept that nevertheless merges the finesse of deck-building with the gripping strategy of a tightly-designed turn-based combat system, helped all the more by the desire to complete “just one more turn”. Due to their common tabletop origins, it makes sense that RPGs share at least a basic history with that of the collectible card game, another tabletop game where players use cards exclusively to interact with a particular set of rules. Before manipulating buttons to control characters on-screen, pencils were put to paper around the table, letting imaginations and a long list of rules to be memorized serve as many people’s entry to the concept. Role Playing Games’ roots extend to before the advent of the digital medium.

Slay the spire classes