When Mega Crit’s 2019 roguelike deckbuilder Slay the Spire first launched, I downloaded the game out of curiosity. Before I knew it, the sun was rising. I had sunk an entire night into the game, diving into run after run despite my apparent inability to win. And now, six years on, I still haven’t “won” the game (though I’ve completed numerous runs).
I had no idea what a roguelike deckbuilder would look like, and I was not prepared for just how addictive it turned out to be. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in the game, perfecting strategies, learning the ins and outs of different enemies, and slowly improving over time.
Slay the Spire has more than 162,000 ratings on Steam, an “Overwhelmingly Positive” average review score, and an 89 on Metacritic. In short, it’s freaking great.
Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a deckbuilding binge. I’ve blown through Monster Train and Monster Train 2, and then decided to return to Slay the Spire to see how much further I could get than before.
Unsurprisingly, it’s been pretty much the only thing I’ve played since. The amount of depth in the gameplay, the ease with which I can pick up and start a run when I have a few minutes to spare, and the level of replayability makes it nearly flawless.
Nearly.
Slay the Spire was Mega Crit’s first major release, and after six years and hundreds of hours, I see a few cracks in the polish. With the launch of Slay the Spire 2 on the horizon, there are several things I hope to see in the next game to set it apart from the first.
A restart turn button
The number of times I’ve accidentally ended my turn, played a card I didn’t mean to play, or took an action without looking over all the cards in my hand is, frankly, ridiculous. Monster Train 2 ruined me by letting me start over, but it’s an option that I think should be in any game like this. It’s far too easy to make a mistake or realize the right move moments after you’ve made a play.
In other games, the ability to restart a turn never made it too easy. If your build is faulty (or you just have bad luck), no amount of starting over will help — but it’s frustrating to make a run-ending mistake and and know you’ve probably destroyed your shot at victory.
Make it harder to discard potions
This might be a console-specific problem. I mostly play Slay the Spire on Xbox. You can only use potions on your turn — fair enough — but I have selected potions to use right as the turn shifts, only for the cursor to default to the “Discard” button. There’s no confirmation, and even turning on long-press confirmations in the settings menu doesn’t help.
It’s too easy to get rid of a potion that you meant to drink, and once you do, there’s no getting it back. Something as simple as an “Are you sure?” prompt would work. Or, you know, not defaulting the cursor to the Discard button.
Improved accessibility options
With any game like Slay the Spire, there’s a lot of mental math involved. The further you get into a run, the more that compounds as various card effects, relics, and statuses all interact with one another. I would love to see an option to show how much damage the enemy will take from a card, how much will be blocked, and how much HP they’ll have remaining after the play. The mechanic already exists, at least in part; when you apply poison to an enemy, a green bar overlaps the red HP bar to show a rough estimate of how much it will take off.
The Slay the Spire community has released various mods for the game that make it more accessible by the vision-impaired, but I want to see more features like this implemented into the sequel.
A greater variety of card upgrades
Slay the Spire has a set card list, and each card upgrades in a specific way. For some, it reduces the cost to play the card. Others cause more damage, apply longer-lasting status effects, and so on. The sequel could take a page from other deck builders like Monster Train or Beneath Oresa, providing more granular upgrade options or branching paths.
It would open the door to a wider variety of build types, but it would also require more balancing. With so many different card interactions, it’s already possible to construct broken decks. If I could upgrade cards in a specific way, The Silent’s shiv build would be practically invincible.
Better deck organization
When I’m trying to decide whether to buy a card from the merchant or add a specific one to my deck, I usually look at what I already have. The problem is that cards are not grouped together in any coherent way. For example, I had two Cleaves in my deck — one upgraded, one not. The base Cleave was easy to spot, but its upgraded version was far down the page.
I want options for sorting and filtering my deck when viewing it outside of combat. It would make it a lot easier to ensure I don’t grab copies of cards I already have (or that I don’t need copies of).
A true custom run mode
Slay the Spire has the option to start a custom run, but its options are limited. You can select which character to use, what Ascension level (the game’s version of difficulty modifiers), and a variety of options surrounding relics. I want more options that allow me to choose a specific set of cards and relics to start out with. It would be a way to test different strategies, try out experimental builds, and a lot more.
Sure, the game itself is random. You can’t guarantee what cards will appear and which won’t, so you have to be adaptable — but for a mode that disables achievements and advancement, I think everything should be on the table.
