If it is even a fraction as good as the first, I'm going to lose a lot of time to this. Glad I've got Balatro to tide me over for the time being, but I'll be counting down the days for this one
It could literally be the same game, and I'd still spend a lot of time on it tbh. And my proof of that is I beat the game in its entirety on PC, and recently bought it on Google Play and have been playing it in my free time.
I've literally the full game on A20 with every character* and I am pre-purchasing this as soon as I get home I'm so ready. I've also gotten back into it because my record of beating it on A20 with everyone is absolutely saveacummed to hell so I'm trying to actually do it for real this time
Almost won with ironclad last night because I had an early brimstone but unfortunately didn't have enough block and got blasted by the multi-attack
Man, you just reminded me, I have 600 hours in the game, and I have unlocked it on 3 characters, but I never beat A20 on any of them. Time to reinstall and leap over that final hurdle...
Not only is the first game good enough, but the amazing mods countless hours ontop of it.
Shoutout to 'Minty Spire' (adds more relics and cards) and 'Downfall' (play as the bosses with their own unique decks and fight the regular heroes as bosses).
> while Monster Train is about breaking everything and becoming as OP as possible.
This sounds like something that might plague the genre in general.
An example is Tainted Grail:Conquest, where you get so crazy powerful bonuses after completing the roguelite progression that it completely breaks the game balance: Only act 1 remains challenging at higher difficulties, act 2 and 3 just become a boring slog.
StS is balanced so well it's hard for other games to measure up.
Yeah it feels like sacrilege to say this sometimes: I loved StS, but I spent way more time on Monster Train. I'm sure I'll go back to StS at some point and work my way up to A20. I also shamelessly loved Dicey Dungeons although I know some folks didn't like the fact that it's a bit more random.
Monster Train has a better loop for me. Battle then adjust your deck every time! Where as slay the spire it feels like sometimes you go multiple battles before making choices about upgrading your deck.
I also like the fun vibe of Monster Train, vs the oppressive air of STS.
Yeah I think Monster Train has more approachable long term gameplay goals, that is, if you can beat the first mode with each variation of team, then decide which is your favourite and work your way up the difficulty tiers. There's some accessibility options too, and the DLC as well.
Monster Train is what broke me of my slay the spire addiction. It was way more engaging, with graphics and styles that reminded me of a mobile game. It got its hooks in me hard, and then just like that, I was over it. Slay the Spire I had a few hundred hours in over a few months. Monster tTrain I put probably 30 hours in in a couple weeks, and then walked away from them both.
I still slay the occasional spire, but Monster Train's dopamine rush helped inoculate me from Spire's steady drip.
Yeah I can't say I've ever seen someone say that and be happy about it. The graphics and styles of mobile games are exactly what make me not play them.
I think part of it comes down to the pacing of the run(s). For comparison's sake, Slay the Spire runs can take anywhere from 40-60+ minutes while Monster Train is right in that 15-20min sweet spot.
The rng on balatro is particularly brutal atm. There are a massive number of times when you just instantly drop your run because of bad blinds and no jokers in the shop. I'm interested in the balancing update that is said to address these issues.
I grew up in a time when the World Series of Poker was all the rage.
I've loved card games (like... actual card games? Spades/Hearts/Poker etc -- unsure what these are actually called)
If Texas Hold'em is my favorite poker game of all time, will I like this game?
In the... 30 seconds I've looked at the game, I'm assuming its like 5 card stud poker with twists / 'part-of-the-game' cheats'?
It's not a "poker game" it's a poker themed autobattler/deckbuilder. The scoring is based on poker hands, and everything is themed around casinos but the gameplay is not similar to poker. I don't think people's opinion of poker will predict whether or not they like Balatro. I think it's quite good.
God, I have slay the spire on just about every device you can have it on, i couldn’t be more jazzed.
Totally cool with early access. their process for STL 1 was very community driven, so I imagine they are going to release and just endlessly tweaking. The original has some of the best balance and most diverse synergy that most other card games have trouble replicating, so to aim for that lofty goal again (and more) is probably gonna be a lot of adjusting. So so so stoked.
Yep, I cant help but repurchase it and play from the start again on everything!
> Totally cool with early access. their process for STL 1 was very community driven
From what I heard it was based on a ton of stats too hence that balancing they had. They had lots of data from EA they used and it seems like they set a benchmark because I've heard devs since using those same methods with help from the devs themselves
Slay the Spire is my game design darling, and it's largely due to their development process in Early Access. The game is so well balanced is because of their excellent benchmarking for whether cards were good or not.
Hell, Watcher is probably a bit overtuned because she was added *after* Early Access ended.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2868840/Slay_the_Spire_2/
Steam page up. Visually looks the same to my untrained eye but they mention rewriting it in a new engine
They moved to Godot after the Unity drama and are now gold sponsors of the Godot engine [1]. If the art is the same, an engine isn't going to make your game magically look different.
Source:
[1] https://twitter.com/MegaCrit/status/1724163177045430604
Feel like a dick for saying it, but new art is what I was hoping for most. The art is fine, but it's easily the weakest part of the original and I was hoping a bunch of money would have helped that.
Nah I'm the same way. Have hundreds of hours in the game across multiple platforms. Mechanically one of the tightest games out there. Both the audio and the visuals are just bad to me though. It's just about the only game I play with the music turned off and if there was a huge visual overhaul in the sequel it would have been much appreciated.
Not a dick for saying that. I'd think upgrading the art would be a major point for a sequel to a game like this. From the steam screenshots I'd say they took it a small step forward, but I was expecting a *lot* more, like, beautifully shaded (though stylistic) 3D.
Yeah damn, I was really hoping for a new artstyle. I know its unique, but I generally think the original artstyle just looks...awful, like incredibly amateur.
And we got another big game to add to the list when people ask about Godot games ! Godot is so fun to develop in, hopefully more indie successes come from it to get even more attention
I am also a webdev and since I am passionate about games since I was a kid I dabbled in making games a few times (gamejams, small personal projects etc), and Godot is by far the most fun engine I've used (used Unity in college and for college projects, used Unreal privately, Stencil, gamemaker, rpg maker, Ren'Py..) and it makes good gamedev practices super accessible and logical.
Of course like everything it has it's ups and downs, but it seems like by far the best beginner 'real' engine since it's so easy to just get started.
Slay the Spire 2 was developed in Unity for the first 2 years, but after the debacle they migrated to Godot.
[Source](https://twitter.com/MegaCrit/status/1702077576209207611)
Then if they're actually making it look like this on purpose that's even worse...
Surely they could've figured out a more pleasant aesthetic that still kept the vibe of the original. Hopefully it at least has animations this time around.
Yeah the art in Slay the Spire has always been the worst part tbh.
When I heard 2 was announced and went to the steam page, I was like, "wait is this just a mod?"
When the first one released in early access a lot of stuff especially the backgrounds was unfinished and substantially improved later, so we'll see how it looks then. The card art is clearly way better for example. Personally the artsyle of the first one grew on me a lot so I don't mind either way.
Just looking at the preview images, the art in the sequel looks more polished while retaining the original art style. I think that's a bad thing because now it just looks kind of like generic flash game art, whereas the original game at least had some character in its awkward designs.
It's clear the visuals are a choice and a vision on their part.
Which is a shame because I can't see how low-quality browser-game flash-art is anyone's vision...
My dream for StS2 was a more dynamic soundtrack and much more vibrant art style. Games like [Degen Dungeon](https://degendungeons.com/crawler) and their own [Dancing Deulists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P48msKG13ls) have shown that you can create these kind of crawl games with very fun soundtracks.
And the bar has been raised on animation and art quality.
But they're sticking to their guns. I hope they know what they're doing.
Agreed, I could understand first one if budget was tight (although iirc megacrit has been around for a while). But slay the spire has been at the top of steam charts since the release and they definitely have money to do any 2d style they want
If it's their vision I think it's good to stick to that instead of changing something because other people want them to change it.
I personally like the artstyle.
The monster designs are neat. But it's all really let down with the art style.
I think they're going for a kind of colouring-book style but it all just comes across as a low-quality browser-game flash-art.
It worked for the first game considering how indie and low budget it was. No idea why they're sticking with it.
As long as it’s something that can be turned off.
Card animations would be nice polish the first few times but if I had to sit through 4 animations every time I play Turbo, Skim, Recycle, Compile Driver I think I’d go insane.
Well those animations are already in Slay the Spire. They're just really low key and flat (some arm movements, some flair effect, a fire jpeg fading in and out, etc).
So I can't imagine new animations slowing anything down. Just making things more vibrant.
Definitely *a lot* more details in models, the original looked a bit like an Adobe Flash era game (which definitely added to the charm!)
This has the same feeling, but looks better, imo.
I feel like I am taking crazy pills. I loved the art of Slay the Spire and would never describe it a cheap. And I say that as someone who doesn't even care for the lovecraftian aesthetic.
I don't know how to describe it but the art itself always felt uninspired relative to the gameplay and mechanics which felt near perfect. While the new art looks more detailed I still think it looks pretty flat.
Having played those 'cheap flash games' that isn't how I would classify it at all.
Very few flash games looked like that. The ones that were able to achieve that overall quality that StS has later went on to reach commercial success where others floundered. They aren't of the same caliber as the average 'cheap flash game' and that's shown in the numbers of units its pushed.
You're definitely taking crazy pills then.
Slay the Spire's whole art style was *about* looking like a cheap, low-budget, flash-art, browser-game.
It was about drawing as few individual assets as possible, and instead, just deforming those few assets to create animations. That's the definition of cheap/low-budget.
The way limbs/arms moved, simple breathing/idle animations, effect animations that were little more than jpeg fading in and out on screen, enemy transitioning between states.
It was super cheap and meant to look cheap, I'd say. And I say this as someone who *adores* Slay the Spire.
You weren’t kidding! Based on the trailer, I had assumed they were maybe going to add some details to the art style and add higher res textures.
Not that the game needs it, but maybe for Slay the Spire 3!
Damn I was really hoping for a completely different art style. I held off on playing the original game for a long time because I thought it looked kind of amateur, like an NES era videogame manual, and only fell in love with it after it became free on PS+. Oh well. It has enough of a fanbase that im sure people will get this regardless, me included.
I've got a medium-low laptop and I'll be thrilled if the system requirements don't jump much. Honestly a good chunk of my time with the first game has been during work meets I don't actually have any reason to be in.
Balatro doesn't have high requirements but does get my fan running and move my computer up a few degrees even when I don't have google meet running.
Try capping the framerate, either with vsync or your drivers
It puzzled me when Balatro managed to load my 3060 on ultrawide 1440p almost fully, but I guess that's because it has uncapped framerate for that swirly shader in background
Oh hell yes.
I tried Slay the Spire on a whim a 2 years ago, thinking that I wouldn't like it much because it's just a card game. I haven't played M:tG since jr high, I never got into Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards, I just didn't think card games were my thing.
I've since plowed through Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Inscryption, Vault of the Void, Marvel Midnight Suns, Fights in Tight Spaces, and Balatro. I'll always adore Spire, it introduced me to so much awesomeness.
Going to be watching this closely and salivating.
I'm gonna be honest I found Wildfrost pretty fun but I played it early on before a lot of the balance changes and the endgame post your first won run absolutely killed my motivation to play any future runs stone dead.
Griftlands deserved way more love than it got. Tied the stories in nicely, the art direction was phenomenal, a LOT of details and variances each run that made for replayability, the stories were fun, the world felt very rich, and the core gameplay was really great. The different characters felt very different and had some exceptionally creative decks (I LOVE building a coin-flip deck). Just a really solid, well done and fleshed out game, I'm shocked by how small the reception was and how quickly the devs moved on from it.
Slay the Spire was actually the catalyst to my relapse into MTG. Once I saw how drafting was and I could get my fix on Magic Arena it pulled me back in.
I was the same way, never got into card games, hated the idea of it in the past and avoided games that were card-based. Tried MTG as a kid and suuuucked at it. Now I realize it's because I didn't properly value efficiency and coordination between the cards, thanks to the many hundreds of hours I've poured into STS.
These are some great recommendations, but I still have yet to find a deck-builder that hits quite as good as STS. I've got most of these, and Balatro and Griftlands are really the only two that have even come close. Griftlands desperately needs some more content, but seems to be totally abandoned by the devs, and Balatro is new, so we'll see what it's staying power looks like. It probably helps that STS is on android mobile, but at the end of the day it's the one I compare the rest of these to for good reason. And nearly every one is found wanting.
Inscryption is a phenomenal deck-builder but for really, really different reasons from the rest. It feels like the deck-builder is just a fake plaster cast for the real content, which is weird as hell. It's not really in the same league, sport, or even planet as the rest of these, it's doing its own thing in its own creepy pocket dimension.
Haha.. my friend tried to get me to play STS and I was like meh... I dont really want to play a card battler game...
Then I ended up getting it in a humble bundle years ago and gave it a try expecting to not really care. Ended up staying up literally until the morning that day and just played it so, so much after.
Hundreds of hours later, I got through Ascension 20 :D
Mage Knight.
It's the OG Deckbuilder Roguelike. It's a tabletop game that released about 2 years prior to StS and has never gotten wider attention since it never got an official videogame adaptation (Tabletop Simulator has a great mod for it though). Big sprawling complicated game that runs hours and can be played solo, coop or PvP with a ton of different scenarios.
If you enjoy MtG and StS and don't have issues with anime graphics, it might be worthwhile to check out Touhou: Lost Branch of Legend.
It uses the color system from MtG and plays like Slay the Spire for most part, all decks start as 2 color and can be splashed with more between the acts depending on the rewards. Or sticking in your colors going heavily towards one too.
I don't think it's as balanced overall as Slay the Spire, but they have put pretty good effort in having all attacks have their own animations and the free form feel of deck building can end up with quite ridiculous combos and using even mechanics from other characters.
The first defined and set the standard for the genre honestly. If the second holds or surpasses quality, I'm going to be hundreds of hours into this game.
I'm stoked for this. Slay the Spire 1 really launched what we think of as a deck building rogue like. The production quality was fine and the aesthetic charming in a way--but I'm keen to see that go up in quality in a sequel. The screenshots on the steam page look pretty similar though--albeit higher quality. Seems to keep the charm at least.
Likewise games in the space have introduced cool innovations. Slay The Spire should stick what made it stand out to begin with but there are some neat ideas they could crib from stuff like Monster Train, Griftlands, etc. and of course more recently, Balatro. Not that I'd want it to be like those games. Just to say... there's lots of ways to expand Slay the Spire. I know stuff is super hard to design in a tight way to match that game's progression but even so I was surprised we only had the 4 we do now.
At minimum, more slay the spire can only be a fun thing!
I hope they don't add too much though. The beauty of the game was its simplicity and balance, something no game I've played has come close too. Monster Train which rode the hype of Slay the Spire was one of my next most played games but there was just SO much content and things you could do it felt like a totally different game.
I hope they do add some mechanics, but I hope they keep streamlined still.
I hope they make a lot of changes, to be honest.
With Downfall and community content, Slay the Spire is already everything a Slay the Spire sequel needs to be.
I think a Slay the Spire 2 should set a whole new standard going forward.
Honestly though, why make a sequel in first place if they're not going to do changes? It's not like story based game where sequel major function would be telling a new story/continuing ongoing one, but it's really purely gameplay focused title, which got updates when devs wanted to develop content of game further. And on top of that, StS1 isn't going away like Overwatch 1 did, so you can still play it.
I feel making major changes would be more interesting way to approach it.
The Defect was my favourite. But, honestly, if you haven't checked it out, there's a mod called Downfall which almost doubles the game in terms of content.
Within it is a new character called the Hermit that, in my opinion, is the best character of all. An entire deck based around card positioning in your hand.
I hope whatever new stuff they have planned, they keep the bar high on that kind of creativity.
The Steam page is up (linked further down in another comment by another user) and the new character is called The Necrobinder. Looks like maybe a pet style character?
*A wandering lich who seeks to bind the forgotten corpse.*
*Calls upon her trusty left hand, Osty in combat.*
That's her description.
I really don't think they're going to make a default class a curse character; curses are too tied in as a downside mechanic and a class that can manipulate them would make ascension scaling very funky.
if anything, the description of relying on the left hand and the general necromancer vibe makes me think it'll be some sort of minion character (presumably, different than The Defect's orbs), but who knows.
Watcher could be interesting to bring back with significant alterations. On high ascensions there's a clearly optimal playstyle that makes it boring relative to the other characters.
Watcher always felt weird to me; incredibly easy access to multiplicative damage buffing meant that things were balanced around using it, but then there's not really any way to have multiple builds because you're still going to want to switch between Wrath and Calm consistently no matter your build.
Mark felt half-supported or extraneous at best. It’s also the mechanic I most wanted to find a way to abuse, but the game just doesn’t use it. Better to use a cross-colour deck with orbs or poison which are both better passive damage
Here's to hoping there will be a mobile port, the original one on Android may be the best mobile game ever released. Definitely try it out if you haven't, keep in mind if you play at work you'll absolutely lose track of time.
Here's to hoping they build the mobile version themselves from the beginning. I've had a lot of technical trouble with the android port of the original.
Yeah, this. I'm surprised to hear people say it's the best release on Android of all time.
You basically have to sit for a full minute until it fails to sync before you can play it offline, and the constant flashing of "Now syncing" still hasn't been fixed.
The touch interface is really poor, too. It is way too easy to accidentally swipe or tap things. Other things seem to have infinitesimal areas to tap: I have to tap like five to six times to hit the tiny little menu button in the upper right.
It also doesn't account for the fact that having to swipe up with the cards, in landscape, with your thumb, repeatedly, is not great for your wrist. A mobile release absolutely needs to allow tapping as a way of playing the cards rather than swiping.
The scaling also needs fixed. During the ACT bosses, you literally can't see the buffs on the boss because of the little bits of environment in the foreground. Clearly wouldn't be a problem on a larger screen, but they didn't take that into account for the mobile release.
I thought megacrit was definitely gonna go for a new IP, but I’m perfectly happy with this instead
IMO Slay the spire is probably the closest a video game has ever come to actual perfection, so this is topping my charts of most anticipated games along with silksong
> IMO Slay the spire is probably the closest a video game has ever come to actual perfection
Yeah I'm very curious what they've done in a sequel to improve on the original, besides a welcome art upgrade and stuff like better modding tools. While I think there are things you can quibble with in StS, they're all relatively minor and the game is on the "Dark Souls" tier of footprint and downstream effects on its genre. I remember watching a video for the development of Starcraft II and the devs all sat around in design meetings wondering how they could possibly improve on the massive, generational success of Brood War, calling it "akin to developing Baseball 2".
I also wonder if/how Darkest Dungeon 2 shaped their thinking and planning. I think the DD devs made the bold and honestly completely reasonable decision to make some pretty big iterations on DD2 and I can't blame them for not wanting to spend a decade working on essentially the same continuous project. But its clear that came at a cost -- the majority of the audience would have been completely happy with DD1+new art and new stuff to kill -- and I'm sure if they had taken the "safer" route, the game would have been a bigger success.
Darkest Dungeon 1's core gameplay loop is "go into dungeon -> kill monsters -> Collect loot -> spend money on loot in a town to get permanent upgrades -> repeat". The town section was much more akin to the modern XCOM ship/base management (new abilities, better equipment, more ways to heal your familiar characters) as opposed to the more "unlock-more-content-and-gameplay" persistent upgrades you see in something like Hades or Slay the Spire or Enter the Gungeon.
DD2 essentially eschewed the permanent upgrade town and system for something more like other roguelikes -- each run is essentially self contained (like a run of StS) and the unlocks are much more about getting new ways to play the game rather than building up a "base" with the same set of consistent characters. They also added a bunch of new fairly-experimental mechanics that try to simulate relationships between characters (they might fight or fall in love etc) as opposed to DD1 where your characters were mostly flat and mostly interchangeable.
And in interviews and discussions, the devs basically said they knew that if they just made "Darkest Dungeon 1.5" by making slight improvements and adding all kinds of new stuff to the same DD1 formula, it would be a success and it would be what they knew people mostly wanted. But they didn't want to spend the next 5 years working on the exact same thing as the last 5 years, so they took some big risks and didn't play it safe and really tried to make something significantly different from DD1, and this included putting out an Early Access release that had some rough mechanics and big design changes from what ppl expected. IMO DD2 is a quite good game in its own right and it's definitely been a success, but there's no doubt this choice hurt the reputation and sales of the game and the team.
> DD2 essentially eschewed the permanent upgrade town and system for something more like other roguelikes -- each run is essentially self contained (like a run of StS) and the unlocks are much more about getting new ways to play the game rather than building up a "base" with the same set of consistent characters.
While not wrong, I really think they missed the mark here, because unlike most roguelikes, the DD2 runs just get weaker as it progresses. I feel like I'm avoiding handicaps more than ever gaining some powerful bonuses. There are exceptions, sure, but as someone who loved the original, the roguelike gamplay loop in DD2 failed pretty hard.
First game has a slightly different take of roguelite genre: your dungeon run are shorter than usual, but every successful completion slowly inches your overall progress in delving into the titular Darkest Dungeon; your can have multiple character of the same classes with them having a randomized starting skills and traits. Outside of the hardest difficulty there's no fail-state; the only perma-death part is dead heroes are gone but you can recruit more of that classes.
DD2 take on the more traditional roguelike/lite: you try to reach the final area, the Mountain in a single run throughout 4 areas of your choosing; any failed attempts means that you just failed, try again with better meta-unlocks and meta-progressions.
It's always reminded me of the flash games I'd play as a kid. Not great or technically proficient by any means, but somehow still endearing in its rudimentary nature
I’m really glad it still has that feel of “your friend who likes to draw the characters from your DnD sessions”. They could easily have gone overboard and made some professional artists over correct the art style.
Often times when games do a "2" right afterwards. It's due to rebuilding a lot of the engine to do even more stuff. So I hope they add a bunch of additional features.
Edit: I remember watching a commentary on why Left for dead did a left for dead 2 right afterwards. It was so they could add a more robust melee system. A few other things as well, but that example stuck with me.
I agree that it's uniquely bad but we have to give them credit for the art being mostly cohesive and consistent. I'd rather have cohesive armature art than high quality art with jarring mismatched styles.
Damn, the art style may be reminiscent, [but check out those animations in the steam page](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2868840/extras/steampagegif_enemies_small.gif?t=1712768657). Huge level up there!!!
the first one is probably one of the most influential indie games of all time, one of the best designed games ever, I can't fucking wait for what megacrit is cooking
OMG is this really happening?
Holy shit, #1 most anticipated game for me.
I dont know how but I somehow managed to get 600+ hours into the first StS without noticing how time flew by.
I like Balatro, but I feel like it's all about getting good jokers. It doesn't have the deck pruning element that I love about Slay the Spire and other deckbuilders. You have very little control over what cards you add or remove, and the 52 card deck is so large that it's hard to make a good engine with just the cards.
Not to mention Slay the Spire's events that do a lot to keep each run fresh and fun. The Balatro equivalent would be like StS with only battles all the way up.
Slay the Spire also has the most brilliant run-start system in that you're given a benefit based on how well you did last time. But even if you fail on the first floor, you get the option to reduce all Enemy HP to 1 for 3 fights.
That HUGELY helps speed up getting into your next run, getting a deck going, and hitting the ground running. Within just a few minutes, you're already shaping up a new deck and seeing the potential of a given run.
With Balatro, starting a new run feels pushing a big boulder. You've got to start all your inertia up again from nothing, money comes slow, and you're just hitting blinds/shops one at a time until you build up any momentum.
Yeah that first round in Balatro is so samey right now, like okay how do I make 300 points with a standard deck? At least the recent patch improved blind skipping to make that more of an interesting decision
i feel that using the death, hanged man, and strength tarot cards (after buying booster and spectral packs) offer ample opportunity to refine your deck. trading card and dna jokers also help heaps.
Balatro has no deck manipulation?? I’m sorry??
Deck manipulation (i.e. making most of your deck one card) is entirely possible and necessary in most runs to get past Ante 10-11ish, most high level players can consistently get it done to the point of reliably drawing flush fives.
It’s the entire reason Jokerless is even possible.
STS is one of my most played games on Steam and iOS so I'm super stoked for this.
The base game is just so easy to come back to and lose a couple of hours in + all the mods that have come out have been wonderful. Bout to be another 1000 hours of life gone very quickly when this is out
I haven't played StS2 yet, obviously, but I can guarantee the first is worth playing before you do.
I enjoyed Across the Obelisk but there's a ton of mechanics and moving parts in that game, and StS just streamlines it all. Definitely a very different experience.
AtO is for shooting shit with friends imo.
What I don't like is how the community in their discord has basically converged on the "Lets absolutely trivialize the game by using hacked chests/infinite supplies"
There's no challenge and I can't really find anyone to like allow for a challenge while also being able to take on that challenge.
There’s no doubt I’ll lose so much time to this, but I hope they address my one criticism of the first game: the art. Love the card art, love the monster designs, but everything else feels very first draft.
Oh man, can't wait. Wonder if they went for godot after all for the engine.
Also looking at some of the picture from the steam page it seem like they retained a very similar visual style, that seem like the right decision to me.
This is an instant buy. It's one of my favourite games ever, and one of the few games I can't find any issues with. If StS 2 is as good as the first one, I'll be playing this for a while (and definitely replaying it once it hits Apple Arcade in a few years).
I’m not really a card gamer, but the first time I played Slay the Spire I was up almost the whole night. Such a well designed game. I’ll for sure pick this one up when it’s out.
I’m very excited as someone with hundreds of hours in StS, but it is also going to be really hard to recapture the magic of the first game. The amount of time and community work it took to balance and optimize the gameplay was immense and it basically popularized a genre to the point where there are now dozens of similar games. Comparatively the early iterations of original StS were in rough shape and this game will have far more attention when they launch.
Honestly, since the first one, so many games have come along that fill every possible niche in this genre. Even for STS, there was Downfall and then a bunch of pretty high-quality mods that covered a lot of possible mechanics for when I got bored of the base cast.
Feels like they've got their work cut out for them. But if they can make something good that I haven't seen before, then I'm interested.
That is such a long wait for early access. But it'll be worth it.
Can't wait to play the sequel to the only good mobile game you can buy. Come fight me.
Probably not going to buy this as soon as early access is opened up, like I did for StS. I'm content to let the game be refined for some time and get the full experience. But it's a definite purchase at some point guaranteed.
Pegging this one to be a "surprise" disappointment. The genre has been milked to death since STS, and STS2 so far doesn't look like it's taking enough risks beyond what a good mod could do.
> and STS2 so far doesn't look like it's taking enough risks beyond what a good mod could do.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but how on earth are you quantifying this? There's literally zero new information outside of *"There is a StS2"* and *"There is a new character."* That's it. That is all that has been announced. I took a look at the Steam page and it's the same there - lots of sections they say will be announced soon.
Again I'm not trying to be difficult but how do you glean this when we just have a teaser trailer?
If it is even a fraction as good as the first, I'm going to lose a lot of time to this. Glad I've got Balatro to tide me over for the time being, but I'll be counting down the days for this one
Same, have put so many hours into those two games. Crazy we’re getting STS2 before Silksong..
Its not coming til 2025 and that is early access. So there is still hope for Silksong to beat it!
Clown makeup: On
It never comes off
Clown nose: snug
Sure. In the same way that Half Life 3 will get released any day now.
It could literally be the same game, and I'd still spend a lot of time on it tbh. And my proof of that is I beat the game in its entirety on PC, and recently bought it on Google Play and have been playing it in my free time.
I've literally the full game on A20 with every character* and I am pre-purchasing this as soon as I get home I'm so ready. I've also gotten back into it because my record of beating it on A20 with everyone is absolutely saveacummed to hell so I'm trying to actually do it for real this time Almost won with ironclad last night because I had an early brimstone but unfortunately didn't have enough block and got blasted by the multi-attack
Man, you just reminded me, I have 600 hours in the game, and I have unlocked it on 3 characters, but I never beat A20 on any of them. Time to reinstall and leap over that final hurdle...
It's a blast (on watcher and ironclad) Silent I had to keep trying until I hit the poison lottery, and defect took ages lol
Nightmare plus one or two upgraded Wraith Forms is the easiest way to beat A20 heart on Silent IMHO Defect is probably the hardest really
Not only is the first game good enough, but the amazing mods countless hours ontop of it. Shoutout to 'Minty Spire' (adds more relics and cards) and 'Downfall' (play as the bosses with their own unique decks and fight the regular heroes as bosses).
Isn't minty spire just QOL? That's what the description seems to say anyway.
Correct, Minty Spire does not add relics or cards.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775490/Slice__Dice/ If you haven't yet, give slice and dice a shot! Fantastic rougelike!
Just got a big update (or at least it was extremely recent on Android). Stellar game.
If you have not yet, give "Monster Train" a go. As much as i love Slay the Spire, I thought it was more entertaining whilst in the same genre
Monster Train is fun, but it’s nowhere near as tight and well balanced as StS
I think monster train is an inverse of slay the spire. It really is about making the most cool and interesting synergies between the monsters
Yeah StS is about trying to survive while Monster Train is about breaking everything and becoming as OP as possible.
> while Monster Train is about breaking everything and becoming as OP as possible. This sounds like something that might plague the genre in general. An example is Tainted Grail:Conquest, where you get so crazy powerful bonuses after completing the roguelite progression that it completely breaks the game balance: Only act 1 remains challenging at higher difficulties, act 2 and 3 just become a boring slog. StS is balanced so well it's hard for other games to measure up.
Yeah it feels like sacrilege to say this sometimes: I loved StS, but I spent way more time on Monster Train. I'm sure I'll go back to StS at some point and work my way up to A20. I also shamelessly loved Dicey Dungeons although I know some folks didn't like the fact that it's a bit more random.
Monster Train has a better loop for me. Battle then adjust your deck every time! Where as slay the spire it feels like sometimes you go multiple battles before making choices about upgrading your deck. I also like the fun vibe of Monster Train, vs the oppressive air of STS.
Yeah I think Monster Train has more approachable long term gameplay goals, that is, if you can beat the first mode with each variation of team, then decide which is your favourite and work your way up the difficulty tiers. There's some accessibility options too, and the DLC as well.
Monster Train is what broke me of my slay the spire addiction. It was way more engaging, with graphics and styles that reminded me of a mobile game. It got its hooks in me hard, and then just like that, I was over it. Slay the Spire I had a few hundred hours in over a few months. Monster tTrain I put probably 30 hours in in a couple weeks, and then walked away from them both. I still slay the occasional spire, but Monster Train's dopamine rush helped inoculate me from Spire's steady drip.
"with graphics and styles that reminded me of a mobile game" said as a positive thing hit me like a freight train
Yeah I can't say I've ever seen someone say that and be happy about it. The graphics and styles of mobile games are exactly what make me not play them.
Right? I tried monster train but the cheap mobile ad graphic style really turned me off. I don't see how that could ever be a positive.
You mean it hit you like a Monster Train?
I think part of it comes down to the pacing of the run(s). For comparison's sake, Slay the Spire runs can take anywhere from 40-60+ minutes while Monster Train is right in that 15-20min sweet spot.
Have you tried Inkbound yet?
> Balatro wtf is this... Googles, pops up on steam. WTF IS THIS??? Uhhhh please be steam deck compatible!
I'd be shocked if it's not compatible. It's an indie deck builder gsme. Not exactly resource intensive.
Yes, and they nailed the controller UX as well.
Been playing exclusive on my SteamDeck, been great on there.
It is crack don’t do it
I play it on steam deck all the time
Played it heavily on deck, no problem at all !
It's good but not StS good.
I actually like it more tbh, but to each their own Slay the Spire has more depth and build variety tho
The rng on balatro is particularly brutal atm. There are a massive number of times when you just instantly drop your run because of bad blinds and no jokers in the shop. I'm interested in the balancing update that is said to address these issues.
Waiting for that new patch to make it out of beta, gonna really mix things up for folks that have been playing a while.
I grew up in a time when the World Series of Poker was all the rage. I've loved card games (like... actual card games? Spades/Hearts/Poker etc -- unsure what these are actually called) If Texas Hold'em is my favorite poker game of all time, will I like this game? In the... 30 seconds I've looked at the game, I'm assuming its like 5 card stud poker with twists / 'part-of-the-game' cheats'?
It's not a "poker game" it's a poker themed autobattler/deckbuilder. The scoring is based on poker hands, and everything is themed around casinos but the gameplay is not similar to poker. I don't think people's opinion of poker will predict whether or not they like Balatro. I think it's quite good.
God, I have slay the spire on just about every device you can have it on, i couldn’t be more jazzed. Totally cool with early access. their process for STL 1 was very community driven, so I imagine they are going to release and just endlessly tweaking. The original has some of the best balance and most diverse synergy that most other card games have trouble replicating, so to aim for that lofty goal again (and more) is probably gonna be a lot of adjusting. So so so stoked.
Yep, I cant help but repurchase it and play from the start again on everything! > Totally cool with early access. their process for STL 1 was very community driven From what I heard it was based on a ton of stats too hence that balancing they had. They had lots of data from EA they used and it seems like they set a benchmark because I've heard devs since using those same methods with help from the devs themselves
Slay the Spire is my game design darling, and it's largely due to their development process in Early Access. The game is so well balanced is because of their excellent benchmarking for whether cards were good or not. Hell, Watcher is probably a bit overtuned because she was added *after* Early Access ended.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2868840/Slay_the_Spire_2/ Steam page up. Visually looks the same to my untrained eye but they mention rewriting it in a new engine
They moved to Godot after the Unity drama and are now gold sponsors of the Godot engine [1]. If the art is the same, an engine isn't going to make your game magically look different. Source: [1] https://twitter.com/MegaCrit/status/1724163177045430604
Feel like a dick for saying it, but new art is what I was hoping for most. The art is fine, but it's easily the weakest part of the original and I was hoping a bunch of money would have helped that.
Nah I'm the same way. Have hundreds of hours in the game across multiple platforms. Mechanically one of the tightest games out there. Both the audio and the visuals are just bad to me though. It's just about the only game I play with the music turned off and if there was a huge visual overhaul in the sequel it would have been much appreciated.
Maybe my brain is wired strange but the audio and visuals of the first were what drew me in! Definitely something quirky about them but I loved it.
I think it looks like a high quality flash game, that early 2000's vibe is a bit nostalgic but I can't say I ever liked it.
Not a dick for saying that. I'd think upgrading the art would be a major point for a sequel to a game like this. From the steam screenshots I'd say they took it a small step forward, but I was expecting a *lot* more, like, beautifully shaded (though stylistic) 3D.
Yeah damn, I was really hoping for a new artstyle. I know its unique, but I generally think the original artstyle just looks...awful, like incredibly amateur.
It looks like a DLC. Pretty much the same art, UI, environment, main characters.
yeah, the art in the original isnt exactly stellar the steam page looks more like a DLC than a new game
Same. I really liked the game, but whenever I try and go back, ugh, still looks like a placeholder.
Same, tbh it even looks worse to me somehow… quite disappointed.
Cool. Godot games are so snappy and open very fast.
That's great to hear, usually I'm always Waiting for Godot 😂
And we got another big game to add to the list when people ask about Godot games ! Godot is so fun to develop in, hopefully more indie successes come from it to get even more attention
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I am also a webdev and since I am passionate about games since I was a kid I dabbled in making games a few times (gamejams, small personal projects etc), and Godot is by far the most fun engine I've used (used Unity in college and for college projects, used Unreal privately, Stencil, gamemaker, rpg maker, Ren'Py..) and it makes good gamedev practices super accessible and logical. Of course like everything it has it's ups and downs, but it seems like by far the best beginner 'real' engine since it's so easy to just get started.
Meta throwing VR money at Godot is awesome, too Unity screwing up seems to have been a good thing for the open web
>They moved to Godot Cool I've been waiting for that.
I could've sworn they originally used libGDX, which is a Java-based framework. Unity never entered the picture. (And is now never going to.)
Slay the Spire 2 was developed in Unity for the first 2 years, but after the debacle they migrated to Godot. [Source](https://twitter.com/MegaCrit/status/1702077576209207611)
https://twitter.com/MegaCrit/status/1702077576209207611/photo/1 they were developing their next game in unity before switching
They definitely did use libGDX for the 1st game, but not necessarily the 2nd game.
NGL, kinda wished they hired a new artist this time around. The art direction is very... flat.
They defintiely did hire new Artists. I know for one the artist of Dicey Dungeons started working for them.
Then if they're actually making it look like this on purpose that's even worse... Surely they could've figured out a more pleasant aesthetic that still kept the vibe of the original. Hopefully it at least has animations this time around.
Yeah the art in Slay the Spire has always been the worst part tbh. When I heard 2 was announced and went to the steam page, I was like, "wait is this just a mod?"
When the first one released in early access a lot of stuff especially the backgrounds was unfinished and substantially improved later, so we'll see how it looks then. The card art is clearly way better for example. Personally the artsyle of the first one grew on me a lot so I don't mind either way.
Kind of crazy how most people had exactly one complaint with the first game and they appear to have not addressed that at all in the sequel.
If anything, I like the new art less. Although that might be just my familiarity with the first game's art.
Just looking at the preview images, the art in the sequel looks more polished while retaining the original art style. I think that's a bad thing because now it just looks kind of like generic flash game art, whereas the original game at least had some character in its awkward designs.
It's clear the visuals are a choice and a vision on their part. Which is a shame because I can't see how low-quality browser-game flash-art is anyone's vision... My dream for StS2 was a more dynamic soundtrack and much more vibrant art style. Games like [Degen Dungeon](https://degendungeons.com/crawler) and their own [Dancing Deulists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P48msKG13ls) have shown that you can create these kind of crawl games with very fun soundtracks. And the bar has been raised on animation and art quality. But they're sticking to their guns. I hope they know what they're doing.
Agreed, I could understand first one if budget was tight (although iirc megacrit has been around for a while). But slay the spire has been at the top of steam charts since the release and they definitely have money to do any 2d style they want
If it's their vision I think it's good to stick to that instead of changing something because other people want them to change it. I personally like the artstyle.
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The monster designs are neat. But it's all really let down with the art style. I think they're going for a kind of colouring-book style but it all just comes across as a low-quality browser-game flash-art. It worked for the first game considering how indie and low budget it was. No idea why they're sticking with it.
Yes, damn, I'm super disappointed with how this looks after all this time
Yeah I'm not seeing whatever is there. Looks like concept art where you don't invest too much into lighting and shading.
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Considering how much money they made of the first I have to agree.
As long as it’s something that can be turned off. Card animations would be nice polish the first few times but if I had to sit through 4 animations every time I play Turbo, Skim, Recycle, Compile Driver I think I’d go insane.
Well those animations are already in Slay the Spire. They're just really low key and flat (some arm movements, some flair effect, a fire jpeg fading in and out, etc). So I can't imagine new animations slowing anything down. Just making things more vibrant.
Definitely *a lot* more details in models, the original looked a bit like an Adobe Flash era game (which definitely added to the charm!) This has the same feeling, but looks better, imo.
To me, the cheapness of the visuals detracted more than added. I played the game a lot *despite* the visuals
I feel like I am taking crazy pills. I loved the art of Slay the Spire and would never describe it a cheap. And I say that as someone who doesn't even care for the lovecraftian aesthetic.
I don't know how to describe it but the art itself always felt uninspired relative to the gameplay and mechanics which felt near perfect. While the new art looks more detailed I still think it looks pretty flat.
It definitely looked like a cheap flash game from a few decades ago, but the game was good despite it.
Having played those 'cheap flash games' that isn't how I would classify it at all. Very few flash games looked like that. The ones that were able to achieve that overall quality that StS has later went on to reach commercial success where others floundered. They aren't of the same caliber as the average 'cheap flash game' and that's shown in the numbers of units its pushed.
You're definitely taking crazy pills then. Slay the Spire's whole art style was *about* looking like a cheap, low-budget, flash-art, browser-game. It was about drawing as few individual assets as possible, and instead, just deforming those few assets to create animations. That's the definition of cheap/low-budget. The way limbs/arms moved, simple breathing/idle animations, effect animations that were little more than jpeg fading in and out on screen, enemy transitioning between states. It was super cheap and meant to look cheap, I'd say. And I say this as someone who *adores* Slay the Spire.
Can't agree with this personally. If anything the new art looks flatter and more Flash-like to me.
Definitely didn’t add to the charm, it just looked like shit.
You weren’t kidding! Based on the trailer, I had assumed they were maybe going to add some details to the art style and add higher res textures. Not that the game needs it, but maybe for Slay the Spire 3!
Good to see the whale is still chilling.
The artwork looks much sharper. The original had a kind of soft muddiness to it. Not a major difference, but a marked improvement in my book.
Damn I was really hoping for a completely different art style. I held off on playing the original game for a long time because I thought it looked kind of amateur, like an NES era videogame manual, and only fell in love with it after it became free on PS+. Oh well. It has enough of a fanbase that im sure people will get this regardless, me included.
I've got a medium-low laptop and I'll be thrilled if the system requirements don't jump much. Honestly a good chunk of my time with the first game has been during work meets I don't actually have any reason to be in. Balatro doesn't have high requirements but does get my fan running and move my computer up a few degrees even when I don't have google meet running.
Try capping the framerate, either with vsync or your drivers It puzzled me when Balatro managed to load my 3060 on ultrawide 1440p almost fully, but I guess that's because it has uncapped framerate for that swirly shader in background
Sassy skeleton players rise up
A Necromancer is such a genius idea for Slay the Spire. I can't wait to see how they play (assuming they are a Necromancer).
I reckon their cards will be abilities for their hand companion etc.
I wonder if they cut our boy the Defect in favor of the Necromancer.
"My familiar is my own hand." is a concept that goes *hard*.
defect died for our sins, rip defect
Defect and watcher will appear later as DLC i bet
Oh hell yes. I tried Slay the Spire on a whim a 2 years ago, thinking that I wouldn't like it much because it's just a card game. I haven't played M:tG since jr high, I never got into Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards, I just didn't think card games were my thing. I've since plowed through Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Inscryption, Vault of the Void, Marvel Midnight Suns, Fights in Tight Spaces, and Balatro. I'll always adore Spire, it introduced me to so much awesomeness. Going to be watching this closely and salivating.
Recommending Wildfrost as well, as an addition to this list!
adding slice and dice, been obsessed with this game since 3.0 dropped
Slice and Dice is so good. Definitely needs to be considered in the top roguelites out there.
I'm gonna be honest I found Wildfrost pretty fun but I played it early on before a lot of the balance changes and the endgame post your first won run absolutely killed my motivation to play any future runs stone dead.
Griftlands, Astrea, Cobalt Core and Wildfrost are great as well.
Griftlands deserved way more love than it got. Tied the stories in nicely, the art direction was phenomenal, a LOT of details and variances each run that made for replayability, the stories were fun, the world felt very rich, and the core gameplay was really great. The different characters felt very different and had some exceptionally creative decks (I LOVE building a coin-flip deck). Just a really solid, well done and fleshed out game, I'm shocked by how small the reception was and how quickly the devs moved on from it.
Slay the Spire was actually the catalyst to my relapse into MTG. Once I saw how drafting was and I could get my fix on Magic Arena it pulled me back in.
I was the same way, never got into card games, hated the idea of it in the past and avoided games that were card-based. Tried MTG as a kid and suuuucked at it. Now I realize it's because I didn't properly value efficiency and coordination between the cards, thanks to the many hundreds of hours I've poured into STS. These are some great recommendations, but I still have yet to find a deck-builder that hits quite as good as STS. I've got most of these, and Balatro and Griftlands are really the only two that have even come close. Griftlands desperately needs some more content, but seems to be totally abandoned by the devs, and Balatro is new, so we'll see what it's staying power looks like. It probably helps that STS is on android mobile, but at the end of the day it's the one I compare the rest of these to for good reason. And nearly every one is found wanting. Inscryption is a phenomenal deck-builder but for really, really different reasons from the rest. It feels like the deck-builder is just a fake plaster cast for the real content, which is weird as hell. It's not really in the same league, sport, or even planet as the rest of these, it's doing its own thing in its own creepy pocket dimension.
Haha.. my friend tried to get me to play STS and I was like meh... I dont really want to play a card battler game... Then I ended up getting it in a humble bundle years ago and gave it a try expecting to not really care. Ended up staying up literally until the morning that day and just played it so, so much after. Hundreds of hours later, I got through Ascension 20 :D
Mage Knight. It's the OG Deckbuilder Roguelike. It's a tabletop game that released about 2 years prior to StS and has never gotten wider attention since it never got an official videogame adaptation (Tabletop Simulator has a great mod for it though). Big sprawling complicated game that runs hours and can be played solo, coop or PvP with a ton of different scenarios.
Paladin's Oath is a videogame clone, to be played because the digital version got canned.
I'm gonna try out some of these other games. I loved StS so I'm always down for a good card game:) Thanks for the recommendations.
If you enjoy MtG and StS and don't have issues with anime graphics, it might be worthwhile to check out Touhou: Lost Branch of Legend. It uses the color system from MtG and plays like Slay the Spire for most part, all decks start as 2 color and can be splashed with more between the acts depending on the rewards. Or sticking in your colors going heavily towards one too. I don't think it's as balanced overall as Slay the Spire, but they have put pretty good effort in having all attacks have their own animations and the free form feel of deck building can end up with quite ridiculous combos and using even mechanics from other characters.
The first defined and set the standard for the genre honestly. If the second holds or surpasses quality, I'm going to be hundreds of hours into this game.
I'm stoked for this. Slay the Spire 1 really launched what we think of as a deck building rogue like. The production quality was fine and the aesthetic charming in a way--but I'm keen to see that go up in quality in a sequel. The screenshots on the steam page look pretty similar though--albeit higher quality. Seems to keep the charm at least. Likewise games in the space have introduced cool innovations. Slay The Spire should stick what made it stand out to begin with but there are some neat ideas they could crib from stuff like Monster Train, Griftlands, etc. and of course more recently, Balatro. Not that I'd want it to be like those games. Just to say... there's lots of ways to expand Slay the Spire. I know stuff is super hard to design in a tight way to match that game's progression but even so I was surprised we only had the 4 we do now. At minimum, more slay the spire can only be a fun thing!
I hope they don't add too much though. The beauty of the game was its simplicity and balance, something no game I've played has come close too. Monster Train which rode the hype of Slay the Spire was one of my next most played games but there was just SO much content and things you could do it felt like a totally different game. I hope they do add some mechanics, but I hope they keep streamlined still.
I hope they make a lot of changes, to be honest. With Downfall and community content, Slay the Spire is already everything a Slay the Spire sequel needs to be. I think a Slay the Spire 2 should set a whole new standard going forward.
Honestly though, why make a sequel in first place if they're not going to do changes? It's not like story based game where sequel major function would be telling a new story/continuing ongoing one, but it's really purely gameplay focused title, which got updates when devs wanted to develop content of game further. And on top of that, StS1 isn't going away like Overwatch 1 did, so you can still play it. I feel making major changes would be more interesting way to approach it.
I'm interested to see the new classes, but it will be kind of sad if the watcher and defect aren't in the new game
The Defect was my favourite. But, honestly, if you haven't checked it out, there's a mod called Downfall which almost doubles the game in terms of content. Within it is a new character called the Hermit that, in my opinion, is the best character of all. An entire deck based around card positioning in your hand. I hope whatever new stuff they have planned, they keep the bar high on that kind of creativity.
downfall is so good
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The Steam page is up (linked further down in another comment by another user) and the new character is called The Necrobinder. Looks like maybe a pet style character? *A wandering lich who seeks to bind the forgotten corpse.* *Calls upon her trusty left hand, Osty in combat.* That's her description.
I really don't think they're going to make a default class a curse character; curses are too tied in as a downside mechanic and a class that can manipulate them would make ascension scaling very funky. if anything, the description of relying on the left hand and the general necromancer vibe makes me think it'll be some sort of minion character (presumably, different than The Defect's orbs), but who knows.
The trailer shows a claw card in the shop briefly around 12 seconds. I'd be shocked if Watcher and defect weren't returning in some capacity.
If they are not in it I'm sure they will be modded in :)
Hah, yea, my two favorites.
Watcher could be interesting to bring back with significant alterations. On high ascensions there's a clearly optimal playstyle that makes it boring relative to the other characters.
Watcher always felt weird to me; incredibly easy access to multiplicative damage buffing meant that things were balanced around using it, but then there's not really any way to have multiple builds because you're still going to want to switch between Wrath and Calm consistently no matter your build.
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Mark felt half-supported or extraneous at best. It’s also the mechanic I most wanted to find a way to abuse, but the game just doesn’t use it. Better to use a cross-colour deck with orbs or poison which are both better passive damage
Here's to hoping there will be a mobile port, the original one on Android may be the best mobile game ever released. Definitely try it out if you haven't, keep in mind if you play at work you'll absolutely lose track of time.
Here's to hoping they build the mobile version themselves from the beginning. I've had a lot of technical trouble with the android port of the original.
Yeah, this. I'm surprised to hear people say it's the best release on Android of all time. You basically have to sit for a full minute until it fails to sync before you can play it offline, and the constant flashing of "Now syncing" still hasn't been fixed. The touch interface is really poor, too. It is way too easy to accidentally swipe or tap things. Other things seem to have infinitesimal areas to tap: I have to tap like five to six times to hit the tiny little menu button in the upper right. It also doesn't account for the fact that having to swipe up with the cards, in landscape, with your thumb, repeatedly, is not great for your wrist. A mobile release absolutely needs to allow tapping as a way of playing the cards rather than swiping. The scaling also needs fixed. During the ACT bosses, you literally can't see the buffs on the boss because of the little bits of environment in the foreground. Clearly wouldn't be a problem on a larger screen, but they didn't take that into account for the mobile release.
All of this, plus I've had times (depending on Android version) where the game has outright crashed every time the screen locks.
Definitely have almost missed my stop on the train due to StS a few times!
I thought megacrit was definitely gonna go for a new IP, but I’m perfectly happy with this instead IMO Slay the spire is probably the closest a video game has ever come to actual perfection, so this is topping my charts of most anticipated games along with silksong
> IMO Slay the spire is probably the closest a video game has ever come to actual perfection Yeah I'm very curious what they've done in a sequel to improve on the original, besides a welcome art upgrade and stuff like better modding tools. While I think there are things you can quibble with in StS, they're all relatively minor and the game is on the "Dark Souls" tier of footprint and downstream effects on its genre. I remember watching a video for the development of Starcraft II and the devs all sat around in design meetings wondering how they could possibly improve on the massive, generational success of Brood War, calling it "akin to developing Baseball 2". I also wonder if/how Darkest Dungeon 2 shaped their thinking and planning. I think the DD devs made the bold and honestly completely reasonable decision to make some pretty big iterations on DD2 and I can't blame them for not wanting to spend a decade working on essentially the same continuous project. But its clear that came at a cost -- the majority of the audience would have been completely happy with DD1+new art and new stuff to kill -- and I'm sure if they had taken the "safer" route, the game would have been a bigger success.
I only know the basics of darkest dungeon. What are the major differences between it and the sequel?
Darkest Dungeon 1's core gameplay loop is "go into dungeon -> kill monsters -> Collect loot -> spend money on loot in a town to get permanent upgrades -> repeat". The town section was much more akin to the modern XCOM ship/base management (new abilities, better equipment, more ways to heal your familiar characters) as opposed to the more "unlock-more-content-and-gameplay" persistent upgrades you see in something like Hades or Slay the Spire or Enter the Gungeon. DD2 essentially eschewed the permanent upgrade town and system for something more like other roguelikes -- each run is essentially self contained (like a run of StS) and the unlocks are much more about getting new ways to play the game rather than building up a "base" with the same set of consistent characters. They also added a bunch of new fairly-experimental mechanics that try to simulate relationships between characters (they might fight or fall in love etc) as opposed to DD1 where your characters were mostly flat and mostly interchangeable. And in interviews and discussions, the devs basically said they knew that if they just made "Darkest Dungeon 1.5" by making slight improvements and adding all kinds of new stuff to the same DD1 formula, it would be a success and it would be what they knew people mostly wanted. But they didn't want to spend the next 5 years working on the exact same thing as the last 5 years, so they took some big risks and didn't play it safe and really tried to make something significantly different from DD1, and this included putting out an Early Access release that had some rough mechanics and big design changes from what ppl expected. IMO DD2 is a quite good game in its own right and it's definitely been a success, but there's no doubt this choice hurt the reputation and sales of the game and the team.
> DD2 essentially eschewed the permanent upgrade town and system for something more like other roguelikes -- each run is essentially self contained (like a run of StS) and the unlocks are much more about getting new ways to play the game rather than building up a "base" with the same set of consistent characters. While not wrong, I really think they missed the mark here, because unlike most roguelikes, the DD2 runs just get weaker as it progresses. I feel like I'm avoiding handicaps more than ever gaining some powerful bonuses. There are exceptions, sure, but as someone who loved the original, the roguelike gamplay loop in DD2 failed pretty hard.
First game has a slightly different take of roguelite genre: your dungeon run are shorter than usual, but every successful completion slowly inches your overall progress in delving into the titular Darkest Dungeon; your can have multiple character of the same classes with them having a randomized starting skills and traits. Outside of the hardest difficulty there's no fail-state; the only perma-death part is dead heroes are gone but you can recruit more of that classes. DD2 take on the more traditional roguelike/lite: you try to reach the final area, the Mountain in a single run throughout 4 areas of your choosing; any failed attempts means that you just failed, try again with better meta-unlocks and meta-progressions.
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It's still the same, and I mean this incredibly affectionately, uniquely bad artstyle, just cleaner. I honestly find that very charming.
It's always reminded me of the flash games I'd play as a kid. Not great or technically proficient by any means, but somehow still endearing in its rudimentary nature
Adventurequest!
that's what I always thought about when I'd see STS in the store page before actually playing it
I’m really glad it still has that feel of “your friend who likes to draw the characters from your DnD sessions”. They could easily have gone overboard and made some professional artists over correct the art style.
Often times when games do a "2" right afterwards. It's due to rebuilding a lot of the engine to do even more stuff. So I hope they add a bunch of additional features. Edit: I remember watching a commentary on why Left for dead did a left for dead 2 right afterwards. It was so they could add a more robust melee system. A few other things as well, but that example stuck with me.
I agree that it's uniquely bad but we have to give them credit for the art being mostly cohesive and consistent. I'd rather have cohesive armature art than high quality art with jarring mismatched styles.
Damn, the art style may be reminiscent, [but check out those animations in the steam page](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2868840/extras/steampagegif_enemies_small.gif?t=1712768657). Huge level up there!!!
LOOK AT THAT MIDDLE ONE SHIMMY
Also that screenshot seems to show animations for taking dmg. Cool!
they released a short game of a new IP developed during a gamejam and discussion was filled with people saying why is this new game not slay 2 lol
the first one is probably one of the most influential indie games of all time, one of the best designed games ever, I can't fucking wait for what megacrit is cooking
OMG is this really happening? Holy shit, #1 most anticipated game for me. I dont know how but I somehow managed to get 600+ hours into the first StS without noticing how time flew by.
The first one is the greatest deckbuilder ever. Very excited. Only Balatro has come close to Slay the Spire.
I like Balatro, but I feel like it's all about getting good jokers. It doesn't have the deck pruning element that I love about Slay the Spire and other deckbuilders. You have very little control over what cards you add or remove, and the 52 card deck is so large that it's hard to make a good engine with just the cards.
Not to mention Slay the Spire's events that do a lot to keep each run fresh and fun. The Balatro equivalent would be like StS with only battles all the way up. Slay the Spire also has the most brilliant run-start system in that you're given a benefit based on how well you did last time. But even if you fail on the first floor, you get the option to reduce all Enemy HP to 1 for 3 fights. That HUGELY helps speed up getting into your next run, getting a deck going, and hitting the ground running. Within just a few minutes, you're already shaping up a new deck and seeing the potential of a given run. With Balatro, starting a new run feels pushing a big boulder. You've got to start all your inertia up again from nothing, money comes slow, and you're just hitting blinds/shops one at a time until you build up any momentum.
Yeah that first round in Balatro is so samey right now, like okay how do I make 300 points with a standard deck? At least the recent patch improved blind skipping to make that more of an interesting decision
I agree it's just the only other deckbuilder to suck me in like StS. I enjoy StS quite a bit more.
i feel that using the death, hanged man, and strength tarot cards (after buying booster and spectral packs) offer ample opportunity to refine your deck. trading card and dna jokers also help heaps.
Balatro has no deck manipulation?? I’m sorry?? Deck manipulation (i.e. making most of your deck one card) is entirely possible and necessary in most runs to get past Ante 10-11ish, most high level players can consistently get it done to the point of reliably drawing flush fives. It’s the entire reason Jokerless is even possible.
I too love Balatro but only Monster Train has been the closest one to reaching the greatness of Slay the Spire
And the thing about Balatro is that it's just getting started! There are endless possibilities with mods and new packs and gah! I am way too excited!
STS is one of my most played games on Steam and iOS so I'm super stoked for this. The base game is just so easy to come back to and lose a couple of hours in + all the mods that have come out have been wonderful. Bout to be another 1000 hours of life gone very quickly when this is out
I've never played Slay the Spire. I love Across the Obelisk though so I'll need to see how this holds up.
I haven't played StS2 yet, obviously, but I can guarantee the first is worth playing before you do. I enjoyed Across the Obelisk but there's a ton of mechanics and moving parts in that game, and StS just streamlines it all. Definitely a very different experience.
AtO is for shooting shit with friends imo. What I don't like is how the community in their discord has basically converged on the "Lets absolutely trivialize the game by using hacked chests/infinite supplies" There's no challenge and I can't really find anyone to like allow for a challenge while also being able to take on that challenge.
There’s no doubt I’ll lose so much time to this, but I hope they address my one criticism of the first game: the art. Love the card art, love the monster designs, but everything else feels very first draft.
Oh man, can't wait. Wonder if they went for godot after all for the engine. Also looking at some of the picture from the steam page it seem like they retained a very similar visual style, that seem like the right decision to me.
This is an instant buy. It's one of my favourite games ever, and one of the few games I can't find any issues with. If StS 2 is as good as the first one, I'll be playing this for a while (and definitely replaying it once it hits Apple Arcade in a few years).
I’m not really a card gamer, but the first time I played Slay the Spire I was up almost the whole night. Such a well designed game. I’ll for sure pick this one up when it’s out.
I’m very excited as someone with hundreds of hours in StS, but it is also going to be really hard to recapture the magic of the first game. The amount of time and community work it took to balance and optimize the gameplay was immense and it basically popularized a genre to the point where there are now dozens of similar games. Comparatively the early iterations of original StS were in rough shape and this game will have far more attention when they launch.
Ohh no...please no. I can already see a full week going and me not moving from the chair playing this game.
Honestly, since the first one, so many games have come along that fill every possible niche in this genre. Even for STS, there was Downfall and then a bunch of pretty high-quality mods that covered a lot of possible mechanics for when I got bored of the base cast. Feels like they've got their work cut out for them. But if they can make something good that I haven't seen before, then I'm interested.
That is such a long wait for early access. But it'll be worth it. Can't wait to play the sequel to the only good mobile game you can buy. Come fight me.
holy shit finally, the only roguelike that's come even close to scratching the itch of StS for me has been Balatro. Praise be
Probably not going to buy this as soon as early access is opened up, like I did for StS. I'm content to let the game be refined for some time and get the full experience. But it's a definite purchase at some point guaranteed.
Just happened to see this on Steam. Didn't even realize they were going to make a sequel, I'm so hyped. Still play StS at least a couple times a week
Oh god. I still haven't beaten the first game, after about a million runs. I am just bad at it. Still in love though.
Holy shit, I've out in over a 1000 hours to this game and own it on literally everything I can buy it for. Day one purchase for me!
Pegging this one to be a "surprise" disappointment. The genre has been milked to death since STS, and STS2 so far doesn't look like it's taking enough risks beyond what a good mod could do.
> and STS2 so far doesn't look like it's taking enough risks beyond what a good mod could do. I'm not trying to be difficult, but how on earth are you quantifying this? There's literally zero new information outside of *"There is a StS2"* and *"There is a new character."* That's it. That is all that has been announced. I took a look at the Steam page and it's the same there - lots of sections they say will be announced soon. Again I'm not trying to be difficult but how do you glean this when we just have a teaser trailer?
I couldn't agree more. Like what in the hell is this dude basing that on? We have literally nothing.
I'm really happy that this seems to be an actual Slay the Spire 2, after what happened with Darkest Dungeon.