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Feature: The endless march of time
We're just about halfway through 2018 (which has somehow taken both too long and no time at all). As is tradition, we've shaken our our brains around to see which games from the last six months still make our neurons fizzle with delight. Then we wrote about them here, in this big list feature that you're reading right now this second. And what games they…
Nearly every night, I do the 'should I play more Slay The Spire' dance. The cons: I wind up feeling guilty about not spending my free time trying something new, such as any of the half-dozen games I bought in the Steam Sale. The pros: it's always satisfying, and there's nearly always something that makes each run uniquely interesting. That's largely thanks to the devs…
Feature: Numbers crunch back
What Works And Why is a monthly column where Gunpoint and Heat Signature designer Tom Francis digs into the design of a game or mechanic and analyses what makes it good. When games offer you abilities and perks that boost your stats, they often do it in a meager, fiddly way: 5% chance to deal 10% extra damage for 5 seconds. Does not stack. This…
Delightful deck-building dungeon-crawler Slay The Spire has officially launched its third character, a robot wizard named The Defect, and they're a wild one. The Defect can conjure and consume a series of Orbs with passive and active effects, can pull off wild tricks with huge numbers of Power cards, and can also go full-on murderbot and tear enemies apart with their bare hands. I had…
Deck-building dungeon-crawler Slay The Spire has become even more delightful with today's early access update, which added loads more potions. Before, potions were bland, not requiring much thought or planning, and largely skippable. Now you'll find potions giving ghostly intangibility, fleeting bursts of strength, discard decisions, free cards, and other effects worth considering. To see so very, very many of the new potions and try…
The third Slay The Spire character is a robot wizard who manipulates orbs, named The Defect, and you can check it out today. The Defect has arrived in the latest beta build for the early access deck-building roguelikelike, and though they're not quite finished ooh they are an interesting one. The Defect is the trickiest character so far, focused on building, managing, and exhausting a…
It's not news that Slay The Spire is great--we've written about that oh so very much--but you might have missed how great its 'Daily Climb' daily run mode has become. On the deck-building roguelikelike's journey through early access, developers Mega Crit Games have kept adding daily modifiers that change the game in strange ways, and it's become my favourite way to play. I'm not even…
Slay the Spire is brill, if you haven't heard, and with each early access update it only gets briller. The most recent one spruced up the daily challenge mode, making it even harder for me to resist playing it every day until the third character comes out. Before the daily modifiers mainly just made your life miserable - introducing tougher enemies, lowering your health and…
Slay The Spire’s excellent new daily challenge mode is a reason to play forever
Casually fulfilling its destiny to become the videogame that consumes the rest of my life, ultro-superb CCG/roguelike combo Slay The Spire just introduced its third mode, the Daily Climb. It's about the most logical move Spire could have made, adding a daily challenge mode of the type popularised by Spelunky and The Binding Of Isaac (even big ol'XCOM 2 was inspired to do it, though…
Watch this Slay The Spire infinite combo deck winning on the first turn
As you might have noticed, we're playing a lot of Slay The Spire round these parts. With a few wins under my belt, I've learned about the power of building lean decks in the roguelikelike dungeon-crawling card game, but I'm still blown away watching a video of an infinite combo winning battles on the very first turn - with only two cards in the entire…
Feature: Interview
Roguelike card game Slay the Spire has swept through the RPS dungeons like a powerful disease, covering us in tiny, number-shaped pustules. In search of a cure, we spoke to its designers, Anthony Giovannetti and Casey Yano of Mega Crit Games. Read on to learn some of their methods and future plans. We've already told you they'll “almost certainly” be adding more characters. But did…
The roguelike card game Slay the Spire has marched into RPS and conducted a coup. Now a slug with a pocketwatch is forcing us all to write articles about how great it is. For example, I’ve just done an interview with the game’s creators, which you can read later. For now, let me sneak out this bit of info, while the slug isn’t looking: They…
Feature: Spire to greatness
Slay the Spire is a juicy, bloody fillet of a card game rolled around in the random oils and spices of a roguelike. I’d further this culinary analogy by cooking it in an RPG oven but let’s just go ahead and eat it raw. Because it's delicious. Also, I’m a vampire now. I had an altercation in a glowing city and the game took all…
Feature: Deck the halls
A ghost set me on fire. Earlier, I was beating on a parasite that was hiding inside a metal shell. I found a gelatinous cube that had absorbed so much junk it had become sluggish and bloated. I reached inside it, lost a layer of skin on my hand, but retrieved an ice cream. Don't laugh. It's a very useful ice cream. I'm playing roguelike…
