Slay the Spire, A great combination of Randomness and Strategy
Slay the Spire is a fusion of roguelike and deck building game on Steam. It’s now still Early Access version and got more than 10000 reviews which are overwhelmingly positive.
I have played the game for over 120 hours now, and I think it is a great combination of randomness and strategy. In the game, players will enter a dungeon, beat monsters with the deck they have, encounter random events, collect money and relics and beat the bosses. It has a lot of roguelike elements which provide a lot of randomnesses, so the game is different every time players play it. Meanwhile, as a deck building game, it has a considerable strategic depth of choosing cards and building the deck. And Slay the Spire, combines the two, provides situations where players have to make decisions on random options the game provides.
In this article, I will talk about how the design of its map and deck building brings randomness and strategy in the game.
Map
The standard mode has three levels which consist of 50 levels. The maps are procedurally generated and they are different every time. It will be like this.
There are six kinds of rooms on the map now. They are Unknown Events, Merchant, Treasure, Rest, Enemy and Elite. And at the end of each level, there will be a boss. The map usually has 3 or 4 starting points, and there are branches and merges on the map.
As you can see, the map gives the players a lot of information of what they will meet in this level. Players can see the map of the whole level at the very beginning of it so they can choose the route they want to go, more fighting with monsters or more random events. Also, players can see the map whenever they want to. So, at a rest site, the players can decide to rest(heal HP) or Smith(upgrade cards) according to the HP they have, and what’s in front of them, at merchant players can decide to use all their money or save their money for the next merchant according to the map.
Meanwhile, the map is also full of randomness. Firstly, the rooms are procedurally generated and are different every time. Secondly, though players know the type of the room, what inside the room is still random, what enemy will be in this room, what items merchant will sell are all unknown to the players until they enter the room. Thirdly, the unknown events are totally random. Inside the room could be an enemy fight, an elite fight, merchant, treasure, and even some mysterious events where players encounter something and can choose from different reactions. These events can give players rare rewards, or sometimes let players lose their health.
And here I want to talk about the design of unknown events a little bit more. As just mentioned, it’s a random event. But the event itself provides a lot of interesting strategies. Here are some examples.
Here is an example of players meeting mushrooms in the unknown event room, players can choose from Stomp the muchrooms or Eat them. If players choose Stomp, it will be a fight with mushrooms and players can get reward after the fight. If players choose Eat, 19 HP will be healed, but a cursed card of Parasite card will be added to the deck. And players now can decide which they want according to the HP they have, what will happen after this, the deck they already have, if they will get a chance to get rid of the cursed card…
Here is another example that players could choose to lose their HP to win a chance of findng a relic.
A small summary here: the map has a lot of random elements, it’s procedurally generated, what inside every room is random, and there are a lot of unknown rooms where what will happen is totally random. But the map gives players a lot of information that can let players make informed decisions, and that is the strategy of the players.
Deck Building
There are four kinds of cards in the game right now, attack cards, skill cards, power cards and cursed cards. Cursed cards are cards with negative effects like limiting the cards players can play in one turn. Usually, they can not be played. And they come from events or enemies abilities.
The rules of playing cards are really simple. It’s turn-based. Usually players have three energy at the start of each turn. Playing cards consume energies. Players can play as many cards as they can in one turn as long as they have enough energy. Whenever cards are all drawn, they will be automatically shuffled. In enemies’ turns, enemies can attack players or weaken players or strengthen themselves. Once players have 0 HP, the game ended.
In Slay and Spire, players start with a deck of 12 basic cards. And players can get cards after fighting with enemies or elites, or buying cards in merchant, . Players can also remove their cards at merchant, and upgrade their cards at rest sites. Unknown events can give players cards, also upgrade players’ cards and remove players cards. Again, they are unknown and random.
The randomness in building the deck is that cards players could potentially have in the game are all random. After every fight, players can choose a card from three randomly provided cards. The merchant provides seven random cards that players can buy. So it’s not like CCG or TCG where players can choose from all possible cards and build their deck in the way they want it to be. Players need to build their decks according to the randomly provided cards.
So there are a lot of strategies when players pick up a card. Firstly, because of the automatic shuffling mechanic, picking up a strong card does not mean the deck will be stronger. Because adding cards to the deck will decrease the possibility of drawing other cards. And that might influence the balance of the deck and the combo the deck already has. Secondly, the card needs to be appropriate to the deck. Players need to think about if this card can have combo with other cards in the deck. If the card can not work together with other cards in the deck, even though it’s strong, it’s not a good idea to add it into the deck. Thirdly, it’s the strength of the card itself. In the first half of one game, players will mostly be provided with normal cards. But in the second half, there will be more rare cards and upgraded cards. So players need to think about whether they should add more cards in the beginning, or wait.
Building the deck in Slay the Spire is quite different than it is in other BDGs. For example, in Dominion, the strategy is more on cards’ values and prices. In Slay the Spire, it’s more on making decisions on randomly provided choices.
Summary
Slay the Spire combines the strength of roguelike gaems and deck building games. It has a lot of randomness, but it also builds up its strategy depth on the randomness. It’s a great combination of randomness and strategy. And I am looking forward to more content of the game in the future.