Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire is a game that you’ve probably heard of, especially now that its sequel is available. That makes it a perfect time to pick up the original and try it yourself.

This is the kind of game that looks manageable until you realize every small decision matters more than you thought. At its core, it’s a single-player roguelike deckbuilder. You climb a tower, fight enemies using cards, collect relics, and gradually shape your deck over the course of a run. Easy enough, right? But that simplicity stops once you realize you don’t heal after each battle, and if you’re defeated, you have to start all over again.

The difficulty here comes from the way you plan your strategy. Bad card choices haunt you, taking a greedy route backfires, and one weak relic pickup can leave your deck struggling several fights later. 

This is a game in which power is not everything; you also need to think a few steps ahead. A lot of new players lose because they keep treating every reward as a simple gift instead of thinking about whether it’s worth grabbing it or not. The game is all about strategy and using your intelligence in unusual ways for a video game.