The Long Game
Developer/publisher Mega Crit Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One Release 2019
Progress reports on the games we just can’t quit, featuring the balancing act of Slay The Spire
Almost two years since it entered early access, and ten months on from its full release, you might fairly expect Slay The Spire to have more than three characters. But the playable classes in Mega Crit’s sumptuous dungeon-crawling deck-builder are defined by two things: the number of different directions in which you can take your deck during each run; and how finely all those directions are balanced, both against each other and the various enemies you face during your perilous ascent. This stuff doesn’t happen overnight.
As a result, it’s with no little anticipation that we move over to the game’s beta branch on Steam for the debut of its fourth character. The Watcher may not be quite as well balanced as her peers just yet – that, after all, is what betas are for – but in terms of options, she comes with the most dynamic deck so far.
Even from the start, before a suite of new cards is progressively unlocked during your early runs, the choices are almost overwhelming. Two switchable stances define The Watcher’s core playstyle. In Wrath, she deals, but also receives, double damage; in Calm, card powers can apply large amounts of block at the end of a turn, and on exiting the stance, you gain energy, allowing you to play more cards. She also has the ability to Scry – viewing the cards at the top of your draw pile, allowing you to discard any or all of
them – which proves essential given the importance of managing stances. She stomps through the early game, where enemy health pools can’t cope with her damage output in Wrath. Later, the pace slows down, as you use the new Retain mechanic, which keeps certain unplayed cards in your hand between turns, to alternate between defence and attack, knowing an errant Wrath play could end your run in a single turn.
Before long another stat, Mantra, turns up, which turns out to be a Super bar of sorts; reach ten stacks and you enter Divinity stance, which triples your attack power for the rest of your turn. Then there’s Mark, a spin on the Silent class’ poison power which, rather than chipping away at an enemy over time, builds up each time you play a Mark card for progressively ridiculous damage.
We mean ‘ridiculous’ in the context of Slay The Spire, where damage values are low – the highest class health pool is just 80 HP, and the toughest enemies cap out at a few hundred. This is one of many secrets to the game’s sense of balance: we’ve lost count of the fights we’ve won with 1 HP remaining, likewise the number of runs lost for want of another point or two of block. But the real magic is in the studio’s attention to detail, its willingness to develop its game in public, and in the time it takes between updates. When the results are this good, we’re happy to wait.