The evolution of Spirelikes
There aren’t many developers who can say they invented an entire genre. Anthony Giovannetti,
though, along with his Mega Crit collaborator Casey Yano, can stake a claim. As Giovannetti points out, Slay The Spire was predated by the likes of Shandalar and Dream Quest,
but “we really popularised the melding of deckbuilding and Roguelikes, and became the formula that other games seem to follow.”
That formula involves the player picking a randomly-shuffled path through card-based battles, interspersed with the option to gain new cards, until they either reach the finale or it all comes crashing down. It’s a very specific itch but, since Slay The Spire brought it to our attention, one that’s become increasingly easy to scratch.
“It has been wild watching the genre explode,” Giovannetti says. “I have even seen a lot of people and some media outlets start referring to them as ‘Spirelikes’.” None of these games have quite managed to, ahem, slay the Spire, though last year’s Monster Train
came closer than most, iterating on the ideas of its inspiration so well that it can count Giovannetti among its fans. “Monster Train did some neat things with our Ascension system, by showing where your friends are in their own Ascension climbs so you can kind of compete. I liked that feature.”
Looking forward, the next challenger for the throne could be Vault Of The Void, a traditional card battler with presentation reminiscent of Hearthstone – and another game that gets the Giovannetti seal of approval. “It has a neat endgame mechanic where you choose two of four mini-bosses to fight to get various boss-specific benefits,” he says.
Most exciting to us, though, are the games which push Giovannetti’s genre alchemy with a little melding of their own. Turnbased tactics is an obvious lateral step, and one that’s working well for
Fight In Tight Spaces (see p108) and
Trials Of Fire (pictured). The latter combines a fantasy quest framing with hex-based battles, where success requires careful positioning as well as deck management.
Then there’s Klei’s Griftlands, which started life as an open-world sci-fi RPG. All the tropes you’d expect are still present in its current early-access form, but it’s been rebuilt around two card games, each with its own deck – one for combat, one for negotiation, where each card represents an attempt to influence, intimidate or broker peace with your conversational sparring partner.
Giovannetti, who’s clearly been enjoying playing the games that have followed in Slay The Spire’s wake, says he’s optimistic about the future of this hybrid genre. And with
Spire’s updates seemingly winding down, he’s keen to get back to the table himself. While Mega Crit is also considering other projects outside the world of Roguelike deckbuilders, he says, “we are definitely not done experimenting with it ourselves.”