Slay the Spire

2019 · Mega Crit Games · ~30h to finish

Every run is decided by about ten card choices you made while thinking about something else.

roguelikedeckbuilderstrategyPCPlayStation 5Xbox SeriesNintendo SwitchSteam DeckMobileMetacritic 89

Global—UNRATED

Baseline difficulty6.3PUNISHING

Sustained pressure. Progress is earned.

Price on Steam

$24.99

USD · United States · checked just now

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The fingerprint

12.55.07.510

Strategy

8.2

Puzzle

5.5

Learning Curve

5.5

Obscurity

5.2

Punishment

4.8

Grind

2.8

Reaction

0.2

Execution

0.2

PUBLISHEDHARDEST DEMAND FIRST

Punishment drops 1.2 points — you handle this better than most.
Assist options shave roughly 1.4 points off, if you use them.

These are generic numbers. Calibrate and this whole page re-scores around you.

Calibrate

Screenshots

IGDB

Where it bites

SPOILER-SAFE BY DEFAULT

START25%HALFWAY75%CREDITS

15% · ~3hStrategy
the first-act elite that specifically punishes the deck you naturally built
▲ 34
55% · ~12hStrategy
the second-act boss that reads your deck and mocks the shape of it
▲ 10
100% · ~25hPunishment
the true final boss, gated behind three keys you have to plan for from act one
▲ 8
100% · ~60hLearning Curve
the difficulty ladder that turns out to be the actual game
▲ 26

Assists & accessibility

0/3 SOURCED

CHALLENGE RELIEF

Difficulty modes [unsourced]Ascension raises difficulty in twenty steps; Custom mode lets you soften it.
Save anywhere [unsourced]The run state is written after every single action.

MOTOR & INPUT

Fully remappable controls [unsourced]

Claims marked unsourced have not been checked against a published accessibility review. Nothing here is inferred from genre — where we do not know, we say nothing.

What it is

A single-player deckbuilding roguelike: climb three acts of branching paths, adding cards and relics to a starting deck that must be able to beat a fixed set of bosses.

Where to go from here

Argue with these asks

Nearest fingerprints in the catalogue. The same demands, a different game.

Balatro

2024 · LocalThunk · ~40h

6.0STEEP

Poker hands as a scaling problem. The ante climbs faster than a fair deck can, so a run lives or dies on whether the multiplier joker you needed ever appeared in the shop.

UnratedSTR 7.8OBS 5.7CRV 5.5

EXE 0.4REA 0.3STR 7.8GRD 3.8

Baldur’s Gate 3

2023 · Larian Studios · ~100h

6.2PUNISHING

The rules are the difficulty. A fight lost on turn one was lost in the inventory screen, and the game is content to let you walk into an encounter five levels early without a word. Honour mode makes one wipe final; Explorer makes almost nothing final.

UnratedSTR 8.2OBS 6.4CRV 6.2

Divinity: Original Sin II

2017 · Larian Studios · ~90h

6.7PUNISHING

Armour has to be stripped before any control lands, surfaces do more damage than swords, and the game explains neither. Act two is where under-levelled parties stop entirely.

UnratedSTR 8.8CRV 7.2OBS 6.6

Nearest fingerprints in the catalogue. The same demands, a different game.

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