Indie Games.

Search games
IndieStrategy by Mega Crit

Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire is a deckbuilding roguelite where players construct a card deck through encounters and merchant purchases while climbing a procedurally arranged tower of rooms, bosses, and events. Four distinct characters each have entirely different deck archetypes, with synergy discovery being the core skill expression. It established many conventions now standard in the deckbuilding roguelite genre.

Summary drafted by Claude, not individually reviewed · Page built · How this page is made

Share: X Reddit HN LinkedIn
Slay the Spire

Steam reviews

214,021 of 219,621 Steam user reviews are positive (97.5%) and Steam's own label is “Overwhelmingly Positive”, according to Steam's review summary for Slay the Spire at the last data refresh.

What Steam reviewers mention

20 of the 20 sampled reviews recommend it. Detailed texts praise run variety, purposeful card choices, fair difficulty and flexible session length, including for newcomers to card games; reservations are limited to frustrating card and enemy randomness and cards or relics not triggering. Many recent texts are one-line endorsements or jokes.

Sample: 20 reviews from Steam's English filter (10 most helpful, 10 most recent, ), 20 recommending · how Claude counts topics

  • Replayability and Run Variety (praised in 9 of 20): Reviewers praise deep replayability from varied characters, random encounters and card and relic combinations, with mods adding more options.
  • Deckbuilding and Card Strategy (praised in 5, criticised in 1 of 20): Reviewers say card and relic choices feel purposeful, praising deck building between fights and visible enemy intentions, though one notes certain cards and relics failing to trigger as expected.
  • Difficulty and Randomness (praised in 5, criticised in 1 of 20): Reviewers describe an easy-to-learn but deep game with fair challenge where knowledge beats luck, though one reviewer finds card and attack randomness frustrating at times.
  • Accessibility and Short Sessions (praised in 4 of 20): Reviewers appreciate that runs fit short or long sessions, offline play works anywhere, and mods make it playable with screen readers.
  • Updates and Modding (praised in 4 of 20): Reviewers credit the developers for frequent updates and listening to feedback during early access, and mention mods that add variety and accessibility.
  • Addictive Gameplay Loop (praised in 4 of 20): Reviewers describe a hard-to-put-down loop, with two saying one more run kept stretching their sessions and another saying it grew addictive after a lukewarm start.

Games like Slay the Spire

  • Monster Train
  • Inscryption
  • Balatro

Drafted by Claude; not individually verified.

Good for

  • Deckbuilding fans who want a tight, well-balanced system with high replayability
  • Players who enjoy finding unexpected card synergies over hundreds of distinct runs
  • Short session play — a full run takes 1–2 hours to complete

Avoid if

  • RNG variance in card rewards can prevent preferred archetypes from forming naturally
  • You want real-time combat rather than turn-based card-based encounters
  • Late-game Ascension difficulty levels require extensive knowledge of enemy attack patterns

Is Slay the Spire an indie game?

Yes. Steam lists Slay the Spire under the "Indie" genre, and its publisher is not on this site's major-publisher list.

  • Steam genre tags on record: Indie, Strategy — includes "Indie".
  • Developer: Mega Crit.
  • Publisher: Mega Crit — same as the developer, i.e. self-published; not on this site's major-publisher list.

The rubric, its limits and the publisher list: methodology.