"Killing Spire" review: One more play and close the game, really

While PUBG is still firmly at the top of the Steam hot list, an independent card game has quietly rushed to the third position. At first glance, Slay the Spire does not seem to have any impressive design, simple painting style, way of playing cards and fighting. Everything seems a little bit normal, but it's just so fun that you can't stop.

Before we start talking about the Spire game, we need to understand the next two concepts of the game: Roguelike and DBG. Roguelike is a word that many of you may have lost your ear to. In recent years, a large number of games, especially indie games, have been presented with this core element, which can be summarized as follows: highly random; Death means starting all over again; A high threshold. The Roguelike genre has firmly established itself in the market for its rich playability and has many loyal fans.

The Binding of Isaac

The second is DBG, full name of Deck Building Game, and TCG(trading card games) such as Hearthstone and Yu-Gi-Oh, the biggest and most fundamental difference is that DBG has a "public card library". TCGS like Hearthstone build private decks before fighting, while DBG players only have a few basic command cards, and new cards are constantly acquired from the "public deck" through combat and exploration; DBG's private deck is also recyclable, unlike TCG, which can be drained. When the available cards are exhausted, discarded cards are reshuffled into the deck. To put it bluntly, TCG is "playing before the group", and DBG is "playing while the group". DBG is easy to get started with, but the cost of learning to master it is high, with strategies and choices throughout the game. Players must not only consider the card order but also strictly control the quality of the private deck, which brings enough fun and sense of accomplishment.

DBG's first work "Emperor Yuji Hegemony" (or translation < Territory >)

The above two make up the exterior of Killing Spire, where the typical characteristics of DBG and Roguelike are cleverly combined to create a game that is highly toxic.

It's all about moving up

The background setting of this game is not complicated, or even can be said to have no plot, we as players only know to climb this sky-high tower, what is on the top of the tower? What's the goal? These questions need to be resolved in the future update, still in the EA stage of this game can achieve a flood of reviews, purely by the appeal of the gameplay.

At the beginning of the game, the player can choose between two characters, the Iron Warrior and the Silent Hunter, and then enter the map, several relatively simple routes and signs tell the player which point there is a monster, where there is a treasure chest, and a question mark representing random events, several lines eventually converge towards the BOSS of the current area. From the time the initial route is generated, the Roguelike's random mechanics start to work. Under certain distribution rules, any monsters, events, and treasures that players encounter along the route will be randomly generated, ensuring that every time you click the start button, it will be a new experience. The choice of starting point and branching route is incorporated into the strategy process, giving the player a free experience.

choice

The two existing characters have very different initial stats, abilities, and "public card libraries", which makes for very different fighting styles. For example, some of the warrior's cards can greatly improve his defense, making him nearly invincible in a single round; Hunter's special effects card can be stacked with layers, DOT damage terror. As a lot of card games in general, players will gradually understand the connection between cards and summarize some strong schools of play in constant trying and thinking, but at this stage the public card library content is obviously not sufficient, so the routine tends to be fixed. When people all play the same way, the enjoyment in the later stages of the game decreases significantly.

Traditional card combat

Traditional roguelikes and card games have one thing in common: turn-based combat, and Killing Spire is a perfect blend of both. On your turn, you use cards to command your character, and in addition to the basic initial attack and defense cards, battles, stores, and treasure chests throughout the adventure get new cards with a variety of special effects. New cards form your private deck for this adventure, but return to the public deck after the character dies and can be used for the next adventure. Under this premise, the various special effects cards and props around the character build the core fun of the game, similar to Buff ability cards, powerful as passive relics that continue to exist in this adventure, one-time potions, curse cards that reduce the quality of the player's deck, and so on. These cards or items with different effects give the game a high degree of freedom and depth, and a common card can trigger multiple chain effects, which makes the turn-based feeling very refreshing.

So many buffs

Using cards costs energy, a common setting that needs no elaboration, and the change made in Killing Spire to this point is to make the calculation easier for the player, but not to affect the in-depth calculation. The default energy cap is 3 bars, most cards are 1 or 2 fees, and the energy cap does not increase with each turn. Therefore, the combination of card changes is somewhat simplified, and in most cases the player does not need to spend too much time thinking, in order to accelerate the pace of combat.

Extreme blood control reversal

Just as Saiyans can become stronger after death and resurrection, the overall experience of Killing Steeple is a spiral of pain and accomplishment: The new cards unlocked by the exploration will become the public library of cards inherited to the next journey, and the variety of cards will bring a more interesting experience, and the loss of death will soon be covered by the anticipation of new adventures, which will prompt people to start adventure after adventure.

Unlock new card

As mentioned earlier, the problem that the gameplay routine at this stage tends to be fixed, although the game will gradually become prominent in the later stage, it still cannot be ignored. In addition, the randomness of the card game itself is not low, and the introduction of Roguelike elements is a double-edged sword, high randomness and severe death punishment can easily discourage some players; Moreover, there are really few large map areas at this stage, only three, and the average customs clearance time after the quality of the public card library is up to standard may be less than 2 hours, and the content richness is not high. In my personal opinion, this game is to let the player quickly addicted and after a period of time addiction significantly decreased the type, of course, that time of addiction experience is good.

Random events can set the stage for death

Conclusion

Killing Spire is generally excellent, and it showed great potential in its EA phase. For such a niche independent game, the quality of good and quite in place of the Chinese (here thank you for the enthusiastic netizen riddle voice haha), it is very good to help it be recognized by a large number of domestic players, and it is not a coincidence that the top of the selling list. Such a dark horse in the update after what kind of height can be achieved, too much to look forward to.

PS: Finally, Amway has a gameplay similar to this work - "Dream Quest", but the biggest factor that "Dream Mission" has not been discovered is its amazing art (I honestly can't accept it), and it has not been Chinese. If you fell in love with the passable "Killing Spire," you might try to accept the "grotesquely ugly, but equally beautiful on the inside" "Dream Quest."

The match man...