Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 11

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

Published By: Bezier Games
Designers: Daniel Byrne, Jose Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Pelaez, Tirso Virgos

Buy Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

The top trick taking game on my list is Hearts. Well, not completely Hearts, it’s Hearts with shenanigans and that is the element that makes it amazing. If you are familiar with Hearts, you know you don’t want to win the hearts because they are worth points. In this game, you are doing the same thing, but as princesses trying to dodge the proposals of the princes and of course the very dangerous frog princes.

But let’s talk about the shenanigans because that is where the game separates itself from Hearts. In Rebel Princess you each get a princess with a special power. It might be to force someone to lead a suit, or you take over the lead of a trick even if you didn’t win the previous one. They are once per round. The bigger shenanigans comes from the rule for each round. It tells you how to pass cards, but also then something special that round, like the number furthest from the led card wins the trick, to make the trick taking different.

9. Zenith

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Gregory Grard and Mathieu Roussel

Out Of Stock Currently

Zenith is the new one on the list, and it blew me away on BGA so much that I knew I needed to pick it up when it came out. Zenith is a two or four player, but really two player game where you are having a tug of war over different planets. When you get influence on a planet all the to your side, you get a token, and you win with three from one planet, four different ones, or five total.

But let’s talk about winning influence. The simplest way is to play a card down on your side of the table, that’ll move it one towards you and give you some other bonus. But to do that you need to pay the cost, so sometimes you need to do other actions to get more money. One of them is to discard a card for a bonus. Depending on the type of card, you get a different bonus for it, and you gain the leader token which means you get an extra card in hand. Finally there is technology which you use to gain bonuses but also move influence on planets.

8. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Published By: Contention Games
Designers: Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, and Casey Yano

Buy Slay the Spire: The Board Game

You know that I love Slay the Spire the video game and the same is true for the board game. In the board game it’s the same thing as the video game, but everything is scaled down. This is a very smart decision because I don’t want to do a lot of math, but I still want to play the same game I love. So you climb the tower, you fight normal and elite monsters, and you rest and add cards, everything that you love about Slay the Spire the video game.

But there is an extra twist for the board game as well. In the board game you also can play it cooperatively. And I love that for the game because there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to. It levels up how much health the boss has, and each character gets their own row of normal monsters to face. The cool thing about that row is that I can help you attack your row if your monsters are attacking for too much. Or you can help with mine, but whichever row you attack, you get attacked by your row. So there is a strategic puzzle to figure out as a group.

7. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Published By: Portal Games
Designers: Jakob Lapot, Przemyslaw Rymer, and Ignacy Trzewiczek

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I might be the person in the world like Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game the most. But I think it is worth talking about and I think at least the core box is one that more people should play. The core box is a series of intertwined cases that you need to figure out the leads and what to track down. The best way, and I mean this as compliment, I can describe the game is that it’s like NCIS or CSI but fun because you are the detectives.

The game has so much going for it. You need to figure out what lead you want to track down, you need to take evidence to the lab and get your results, or you need to spend resources pressing people for more information. All of that is going to cost time, so you need to get it done before time runs out.

And all the cases are different. Even in the core box where they link together, they are all unique. And the one off cases are all different as well and set in different time periods or different locations. Even the Batman version of the game is a ton of fun.

6. Dice Throne

Published By: Dice Throne Inc.
Designers: Nate Chatellier, Aaron Hein, and Manny Trembley

Buy Dice Throne

Dice Throne is probably always going to be game in my Top 10. Mainly because they keep on coming out with more Dice Throne and I keep on buying it. But the game is a great plug and play game that can be described as battle Yahtzee. But that is not fair to the game because Dice Throne is more than that. Yes, it uses the Yahtzee style rolling to deal damage to your opponent, but the cards, and dice manipulation and how you work that together is where the game is so fun.

Plus, each character in the game is unique and does something different. Whether that is with Marvel and Gambit who has his aces that he can play, Doctor Strange who has spells that he can cast, or Scarlet Witch who can swap out the dice that her opponent roles. Or it is unique for the non-IP characters as well with the Gunslinger having a showdown type of defense, the Treant having sapplings that do unique things, or the Pyromancer building up their flames.

5. Aeon’s End

Published By: Indie Boards & Cards
Designers: Jenny Iglesias, Nick Little, and Kevin Riley

Buy Aeon’s End

I love deck-building and Aeon’s End is my favorite mainly deck-building game. I put it that way because I have another game that uses deck-building, but it is less of a deck-building game. This one is great because it gives you a boss battler as well as you play the game. You need to cast spells to deal with the bosses actions, minions, and hopefully knockdown the boss, the nemesis, if you can.

The game does a couple of fun things. Firstly, I like the turn order in the game, though I will say, I think that it makes it a two player game. The turn order is randomly drawn from a deck, so you might go twice in a row, if you have two of your number in there, or you might have the nemesis get multiple turns in a row. It keeps the game feeling tense and stressful. But I think it works best as a two player game because otherwise you might have a long time between turns.

Then the deck of cards. As you add cards and you need to draw again, you don’t shuffle the deck. Instead you just flip it and you draw from that. If you are smart, you can set it up so that you are drawing a strong hand. It is tricky, but it’s also a ton of fun when you get it right.

4. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designers: Elwin, Min

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

This is the other game that has deck-building, but it’s less of the game. Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deck-building, worker placement and resource management game that I just love. The theme really helps sell me on the game where you are exploring the jungle and trying to become the most famous explorer. Yes, that theme is hiding behind the mechanisms in some ways, but it’s there.

The game is really a great puzzle as you need to figure out how to explore new locations, defeat those monsters, and go up a research track. But they do it thematically in some areas, and I love that. You can buy new gear with money, but when you do that, it goes to the bottom of your deck of cards. Why, because it needs time to ship over. But if you buy a relic, that’s there, and you can use it immediately. Or on the research track as you advance, you need to discover, magnifying glass, before you can write about it, journal.

And the Expedition Leaders makes the game even better. It means that each player is starting at a unique spot. And it helps shape how you want to solve the puzzle. I thin the game is a 9 for me without this, but with it, and it’s an easy addition, it’s an easy 10 and in my Top 10 of all time.

3. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Published By: Awaken Realms
Designers: Krysztof Piskorski, Marcin, Swierkot

Buy Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Now a game that has been in my Top 10 for a long time with Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. I still think this game has the best story and writing of any game that I’ve played. It does an amazing job of weaving together a narrative over three different campaigns. And you want to explore and read all the story. It’s so good and the storymode fixes the issue, that even though the regular game is a grind when it comes to resources, this is still a game that I love.

I think that the game works so well too in what you are doing. The combat and diplomacy checks you come across offer interesting puzzles of card play. And then when you go to a new card and you find new choices, it’s really interesting. I also should mention with combat, I like how you sometimes just want to runaway. A combat is going to be too hard for you and instead of taking a ton of damage, if your draw bad cards, you should just run.

As an aside, I can’t wait to play the new game in the series. But it’s being waited on because of other campaign games to play. I’ve heard it is less grindy, so if you are worried about that in the base game, maybe check out that version.

2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Nate French, MJ Newman

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game

At number two is a return to glory in some ways. I think that Arkham Horror: The Card Game was in the Top 3 or so when I first started the list. But it is back here because I’ve gotten to play more over this past year. I’ve done the story in the core box and started on another one. And I built my own character for that which is fun to do as well.

The game is just impressive with how it uses cards in such an interesting way. I love how they become a map for the house, city, or whatever you are in. And how they use simple symbols to help you know what connects to what in the game. And each campaign feels different. I played the Arkham Nights one at a game store, and that was super unique and fun, while the base box felt like a great introduction, and the Scarlet Keys is already shaping up to be different.

I also like that each character you build is going to be good at different things. So you need to balance the party. But you might want a challenge and create a different and unique combination of characters to go with as well.

1. Frosthaven, Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Published By: Cephalofair Games
Designer: Isaac Childres

Buy Frosthaven

The final spot on the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition is the same as it’s always been. This is Gloomhaven, or Frosthaven, or Jaws of the Lion. They are all the same game, though Frosthaven does add in a city management phase which is very fun for the game as well. This is an amazing dungeon crawler game and very worth checking out if you haven’t played a dungeon crawler before. Especially Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion as a starting point for the game.

In this game you play different scenarios and you need to figure out with your unique character how to defeat the enemies and complete the objectives. In Gloomhaven a lot of the objectives are defeat everyone. But Frosthaven adds in more variety, so you need to figure out the puzzle.

And how do you do that? You do that with playing cards from your hand. Each card has a top action, a bottom action, and an initiative on it. You pick one of the two cards to set your initiative and then generally you have a plan of which top of a card and which bottom you want to use. But, if the board changes, maybe the enemies move on you, you can adjust which top and bottom you want to use from the cards you play. And did I mention that each character is unique and feels different in how they play, because they do. And you get a try a lot of them.

Thank You For Joining The Journey

I hope that you’ve had fun with my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition. I always have fun putting together this list. And I apologize for it being a bit delayed in when the article came out as compared to the video on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. My schedule has been weird as of late.

So with that, be aware I will be streaming as I can. I still want to go through my 101 through 200, aka the games that I still love but couldn’t crack the Top 100. And really, I love a lot more games than just 200. But that video is going to come out when it can. And it might not come out live depending on what my potential filming schedule looks like. The same with other streaming like Legendary Kingdoms and Baldur’s Gate 3. And then I have other games I want to play too, like Regicide Legacy that are going to stream well.

So all of that is to say, thank you for watching. And subscribe and click the notification bell to know when new videos come up on the Malts and Meeples channel.

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Balatro – Unlocking Process

Let’s talk a bit about the leveling up that you do in Balatro. It is in some ways like Slay the Spire and in other ways it isn’t. Mainly both of them allow you to unlock additional cards and kind of characters as you go.

Let me explain the character element first. In Slay the Spire there is The Watcher who is able to be unlocked. It’s a new character that changes up how you play the game. A lot of the elements, still the the same, but some are different. In Balatro you unlock new decks of cards. Again most of the game is the same, but some elements change up. So that is what I mean by that.

And then for the cards, in Slay the Spire you unlock character specific cards and relics to add to your game. That isn’t an element of Balatro that anything is specific, but you unlock more jokers as you go. So as I play, I find more and varied jokers popping up to tweak how I play my hand. It might push me to playing more pairs, straights, or flushes depending on what I get. So it is part of how I can craft that I want to do to generate points.

I like both ways of leveling up in Slay the Spire with it being more specific to a character or Balatro with it being general to future plays. I think Balatro does fall a tiny bit short in the leveling up area because no matter the deck that I play, I generally find similar strategies. You can see that in the game play, flushes were how I went and what made sense for me to play.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I play small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well. And I might do more deck construction with Star Wars Unlimited on Mondays as well or pack openings. Right now it’ll be more Slay the Spire.

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. And that is more of The 7th Citadel. I plan to keep playing through The Drums of Desolation for a while so join me for that.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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There is an issue fixed with what the screen decided to display at the 17 minute mark or so. The screen for the game was not updating even though I was playing the game.

Balatro Game Play

I think what keeps Balatro sticking as a game that I come back to is mainly the upgrade and unlock system. I like the fact game play, but without the system, I’m not sure how much I’d play it. Getting a new joker or deck unlocked is what I’m pushing for. Not because that is always going to make it easier, it might not show up on a future run, but because it offers more possibilities.

Especially with the new jokers that come up. The decks you need to plan on which deck you are going to play. But with a joker, it might come up whenever which could make what you play even better. Like I just unlocked a joker that improves my heart flushes. Well, combine what with the one that already gives you a bonus for playing a heart, and you can create some very strong combinations.

What element of the game seems the most intriguing to you?

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well.

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. Right now the plan is to switch over to Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies starting next week. See that came hit the table and how it compares to the original Sleeping Gods from Red Raven games. And let me know which campaign games look interesting and you’d want to see played from the list here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Find out more on how to play Balatro here.

Balatro vs Slay the Spire

So, my game for a while to randomly play on my computer has been Slay the Spire. Balatro is now here and the question is, will it replace Slay the Spire, or is it even the better game? I plan on doing a full article on this, but let’s highlight some areas where it is better and maybe isn’t.

Balatro’s biggest advantage is that a run in the game is faster. Each round is a few hands versus potentially quite a number of turns. Granted, you want to limit that in Slay the Spire. But it also is more of a question as to what cards I play in what order for Slay the Spire. So that adds to the length of the game because it isn’t just click and play.

Though, that’s also a negative for Balatro. Balatro’s game play is simpler. And that enhances how quickly you can play it. But it also means that more game plays feel the same. Often times I find myself drifting into similar strategies even if I started going for something different. The cards and the Jokers tend to lean themselves in particular directions.

So, I think that Balatro right now will get played more. That stems from Slay the Spire previously being played a lot. And that Balatro is a faster game. It is close, though, and I like Slay the Spire better. But, a quick game often beats out a better game for more game plays. The fact I often play a run in 30-40 minutes versus an hour or hour and a half with Slay the Spire is a big difference.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well.

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. Right now the plan is to switch over to Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies starting next week. See that came hit the table and how it compares to the original Sleeping Gods from Red Raven games. And let me know which campaign games look interesting and you’d want to see played from the list here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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How to Play Slay the Spire?

Slay the Spire is a rogue-like dungeon crawling, or spire crawling game where players take their hero(es) up the spire to fight monsters through card play, get money, buy cards, get cards, and get relics and potions. All in an attempt to beat the different level bosses and move further on and further up.

What that looks like on the table is that Slay the Spire is a deck building game. Each character has unique cards and powers that allow you to build up a deck that combos off of itself. These cards offer two main things, attack and defense. Attack is how you kill the monsters and defense prevents damage if the enemy gets a turn.

There are a few minor twists. The first being that you don’t automatically heal after every battle. The Ironclad, they heal one after every battle, but other characters do not heal. You only heal, and fully, after you defeat the level bosses. The other minor twist probably comes from the potions and the relics. The relics are powerful, but often has a drawback. But they are always in play which means they are always active. Potions are one time use cards but they can be used any time and are not in your deck.

Why Back Now?

Let’s start out by asking, why back it on Kickstarter now? And I am not sure there are a ton of great reasons to do so. The price and shipping are good, but Contention Games hasn’t said what MSRP is. The game right now is $100 for the base pledge and $12 shipping. When you look at all you get, it seems pretty reasonable for what you are paying. But if it’s $120 MSRP, you’ll be able to get it for basically the same price as the Kickstarter later.

How Does It Compare to the Video Game?

Let’s talk about the video game vs the board game first before we get into what works and doesn’t work. Because, yes, this is a video game that is a deck builder before it is a board game. I think one thing to note about it is that the board game is scaled lower. Enemies, characters, attacks, defense, all of them have lower numbers. You and the enemies are easier to kill. Attacks and defense deal or block less damage respectively.

Also, while relics and abilities might offer similar things, some of the more complex ones doesn’t seem to be in the game. Right now, I haven’t seen stuff like get an extra energy after playing 10 cards, or your eighth attack deals double damage. Basically, it looks like the board game is streamlining some of that out so that the game doesn’t become too complex versus the video game that can handle it.

What Doesn’t Work?

I don’t have too many complaints about what I’m seeing in the game. The one thing that caught me off guard to start was that every pledge level comes with sleeves. They actually added a bit of detail to the page to show why that is the case. In Slay the Spire you can upgrade cards. The upgrade side is on the flip side of the card, which is nice and easy, but that means that the cards are double sided and need to be sleeved.

This works really well, but it also means that at the end of the game, you need to unflip all the cards you had previously flipped. For set-up of the game, it won’t add much time. But tear down of the game now requires that as you sort out your starting cards, you are also flipping cards that you’ve upgraded.

What Works?

Firstly, I think this looks like and does a good job of emulating the video game. Like I said, it scales it down, but watching game play, you can see The Brothers Murph play it below, it looks like the video game. There are some differences, but one of those I’ll put down next as a positive.

The next thing is that this offers cooperative play. Slay the Spire, the video game is completely solo play. It means that we can team up on monsters to take them out or help stop damage that is coming through. It’s a different experience than the video game, but it’s a fun bit to be added into the game. I like that it is there because it means that the board game is different than the video game. And I like to play solo games, but I also like with some games to have the option to play multiplayer as well.

Finally, I like that the core of the game is the same as the video game. It is about deciding when you want to push your luck and go for an elite boss to get more relics. How you want to power up, how you want to build your deck. Each character still has their main thing that they do, but because it’s a board game, it is now social.

Back or Brick – Slay the Spire

Right now this is a Back for me. I like the video game, and I think this will offer me the same experience. But for me, if I can play a board game over a video game I will. And if this gives me the same Slay the Spire experience as the video game, or near that, then I am really interested in it.

However, I will say, I am more on the fence than I thought I might be. Mainly because of the price of the game. $100 is not cheap, and I was not pleased when I saw that it required sleeves. However, the sleeves makes sense, you need it for the upgrades. Otherwise you’d probably need to add in another 400 cards. And I do think that Contention Games wrapped in some of the shipping costs – $12 is very cheap – to the price of the game. But I also know that $100 plus $12 shipping will price it out of a certain part of the board gaming audience.

And for that, I am grateful there is a the video game. The video game is about $15. So if the board game is too steep, well, I expect it to come to retail so you can get it later. Plus you can play the video game until that comes out. In fact, I think I’m going to play the video game tonight.

How about for you, is it a Back or Brick?

Slay the Spire Kickstarter

So I teased that it’s coming to Kickstarter soon. More that they have put up a Kickstarter page and that it should be coming sometime this fall. But this isn’t the first time that there has been a date set for the Slay the Spire Kickstarter. in 2021 it was first Spring and then Summer of 2021 and clearly that didn’t happen.

Now, I do appreciate that they are trying to have the most polished product going forward. But it’s not a great look to have all of these false starts. And I think it is going to hurt their hype and push. Because they were advertising it before, now when people see advertisements it’ll be a “let’s wait for it to actually launch”. And one thing you really want with a Kickstarter is people to be ready for the moment it launches.

Now, this is going to affect it more, I think, in the board game space than the general Slay the Spire fan space. I saw a board game was coming out, I like Slay the Spire a lot, so I followed the company’s Facebook page. So I was privy to the changes happening, without much detail as to why. But if you just saw and add in 2021 and now see adds in 2022 and that’s it, those people are apt to get more excited again. Plus the release this year of the fan expansion for the video game means that it’s in people’s mind.

But will I back it? Obviously this is just speculation at this point, but I need to see what is going to be exclusive to Kickstarter. And I need to see how the game plays. I think that parts of it will work well, but as a 1 to 1 with the video game, I’m worried that some things will translate poorly. Or that the game will be too fiddly. So I want to see how it handles that. I also think it’s likely to have a solid retail release that might keep me from backing it.

Upcoming Streams

Wednesday, and the link is already up, more Stars of Akarios. I’m at least dipping my toes into Act 1. I still love playing the game and the story, but I might take some time off to just play it myself and then stream non-campaign games for a little bit. But that’s still up in there air and I do still want input.

Then next Monday the plan, yes, it’s always the plan, play another game, probably a roll and write, as always. But I do have coffee roaster which I might try and learn over the weekend. If I can learn that, I think it’ll be a fun game to get to the table. But Hadrian’s Wall, which I forgot about, also needs to get played and I’ve heard that is an amazing roll and write to play solo. Which game should I play solo next Monday?

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The Game – Slay the Spire

The mechanics on this are pretty simple. Slay the Spire is a deck building game where you get cards that either attack or defend against damage. You go through rooms battling monsters, each battle gives you more cards to add to your deck allowing you to build it out as you want.

The trick is that you have a limited amount of energy as you play each turn. When you start the game you have three energy that you can spend and in your starting hand, most cards cost an energy, so you can only play three of the five. You might get more energy as the game goes along but you need to specifically look for those artifacts in treasure chests, more elite monsters that are harder to defeat, or bosses. Once in a while there is something in a store, but rarely.

Game play is nice and fast and while I mess stuff up, I still manage to pull off the win. There generally are optimized ways of playing. Granted, I didn’t really pull off the win, I was knocked out and found myself waking up at the bottom of the spire again. This is part of the fun of the game, to try and unlock that last battle and defeat it, but I’ll let you discover how to do that.

Another thing I really like is that you unlock cards as you go. I actually expected to die because I didn’t have unlocked cards. A lot of them you unlock as you go are more powerful. You need to play with a character a few times to get the cards you want unlocked.

Upcoming Streaming

Most likely the next stream will be a week from tomorrow. That will be going through my Gen Con haul and talking about going to Gen Con this year. There is a chance that stream might be moved up to Monday. But I want to leave time on Monday to hang out with family as I’ll be getting in later on Sunday night. Plus I want to save time to just relax and rest. I guess if I were to stream, it would probably be a daytime streaming on Monday.

But after the Gen Con Haul video on Wednesday, the next Wednesday stream will be starting off the Stars of Akarios campaign. I still need to learn the game, probably will take the rule book with me to Gen Con to go over it once, but I am getting really excited to get this game to the table.

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The Game

In Slay the Spire you are battling through rooms as you climb your way up three levels of a tower. Each of the levels get progressively harder, but that’s okay, because you get more and better cards. Like a standard deck building game, you start with a certain number of cards, generally 10, enough for two hands. You’ll have some basic attacks and basic defenses, but as you clear rooms, and beat monsters, you get the option to add more cards to your deck. These cards can give you better defense, more attack, or maybe even some permanent affect like dealing poison at the start of each of your turns. You also get relics which can do all sorts of crazy things, some give you more energy to spend, make attacks or defense better, heal you, give you an extra card every few turns, or more gold. If you can survive all the way to the top of the tower you’ve won, if not, you start at the bottom again and climb away.

What Doesn’t Work

Some climbs are just going to be better than others. When you get cards and relics, they are fairly random. Sure with cards you can pick from three, but if it doesn’t work with your strategy do you take a less ideal card or just skip a card all together. And some relics are way better than others depending on what you are doing, attacks that cost 0 doing 4 more damage is great for The Silent if you are going with one build, but if you are going for poison, way less useful. So there is that randomness. But honestly, that is the only thing that I’d consider a weakness in the game. And since the runs are fast.

What Works

The room system works really well. You are given a branching path up each level and you can see the whole thing. So if I know that I want to go to a merchant room as fast as possible, I can plan for that. If I just want to fight for a little bit, can do that. If I want the random rooms, they are easy to plan around as well. Overall, the whole room system just works really well because you can plot your course to some extent and choose what you are looking for. I go for routes that will optimize how many relics I get, permanent effects, because I like to get a lot of them. But if you want to optimize your health, it’s probably better to avoid those epic monsters.

I also like the characters. There are four different characters that you can get in the game. You start with one and when you get far enough, you unlock another and then another, and another. It is a blast to play the different characters, and the characters are really different. The Ironclad is your most basic aggressive character who is going to be able to dish out massive hits. Then the Silent gives you either shivs or poison but is about dishing out damage in a more defensive way. I’ll let you find out about the other two characters yourself, if the game is interesting. But they are more complex.

Each character has multiple ways to play them as well which is awesome. The Ironclad, I said that he’s good for dealing massive amounts of damage, and that’s true. But you can also play them more defensively. The Silent you can either build towards poison or shivs. It might overlap later as you go though. But each strategy is viable. And this is where some of the randomness that I was talking about can be bad. If I build the silent to attack with shivs and then I start getting all poison cards, I’m going to end up with a weird mix and be less effective. But if I get the right cards, you can do crazy combos that make the game a ton of fun.

Who Is This Game For?

Is this just a video game for board gamers? I don’t think so, I think a lot of players of video games will enjoy the rogue-like nature of each run. The deck building aspect is there, and it comes from board games, but it’s an easy enough concept to understand. So I think this game with it’s low barrier of entry and fun game play will work for a lot of people. The hard core FPS players, now, maybe they won’t like it as much but the more casual player, this game is a blast.

Final Thoughts

There aren’t a ton of video games that I come back to over and over again. I like video games as a concept, but too often I’ll play, get distracted, forget where I am in a story and have to start over again. Slay the Spire is not like that. Slay the Spire is simple to play for an hour, stop and do something else for a week and then drop back it and play again. It reminds me of some older video games that way. You play them for a little bit and then you put it down, and pick it up whenever you want. The less time I have to play longer games, at least video games, the more I appreciate games like this.

Overall Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: A

Pros

• Very established company
• Dungeon Crawl

Cons

• Dungeon Crawl
• Theme
• IP Based
• FOMO

The Page

Mythic Games knows how to lay out their game pages, they are a very established company and one that I have one of their products, Reich Busters, and kickstarted another with Hel. You clearly get the pledge levels explained, though there is one odd thing about the pledge levels, and that’s that you are “saving” money on a KS exclusive game. If this is Kickstarter exclusive, and I realize it could be that you can get it in the pledge manager and you’d have to add-on the one character, you really aren’t saving anything, because where else are you going to get the game. Now, like I said, it probably means to get everything you’d have to pay $10 or $15 more in the pledge manager, but still, not great advertising and just odd. Also, while they do have a solid amount of information on the page, you have to get through so many pictures of minis, stretch goals and what not before you get to game play. Highlight the minis and the game play at top, that’s my preference.

The Game

This is a grim dark game with perma-death in it, so that is interesting, we’ve seen some games like that, Tainted Grail is kind of like that, though not really, but you an play it that way. And while normally I’m down for fantasy, the grim dark style is something that I feel like is played out for me at this point. I have Tainted Grail, I’m getting Oathsworn and Hel, so though it should be a theme that I like, right now I’m less here for it.

That said, I like that we’re starting to see Dungeon Crawls incorporate in some elements like town building and making the downtime between quests, between dungeon crawls more interesting. That’s something you can see that I’m baking into my game idea, but also that you have in this game, Frosthaven, and more. It makes it feel like a more complete world.

Back or Brick

This, for me, is a brick. I have no connection to the video game, if I did, it might be different. For me this game just doesn’t add much that I’m looking for. I already have games like Frosthaven coming that does the town thing, and grim dark worlds as well. So while I don’t think that this game isn’t interesting looking, I look at where I’d put it on my shelf, and I’m just not sure that there is a home for it. I also don’t love the FOMO of Kickstarter Exclusive, but then also advertising how much you’ll save on the Kickstarter (versus what), that bit just turns me off to it slightly as well. And knowing Mythic Games, I might have a chance to get this from their online store, but right now, not for me.

How about for you, is this a back or a brick?

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