How Slay the Spire’s Original Interface Almost Killed the Game | War Stories | Ars Technica
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- čas přidán 3. 06. 2024
- Mega Crit Games co-founders Casey Yano and Anthony Giovannetti set out to combine the roguelike and deck building genres into one game, but found themselves faced with an obstacle: how to reveal the enemies’ intent. With the help of an active playtesting base on Steam, they realized that to make the game succeed they would need to scrap the ‘next move’ system for something more Twitch Streaming friendly. And thus, the ‘intent’ system was born.
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How Slay the Spire’s Original Interface Almost Killed the Game | War Stories | Ars Technica - Hry
![Slay the Spire - Northernlion Plays - Episode 570 [Eyes]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E5iIYyXA1tU/mqdefault.jpg)
![Slay the Spire - Northernlion Plays - Episode 570 [Eyes]](/img/tr.png)
Hi there. Welcome to the latest episode of War Stories. We really appreciate all the feedback we see in the comments, here as well as on arstechnica.com. Please let us know if you have any questions or requests for upcoming episodes.
A video on Papers Please? If possible yes!
This series is great. Keep it up!
Ars Technica Way to go dum dums ...Spectacular job #ARSTECHNICA, YOUR COMPANY IS HORRIBLE And DISGUSTING!!!!! The lowest of the LOW! You guys kept him employed while letting this scumbag tweet his horrid tweets and ignored his Twitter BIO while never questioning any of it.
Wtf is wrong with @arstechnica .?!?!! You wait and wait till something happens. Never reporting on it or anything. And wait and wait some more til....
•• The FBI Finally Sweeps in like a big azz Purple Titan using the golden gauntlet with the 'LAW' 💎 and putting this scum to rest like the 🤡 that he is. The gaming community applauses your great company for doing nothing while your employee wants to have sex with a 7 to 9 year old. GREAT JOB!!!!
@thequartering
#thequartering.
Thanks Jeremy for opening my eyes.
Addict - "I have an addiction, help"
Game Dev - "Awesome 👌"
for real.
Well, how do you think people get into selling drugs? A lot of game developers are game addicts who can't fathom any other way of making money. Then there's Nintendo, lol.
10:05 they were, in fact, interested in a sequel
To be fair, they said they only started the sequel about three years ago, and this video was released 5 years ago, so they might have still been focused on the main game at the time. I don't even think the Watcher was out when this video was recorded.
Honestly, adding bobbing to your characters is one of the easiest and most effective ways to make things more dynamic. Obviously selectively choosing what parts of a character move is better, but it's a great start.
Just look at the Adventure Quest flash web game series...
Alternatively, scaling slightly in random directions, like Monster Tower is doing
Not totally related but the constant bobbing of the Cuphead guys makes the constant dying a lot less frustrating.
That shade thrown at dead branch lmao
what is the trick?
@@seandoyle2769 Dead Branch and Corruption.
@@kewlhotrod gorramíle
I heard it a lot too when i was just starting to play the game. A lot of memes about that in reddit and i lost so many times trying to get the specific cards for that combo.
kinda surprised they haven't nerfed it if he feels that way lol
I have hundreds of hours in this game and I had no idea buffs were color coded.
Same. I also had no idea that the attack icons changed based on the damage either.
Also, being colour blind, this information doesn't really help me :D
@@lookingforsomething well its also a different icon as well so its not color reliant
“We’re not really planning on Slay The Spire 2 at this time”
Board game first.
wow its almost like they had multiple years to develop their plans or something
I mean, it's been 5 whole years.
I doubt they were 5 years ago
I've sunk over 1k hours in this game. Totally recommend it. The modding community not only gives you those cosmetics (for free), but also full playable characters. You know what? Also for free. But, back on track. I got it as soon as I saw it reviewed, somewhere, and thought it was something I'd probably be interested in. Yeh, that was the understatement of the decade. The game has a good learning curve, and the difficulty can be ramped up as well. It does not hold your hand forever. And... no loot boxes. No microtransactions. No in game currency whatsoever. There are unlockable items, but you get those by succeeding\playing the game. You bought the game, you HAVE the game. And yes, the devs are still tweaking the game.
Thanks devs, for producing what games really should be about.
yeah you unlock everything for each character after doing like, 5 - 10 runs with them. So you unlock the entire game in just a few hours.
@@vizthex And even that seems more like a tutorial than anything else. Unlocking cards that enable synergies slowly so you can get used to the mechanics in a slower pace.
I'm really surprised to see that the consensus seems to be that this game has lackluster visuals. The gorgeous art is actually part of what drew me to the game even before I was sure I'd like the gameplay.
I love the background art, especially "The Beyond". Some of the enemy art is so-so IMO but the card art is really great.
I think you fail to take into account how many people are really stupid
I think more accurately, the game has neither very flashy visuals or a very unique style. It's good looking but doesn't blow you away, but is also clean and easy to follow. Monster Train, a game I often see cited as having a better art style than StS is not really better. I'm not going to say it's worse, but it certainly has flashy visuals that are very reminiscent of mobile games. StS also has a lot of cool art you never pay attention to, because your brain is processing the gameplay so much it isn't focusing at all on it. Part of it seeming lackluster might simply be not ever paying attention to the art due to so much focus on the gameplay.
Why publicly advertise you have poor taste?
@@Krossfyre Monster Train is deeply ugly compared to STS (modern STS at least, I only picked it up last ear so I can't comment on what it looked like in 2018) in my opinion and this is why i haven't bought Monster Train
I’ve bought Slay the Spire three times (once for myself and twice more for friends), and put over 300 hours into it. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll buy it on Switch ASAP.
IT'S
JUST
THAT
GOOD
I did this in reverse. Several hundred hours on Switch convinced me to buy it on PC, where I've also played several hundred hours. I will definitely buy this on mobile when it eventually appears.
now buy it for mobile release man lol
what a consoomer
These guys are geniuses. Slay the Spire feels so original and fresh...
Shout out to Northernlion for making me buy this game.
love that eggboi
Same reason I got it
EYY EVERYBODY!
I bought it because I got so sick of being angry at his misplays . Love you egg daddy
Shout outs!
Dude, that guy founded Stimhack? Huge part of the Netrunner community (RIP).
That makes sense to me, as a netrunner fan I'm so glad that someone like this guy made this great of an interactive card game.
his netrunner influence is real because STS and Netrunner, as well as Ascension are the ONLY card games I like.
I've bought this game 3 times, one for my computer, my iPad, and my android phone. The game's UI is probably one of the best I've ever used, and translates so easily among the different platforms.
I even started playing with an Xbox controller on my PC and it's so easy! You can really tell a lot of love went into the accessibility of this game. Great job Mega Crit!!!
So many people I have heard say something like "IT LOOKS LIKE IT WAS MADE WITH MS PAINT LOL" but once anyone actually plays the game they are hooked! Ill say it might not be the most pretty game out there but damn is it well made!
Perhaps they were trying to replicate the success of Dream Quest (store.steampowered.com/app/557410/Dream_Quest/), which, you must believe me, is a really excellent game.
it looks like a traditionally painted horror fantasy, idk how people think that this looks bad (unless your talking about it's old "art")
I don't think this game is all that good.
@@iranoutofnames6444 Artist here! I think It's middling. The dark and quirky element would probably be lost if the artstyle was too clean, or just too precise, but it also looks a lot like things I'd do when I wasn't as in control of my art. So there is definitely something cool here, but i think the execution could be better.
I'd like to note that I'm mostly speaking of the monsters and characters. The card art is cleaner and more consistent overall.
The more i play the game the more i actually enjoy the art style of it. It's very unique.
So this is why {insert the relic that gives +1 relic can’t see intents} feels bad to play
runic dome
Yeah, I've only played with Runic dome once, because the "random boss relic" option gave it to me
It's ok to play with if you know the enemy's AIs very well, but making their intent known the rest of the time is what makes this easy to learn and get a feel for. Also, with specific decks, it's a matter of "if I can setup, then I will never have damage mitigation problems anymore", like with strong but slow to start barricade decks, or a less aggressive defect build, for instance something power-based that scales pretty fast, or just something with lots of frost orbs and good focus scaling. And then the fifth energy can really help block during the early turns, before it becomes a "non-problem". So it's pretty situational, but not necessarily feel-bad. It can be a great feeling, too, to be able to plan around the random parts of the AIs, and make correct predictions - it makes the lines of play more complex to follow, but it's pretty cool, because it really changes the gameplay experience. But it's definitely not something to grab lightly. Also, it adds variance to the game from the moment you grab it, so that's not necessarily great.
It works well with barricade/body slam decks. No matter what, you want to gain block, 0 energy body slam them, so what they're doing doesn't matter to an extent. (Maybe weaken them)
Yes, seeing intents is worse than not seeing them... What does this have to do with this video?
Are you seriously saying you couldn't figure out what the symbols above the enemies meant until you watched this video? Wait, no, you're saying runic already made you lose so... Uh, what are you saying? What did this video make you realize??
Also, why are you not saying the name Runic Dome? Oh, you're copying the Devs said...You realize they just don't wanna give away a OP relic and card combo? It's not like they decided to not name items arbitrarily, lmao.
Did this comment get over 100 likes just because it *seems* like it's saying something even though it's utter gibberish?
One of my favorite games, played 190 hours so far.
It's true:
Noob: Uh, elite, better dodge that.
Later: Take their essence, become stronger or die.
Oh god, so true. First few games I thought the trick was finding a path around the Elites while still hitting as many events/camps/shops/treasures as possible. Now every floor is, "okay how do I hit as many elites as possible while still hanging onto a tiny thread of hp?"
over 1k hours and still haven't played the same game twice. I love it.
Drug addict: "And now I'm addicted. I have a problem"
Dealer: "And that's what we want, awesome"
Played this game due to word-of-mouth recommendation. And it's really great! I got addicted to it for a long time. :-D
This. Such a great game. I watched a Let's Play for a few minutes and was immediately sold, then literally took a day off of work to play it all day hahaha. I've about 200 hours into this game now and cannot WAIT for it to release on Switch and Android.
3:21 Cool S spotted 👀
This is one of the best games I've ever played. I was addicted to CZcams videos right away and watched them non-stop until the weekend when I had a chance to play. This is one of those games where I have to make sure I have a lot of free time before I start playing. I know that if I start playing, I won't do anything else for the rest of the day.
*_THE CLAW IS THE LAW_*
Slay the Spire is awesome ... and the modding community goes above and beyond ... my three favorite characters: Glutton, Marisa & Necromancer
Incredible to be hearing from part of team that brought this amazing game to us. It's definitely my most played *and* most enjoyed game of the last few years.
You guys mastered "The lean startup". Love the game so much. Tanks a lot !
I picked up the physical edition, and have been hooked for weeks! It was very cool to see that Ascension was one of their interests before making Slay the Spire
Can we appreciate how badass the old Ironclad at 1:00 looked like? I mean SERIOUSLY badass, I wish we had a mod to import that model again
I love this game since the first time i've seen it, watched a gameplay and instantly bought it...
but man, the moment i saw that there was an "Worm" reference in there, I not only loved the game, but also the devs.
fantastic work
I got the worn reference on one of my first runs it was one of the greatest things ever.
@@postofficeinternetonce what’s the worm reference?
As NL often says, this is probably the greatest roguelite card game ever made.
If you're on the fence about this game BUY IT. It's amazing.
This is the type of game I want on mobile
There are several "clones" such as Dungeon Tales(with Warlock being surprisingly innovative despite the rest of the game being a shameless copy) and Night of the Full Moon(which was a DreamQuest clone instead afaik)
I hope mobile StS won't have the same memory & power consumption problems, when it's bad enough on PC
I really do love this game and these devs. I took a chance on early access and they damn sure delivered week to week.
Still waiting for "six-sided ghost guy" to become a surprise staple in new fantasy RPGs
Quickly became one of my favorite games of all time! Such a great game.
Love this game, bought it for me and my wife and got several friends to buy it as well. So much fun and so many hours well spent. Great devs to boot! Worth every penny.
Very interesting discussion. It sounds like the intent system was developed similar to the Into the Breach mechanics (recently watched the GDC Postmortem) . They are pretty similar in implementation too and greatly changed the end state of the game. Glad both of these awesome developers were able to find that giving the player more information and therefore more agency over their play experience was a positive. These could easily have been thrown out, and both games would have suffered.
This was a great talk. I'd love to hear more from indie developers-- as well as the old vets.
Never heard of this before, but this was a great episode, thanks for sharing!
Its really good and the 4th character is almost done. The game is worth the money beyond doubt.
Great game and great video! Super excited for Slay 2... 🥳🥳
I have over 500 hours in slay the spire thank you I love this game so much
Best game I've ever played, I've brought it on pretty much every console I own and the other day I realised it was on mobile! Now I can slay the spire EVERYWHERE! ❤
So stoked they're making a sequel. Shockingly brilliant game
This is great! Haven't heard of the game until now and I am very interested.
Im so happy you made this game. Thank you!!!
Would love to see more characters or even a sequel. Take your time with it and i for one believe in you!
I can’t believe after building the game up so much theyr still trying to think about more content and whole characters to add. Best early access investment I ever made
"My friend keeps bothering me to play this game"
I'm that friend..
I have almost 200 hours in the pc version and picked up the switch version recently. Highly recommend! Very chill but challenging game.
i have 65.5 and alot of this is thanks to the incredible mod support, cosmetic stuff,characters, game overhauls like downfall, googly eyes, "everything is the same but ironclad has a cowboy hat" and so on
Well over a thousand hours on the game and I'm getting the board game soon. Can't wait for the sequel!
Love this game and their developers. Easily the best value for money you can get in almost any genre.
I enjoyed this video. I have subscribed to this channel and I have purchased Slay the Spire and am downloading it now. I am a huge board game fan, so I can't wait 'til that comes out too.
As with many game design problems I've had in the past. It's all a question of player feedback! Very interesting and very incredible game.
Is it the branch and the card that makes skills cost zero? Cause I need to try that
hey, that "spire slays you" is actually a mod! (Called Downfall iirc, though there are a few like it)
think it's cool how modders did that without really knowing the devs considered it lol.
Dorohedoro got an anime adaptation and its on Netflix, I highly suggest it.
I was searching for this comment after he name dropped dorohedoro
I have been very weary of early access games, but Slay the spire is an example of early access done right. I didn't regret it.
Also it helps that rogue like games are better suited for early access than most other games. For example, a story driven game doesn't have much replay value, so the first experience is important. On the other hand, rogue like games are designed to be replayed with a different experience every time so updates and changes to the game fit very well with the overall experience.
Rouge like?
@@GeminiLeague en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
Heck of a good job with this game, kuddos to the development team. We'll keep you watched
Reminds me a ton of Night of the Full Moon, might check this out
Slay is infinitely better than that rip off
I love the slay the spire mobile app, it works so well and they even have the watcher in it already
Couple hundred hours into this game, fantastic purchase.
I love this game. Nice to see the guys behind it.
Brilliant, thanks!
"We're not planning Slay the Spire 2 at the moment".
Great game, great developers. It has its issues but I feel confident that they'll keep making it better.
Hopefully they'll make act 4 actually fun at some point and more than just 1 miniboss and 1 major boss.
Shoutout to the devs, bought the switch steam and iOS versions just to support them!
That version where it's reversed sounds awesome please make that
Look up the downfall mod! A bunch of dedicated fans made just that!
well done guys!
♥♥♥♥♥ This game! It's so deep with so many relics, cards and strategies. I thought for a long time Rogue/Green was the best deck as you can build it to just "go infinite". But then I came back after a months off and tried to 'break' the other characters and was super delighted that you can make even better deck in Red, and an even better better deck in Blue. Cause you know blue is always OP.
I love this game a ton. What are some things besides more cards, more relics and multiplayer that could make this game even better? Like what would be a big and interesting twist to something core?
Have you played the new character?
@@BryceJ80 I have, I've beaten the heart with all characters except her. Actually having a really hard time with her haven't even reached 3rd level I think. I like all of the mechanics in there, but just haven't made it gel and combo effectively enough. How about you? (I don't read any strategy guides or forums I like to the discovery phase of strategy)
@@BryceJ80 Ughhhhhh! Finally had a good deck and thorns. Could have beaten the heart, but I made huge play error in the elite fight just before and lost 50 hp in a single turn. LOL GG
I remember there being a lot of hype about this game and looking at it I couldnt figure out why. Then when i gave it a go I was hooked pretty quickly. The visuals look ugly at first but ive grown to like them a lot. very unique, lots of soul.
the visuals definitely take time to get used to but the game was absolutely made with love and passion
Is every title from now on just gonna be "how this game almost failed", as if that's not the most common issue?
It's reminiscent of clickbait and definitely can be improved to be less formulaic in its wording, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of us are indeed here just for that: to watch a story told about a technical/creative challenge that dramatically threatened a game's successful development.
@@CornyBum Yeah. Most games are going to have multiple times where something didn't work and almost derailed the project. I'm not sure what else you would expect from a war story haha. Agree with the title though.
I love how "Spire Slays You" is just the Downfall mod lmao
great game, great people
Very good game and great developers. Looking forward to their next game.
Now the question is, after my twentieth time skipping my turn before going through and changing my controls on Xbox, is why XYAB controls aren't identical across all platforms? Started on Switch, moved to Xbox, must have lost six runs with me pressing pass turn followed by loud curse words when I meant to go to potions.
Man, I've only played on Switch and I still lose turns by trying to look at my potions. For the first week or so I would actually look down at my controller to make sure I was clicking the right button. And I've had switch since launch!
@@RobinClower EVERY TIME. But Switch controls make a bit more sense, you just have to keep in mind the top most button goes to the top of the screen. I think Xbox it's the right most button or something? And then the button you'd expect to be cancel/go back is, of course... skip turn
Happy to say I bought the game at launch (early access.) Saw some youtube video and knew I had to buy it. Best game investment I ever made.
Long live the floating orbs! Screw big sword and small daggers!
XD
what about *many* daggers?
@@iranoutofnames6444 Shiv decks FTW
Glad to hear it’s coming to consoles...especially the Switch...I’ll buy as soon as it’s out on it.
Played in Jan 2018. Enjoyed it, forgot about it. Then saw it on sale for $30, was so confused since I got it free in beta haha
Absolutely love this game. Can't wait to see what innovation they bring to StS2, the bar is high.
Good video.
wow dorohedoro, Anji. That's good manga!
Slay the Spire is an amazing game. One of the highlights for me was getting the achievement for eating the donut boss!
Not my kind of game but this is still fascinating to hear about the process from the devs
Yes add more characters! Watcher is amazing!
As much as I don’t like buying games twice on different platforms, I’d be down to get this for my phone after putting in plenty of hours on steam.
I literally just came across this video after beating the heart with a dead branch + corruption deck 😭
juegazo tengo case 400 horas de juego asencion 20 con todos los personajes y de vez en cuando sigo jugando
Love the Netrunner call out. Still makes me sad.
When are you gonna make fire breathing op so that it can hit a 40% winrate without me forcing it up there
Slay the Spire is great at actually everything. It's beautiful, and smooth, and gameplay omnomnom
My man! An Ajin fan!
How dare they shame us for corruption branch
Avoided this game for years due to its lackluster visuals. Finally picked it up a month ago, and dear god, had I been missing out. One of the most addicting games I've ever played.
Still don't get what's the problem with visuals, i find them pretty appealing tbh
It was exactly the same for me, avoided because it looked janky... played til 8 a.m. the next day the night I bought it.
Slay the spire is an absolute masterpiece
Did you just say StS on mobile? Damn, talk about a perfect mobile game
"we're not really planning on Slay the Spire 2 at this time"
What card and relic combo are they talking about?
Dead Branch + Corruption
Oh, man, speaking of Dominion, the early build of the game looks a lot like the old Dominion Isotropic interface (which I still maintain is vastly superior to the existing, official online version of the game).
I would like to hear a story about Manhunt from Rockstar. Seems unlikely to happen, but
still interesting.
Consider it on the list. That final Piggsy fight....
Discovering the mod that adds anime based cards made me sink an additional 200 hours into this game