slay of spire

[luisito10]

what is the difference between that game and this one? they look so identical to me

[Tactical Drongo]

slay the spire has a single hero you stay with through the whole game and focuses solely on developing that one
in indies lies you add new party members after every chapter that can mix up your tactics (and be quite effective)


sts uses rather random artefacts vs the semi-random talents here

sts has card upgrades, indies lies has card modifications

sts has a way higher base difficulty and thinning out your deck is notibly harder

the characters in sts are a little more unique vs each others as the indies lies character are differentiated in multiple classes


the core gameplay is of course similar as both are roguelite deckbuilders

[Vivisector 9999]

I've only played the mobile version of Indies' Lies, but it's Slay The Spire with a guaranteed +1 Energy after every boss and WAY lower difficulty. Your deck builds are hugely important if you want to streak wins in Slay The Spire, but in Indies' Lies, you'll streak wins even you're barely paying attention to what cards you take or replace.

[Pu239]

Originally posted by Vivisector 9999:

I've only played the mobile version of Indies' Lies, but it's Slay The Spire with a guaranteed +1 Energy after every boss and WAY lower difficulty. Your deck builds are hugely important if you want to streak wins in Slay The Spire, but in Indies' Lies, you'll streak wins even you're barely paying attention to what cards you take or replace.

I've found the game easy so far but I haven't done that many runs yet. Are you already at max "ascension" on the paths you are playing?

[Potato]

I've played the Mobile one and all maps are at LV19, and WEW BOY, does it get challenging pass LV7. It'll be at its hardest by LV15 before you're given some reprieve, until it becomes very agonizing near LV20. Although that's the final difficulty LV, so it being so extremely hard is kind of warranted?

[luisito10]

thanks for your answers I played slay and I saw it very similar to this one but it has its different things as they explain to me

[The Nue]

On a greater level, I have to point out Card Crawlers are like a whole sub-genre at this point.

I could name dozens of titles. It's no more a "Slay the Spire Clone" than "Braid is just a Mario clone".

I mean if you want my honest opinion, StS is, relatively speaking at this point, like... middling quality example of the sub-genre. At best. It's graphics and audio are polished, but it's depth and replay value are quite low compared to this and a number of other titles.

Anyway, rant aside, if you're looking for something more radically different to see just how broad a game style it's become, you might consider a title like Nowhere Prophet or Monster Train... But while it's more similar to StS than other titles, to answer the question at face value: Yes, there's a lot differences.

Besides what Tactical Drongo listed, some other differences I might point out:

There's 9 playable "main" characters instead of 4, and an additional 3 (and counting) ally characters. Granted there's only 3 core card pools, but the fact each character has 6 unique cards and 4 unique traits means there's a TON of replay value, as there's more variation with a single character than StS.

The Trait system (this game's equivalent of Artifacts) is quite different and adds more tactical depth. FAR more care was put into properly balancing difficulty scaling (so you can seek a greater challenge outside "the enemy dmg/hp just keeps scaling by a percentage")

There's a decent amount of unlocks and a far larger than that number of cheevos for completion

Each character has an unlockable story mode, which are interesting curated experiences unlike anything StS offers.

The Curse system is considerably more interesting and nuanced than StS's status cards

Enemy encounters are more balanced... while there's of course ones that will be strong/weak against certain builds, the third area isn't just littered with enemies that hard-counter certain playstyles to a point of "you may as well forfeit now" like StS... meaning it's valid to try more specialized builds.

While it pales to some other titles (Such as Monster Train's rune system), it's hard to understate that using runes to modify cards is a pretty radical departure from simple Upgrading in StS... being able to permanently alter cards in strange ways creates a wide amount of interesting combos.

I'm probably forgetting more stuff, honestly.
While some other Card Crawlers aren't too novel, and others more novel than this, it has a lot of original content.

"Is it worth it" ultimately depends on your taste... this is a "shut up and take my money" niche for me, so I've played all of them (and there are dozens, at this point). If you'd have no interest in playing something remotely like StS again, like... yes, some ideas are shared.

But if you're like one of the (frankly enormous) number of people I've known that's played and replayed StS dozens of times, wishing there was more content yet to sample, like...
Stop wasting your time w/ that. This and so many other titles will offer far newer and honestly more interesting variations than StS.

Makes me wanna slap the mouse out of peoples' hands, that they're still barking up that dried-up sapling just cause it's the famous one, when there's a jungle of thriving redwoods -_-'

[luisito10]

Originally posted by The Nue:

On a greater level, I have to point out Card Crawlers are like a whole sub-genre at this point.

I could name dozens of titles. It's no more a "Slay the Spire Clone" than "Braid is just a Mario clone".

I mean if you want my honest opinion, StS is, relatively speaking at this point, like... middling quality example of the sub-genre. At best. It's graphics and audio are polished, but it's depth and replay value are quite low compared to this and a number of other titles.

Anyway, rant aside, if you're looking for something more radically different to see just how broad a game style it's become, you might consider a title like Nowhere Prophet or Monster Train... But while it's more similar to StS than other titles, to answer the question at face value: Yes, there's a lot differences.

Besides what Tactical Drongo listed, some other differences I might point out:

There's 9 playable "main" characters instead of 4, and an additional 3 (and counting) ally characters. Granted there's only 3 core card pools, but the fact each character has 6 unique cards and 4 unique traits means there's a TON of replay value, as there's more variation with a single character than StS.

The Trait system (this game's equivalent of Artifacts) is quite different and adds more tactical depth. FAR more care was put into properly balancing difficulty scaling (so you can seek a greater challenge outside "the enemy dmg/hp just keeps scaling by a percentage")

There's a decent amount of unlocks and a far larger than that number of cheevos for completion

Each character has an unlockable story mode, which are interesting curated experiences unlike anything StS offers.

The Curse system is considerably more interesting and nuanced than StS's status cards

Enemy encounters are more balanced... while there's of course ones that will be strong/weak against certain builds, the third area isn't just littered with enemies that hard-counter certain playstyles to a point of "you may as well forfeit now" like StS... meaning it's valid to try more specialized builds.

While it pales to some other titles (Such as Monster Train's rune system), it's hard to understate that using runes to modify cards is a pretty radical departure from simple Upgrading in StS... being able to permanently alter cards in strange ways creates a wide amount of interesting combos.

I'm probably forgetting more stuff, honestly.
While some other Card Crawlers aren't too novel, and others more novel than this, it has a lot of original content.

"Is it worth it" ultimately depends on your taste... this is a "shut up and take my money" niche for me, so I've played all of them (and there are dozens, at this point). If you'd have no interest in playing something remotely like StS again, like... yes, some ideas are shared.

But if you're like one of the (frankly enormous) number of people I've known that's played and replayed StS dozens of times, wishing there was more content yet to sample, like...
Stop wasting your time w/ that. This and so many other titles will offer far newer and honestly more interesting variations than StS.

Makes me wanna slap the mouse out of peoples' hands, that they're still barking up that dried-up sapling just cause it's the famous one, when there's a jungle of thriving redwoods -_-'

thanks, great summary!

[Vivisector 9999]

Originally posted by The Nue:

On a greater level, I have to point out Card Crawlers are like a whole sub-genre at this point.

In your opinion, what is the best "Card Crawler" game out now?

[MrSmiley]

While the inspiration is more than obvious, I honestly cant undertsand these "its the same game" things I keep saying, there is a LOT different, form its partners and upgrade systems to the character talents.

[The Nue]

Originally posted by Vivisector 9999:

Originally posted by The Nue:

On a greater level, I have to point out Card Crawlers are like a whole sub-genre at this point.

In your opinion, what is the best "Card Crawler" game out now?

Always feel like it's poor form to talk up competition too much in a good games forum (so feel free to ask me to take this down if you see this and hate it devs), but to not leave a fair question unanswered...

Monster Train is pretty hard to compete with... some of the more radical titles like Trials of Fire or Gordian Quest are really interesting because of how different they are, but don't capitalize on the central appeal of the genre quite as well due to drifting away from the core model... Monster Train, comparatively, is pretty bold in some of the stuff it tries, but still makes the most of the niche's main virtues with a really polished experience.

I'm extremely partial to Nowhere Prophet and Chrono Ark too though, admittedly. There are some other strong titles as well out there, including Across the Obelisk (with a persistent progress system and co-op mode), Breachwalkers and Night of the Full Moon (whose mobile versions are free), Griftlands (whose experience is inconsistent, I hated every second of Rook's story on both gameplay and narrative levels, but Smith and Sal's story's were about as high as quality gets in the genre).

My personal *favorite* is a game called Erranoth Chronicles, but that's a subjective favorite, not what I'd ever suggest is "the best" (or even necessarily objectively "a good game"). I actually imagine it'd border on unplayably convoluted for most... Just I joke that I've always wanted "Skill Trees: The Game", and that's basically what it is... an incredibly involved character generator/leveling system, and shockingly little game to deploy it in. As a general recommendation, I wouldn't advise towards it, but it's a thing to consider if that sounds appealing.

Again though, this game is far from a slouch either... it's got a lot of depth without being so complex it's hard to get started... "Easy to learn, tough to master", as it were. It's about as decent a starting point as any (and better than some I mentioned... Nowhere Prophet, Griftlands, and Erranoth Chronicles would be intense "hit the ground running" experiences, I imagine).

[The Nue]

Oh, also: Battle Bands.
Very recent release, quite different, but very cool... 4 player co-op.
Imagine Rock-Band as a real-time card game.

[Vivisector 9999]

Originally posted by The Nue:

Always feel like it's poor form to talk up competition too much in a good games forum (so feel free to ask me to take this down if you see this and hate it devs), but to not leave a fair question unanswered...

Whatever the devs end up doing, I appreciate the honest answer!

[葵]

Friendly Discussions are welcomed :)

[ThatGuyKhi]

Originally posted by Vivisector 9999:

Originally posted by The Nue:

On a greater level, I have to point out Card Crawlers are like a whole sub-genre at this point.

In your opinion, what is the best "Card Crawler" game out now?

And I'd like to vouch for Vault of the Void.

Im no expert but out of all "Card Crawlers" I've played, that title has felt the most rewarding when it comes to turn efficiency.

I dont feel rushed but I feel encouraged to be one step ahead in battles.

[The Nue]

VotV isn't bad... I couldn't give it higher marks, on account of the fact all the characters are designed for "Two distinct builds!" but in all but one case, those two builds were fairly similar except one was, like... markedly better than the other (and there wasn't much to do outside those prescribed builds), so it didn't have a lot of variety outside those 5 clears.

It was the first game I'm aware of that endeavored to try runestones in terms of chronology of it's announcement... Felt like they wimped out hard on their impact though, making the effects super minor for fear of more powerful ones breaking the game... which since Monster Train (while again, I think announced/developed later) actually released about 6 months earlier and did far more with the idea (taking approach of "if everything is broken, nothing is") it left VotV sort blown it out of the water so hard that (lacking much else to make it stand out) I forgot it existed for a good while until I did a crawl of my library earlier this year despite quite a few clears and hours logged.

Some of the specific card mechanics unique to the title kept it interesting for the first couple runs and It wasn't a bad experience overall, but it just suffers a good bit in comparison to it's contemporaries... Put up against, say, Indie's Lies, it's characters don't have the sort of versatility or depth to build in multiple drastically different ways each while remaining viable, it's rune system is less impactful, and it didn't really have many other original flourishes to make it stand out the way this one does for me (the depth of the skill tree/curse systems, story modes, etc).

Oh, in the event people wondering "What makes Indie's Lies different?" still reading this, a factor I didn't mention just occurred to me:
Defensive builds are viable and fun!

It's honestly hard to understate how rare that is.
The vast majority of Card Crawlers, aggro rushdown decks designed to kill turn one are just so much safer and more reliable than any sort of defensive build, there's no reason to attempt the latter, since it amounts to an elaborate suicide.

The few I've played that are major exceptions to that, where Defensive builds are valid or even superior to Aggressive ones, such as Destiny or Fate (which'd also be recommend from me, if softer than the others I've mentioned, due to this problem) or Knock on the Coffin Lid (which I can't recommend at all, for how severe this problem is), Defensive builds are viable but not terribly FUN, because of just how slow it makes the game.

Indie's Lies is one of (maybe the?) best titles I've seen in terms of letting you win with a defensive deck that kills via attrition over 3x or more turns than an aggro deck needs, without actually taking 3x as long and feeling like a total slog... You can still make a rushdown decks with Diego, Evie, Keely, etc really easy, but there are more reserved decks with Jansen, Sigourney, and the three mages that are just as powerful but aren't the absolute crawls that other titles have lead me to expect from such an approach.