I've played 2 solo games and 2 games with two players. So far I've had two Act 1 victories, an Act 1 defeat, and an Act 2 defeat. We've mostly stuck with the Ironclad and the Silent, but we tried one game with the Defect too.

I think the game works really well. It does a great job of taking the video game's mechanics and translating them into something more palatable for a board game (simplifying the maths, changing card and relic abilities to suit a new medium without changing the flavour or idea of the original card, etc.).

It can still be just as challenging as the video game, especially when you get bad luck with a hand draw or bad luck with encountering a particular elite enemy. I've had some encounters where we've just gotten stomped. Luckily, it also has the moments where you'll suddenly realise you have a really cool card synergy or you can overcome an enemy's attack if you play the right cards in the right order - except the board game is co-op, so you get those moments far more often because you're working across multiple decks. It's exciting when you realise that Player A can apply Vulnerable to an enemy and then Player B can take advantage of that Vulnerability to deal massive damage. It also makes for some great co-operative moments, for example when Player A has no block cards but Player B can step in and apply Block to the other player so they don't die. Strategising with multiple player hands able to contribute is really fun and working together to defeat enemies, overcome random challenge scenarios, or purchase items at the shop is super satisfying.

I also really appreciate the automation included in the Workshop mod - all the finicky stuff like setting up the map board, setting up player boards, setting up the shop, and setting up combat encounters is entirely automated. Combining this with the built-in functions like Search and Shuffle means spending the least time on setup and the most time on having fun.

People who haven't played the video game might take a while to figure out the way certain cards and relics interact with each other, but everything is laid out very clearly. The game LOOKS more complicated than it is, because there are lots of different decks of cards, but really most of them just use the same handful of game mechanics.

Overall definitely recommended if you are a fan of the video game, especially if you've ever wanted to see what Slay the Spire co-op mode would look like. For people who haven't played Slay the Spire, I'd recommend having at least one player who is familiar with the video game but it's not required.