Slay the Spire’s starting point

Slay the Spire marked what was arguably the start of modern, single-player roguelike deckbuilder video games. Some games may technically have combined combat-oriented deckbuilding with the procedural generation and die/improve/repeat nature of roguelikes, but the 2019 game was the first to crack the formula and build a big audience around it. Slay the Spire also broadly boosted enthusiasm for single-player card games on computers in general—games other than Windows’ Solitaire, at least.

The Origins of Slay the Spire

In a video interview with Ars Technica, and at Game Developer Conference (GDC) talks in 2019 on marketing and balancing, developers Anthony Giovannetti and Casey Yano told the game’s story. Giovannetti and Yano met in college and decided to pursue their genre-melding concept of roguelike deckbuilders. The game was initially named “Card Crawl” and started with stick-figure drawings, a procedurally generated progression scheme, and input from advanced Netrunner playtesters. After two years of development, Slay the Spire launched in Steam’s Early Access in November 2017.