Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire combined two genres that seem far apart at first glance – deckbuilding and roguelike – and the result is a title that in 2019 practically founded an entire new subgenre of games. Instead of facing another player, it's a solo climb up a procedurally generated tower full of enemies, elite fights, and bosses, where the character (one of four, each with different decks and strategies) gradually expands their deck with new cards and grows stronger with relics. Cards represent attacks, defense, and abilities paid for with energy points, and the key lies in combining them into combo chains that let you take down even seemingly unbeatable enemies.

Unlike classic collectible card games, there's no collecting cards for real money here, nor any competing against other players – all the depth comes from the decisions made during a single playthrough (a run): which card to add to the deck, which to remove instead, which path through the tower to choose. Permadeath and random generation ensure high replayability and force the player to adapt each run to the cards on offer, which sets the game apart from the fixed archetypes of classic CCGs. It's precisely this model, where risk management and building synergies matter more than reaction speed, that makes Slay the Spire a textbook example of how well card mechanics work on a computer without the need for physical components.

Visually, it's modest, hand-drawn graphics and a spare interface which, thanks to their clarity, let players focus on strategy, and the game is rounded out by atmospheric, minimalist music underscoring the grim journey up the tower. The game spent a long period in early access, during which developers at the small studio Mega Crit Games continually fine-tuned it based on community feedback before it reached full release in 2019, later joined by an expansion adding a fourth playable character. Both critics and the player community embraced the game enthusiastically, and Slay the Spire became the reference point against which every other roguelike deckbuilder is still measured today, including several other titles on this list.

Why play: For fans of roguelike deckbuilders, this is an essential classic against which the entire genre is still measured, thanks to its clear design and well-thought-out strategic depth.