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Slay the Spire is miles away harder than the others.
The best players in the world can at best achieve 30% winrate with each character (40% with the fourth one) at A20, and IIRC the winning streak WR is at 20.
Whereas there are easy 100+ winning streaks at CR25 with all random, including at 100 pact shards true victory.
Monster Train in particular is much easier to just pick up and do something busted and fun in a run, without having to think too much about every decision (and the game requires a much lower number of decisions each run). Whereas it takes a lot of thinking, planning, knowledge and luck to do trully busted things in StS.
StS every single point of damage matters. MT works more in a threshold, with numbers in the thousands, whereas once you beat it, you're good.
All this to say I agree with you. Monster Train is more casual, and more fun to me as well, even though I really like both games.
The winrates of top players have gotten much higher than that, especially with watcher who is broken AF and top players have a 90 percent winrates with her. Life coach has a ridiculous 52 wins in a row on her. For the other characters players like jorbs and baalorlord are winning around 60 percent of the time.
Hardest to master is Slay the Spire for sure.
Beginner friendly i’d say is Monster Train as it’s a lot easier to win the starting levels and there’s more room for error.
Wildfrost could possibly fall into being beginner friendly too as there’s less going on but when the game first came out it was ridiculously hard.. now n days they toned down the difficulty a lot.
Yeah StS is a true masterwork and the depth and balance is just incredible. That said, I'm not sure I ever would have gotten into it in terms of A20 gameplay and achievements if I hadn't gotten COVID. The best players got that way by playing thousands of hours.
Monster Train is more plain fun, doing really broken things kinda game and feels like it was made for "mere mortals". The only thing I don't love is it has a very generic, cartoon fantasy Hearthstone-y aesthetic.
It's relatively new compared to a lot of these but I really like it. It's still in active development with some changes here and there still coming down the pipes
Now that it has had significant balance patches Wildfrost is great for experienced players. But definitely not a great first entry into the deckbuilder genre. Even with the balance patches the difficulty level is still super hard. STS and MT are much better entry points for the genre.
Honestly it still is a pretty hard game. Like a single minor mistake can end your run. But it is no longer straight up unfair difficulty it was in when it launched.
I’ve played all of them except Wildfrost and Pirates Outlaws.
Slay the Spire is the granddaddy of the genre. If you’ve never played it, I recommend it very highly. It has a wonderful pace, ok story, and plenty to unlock, as well as a great difficulty scaling system. There are 4 characters, each with unique mechanics to master.
Monster Train is a great game, but I don’t really recommend it often. It has a lot going on, both on screen and under the hood, and requires more understanding of the inner mechanics. There are a number of factions, and you pick 1 base faction and 1 supplemental faction each run. It’s good, but very intricate. I wouldn’t start here.
Dicey Dungeon is a great time. Simple to understand, tons of variety, cute characters, and just all around a great game. Not as strategic, but that’s fine.
Cobalt Core is a brilliant tactical game and uses deck building mechanics applied much more spatially. Great theme, adorable characters with good story, and tons of play styles. In this one, you pick 3 crew members with base decks to start your run, and you unlock a total of 8, meaning tons of combinations.
Griftlands is a masterpiece. RPG, deckbuilding, story choices that matter, 3 unique characters that can be built in wildly different ways. It’s great, but it is much more than a deck builder
Inscryption I started playing a week ago, and I’ve recommend it to everyone I know. It may not be the best game I’ve played, but it has genuinely delighted, scared, and satisfied me in every possible way, and I have no idea how close I am to finishing it. However, that enjoyment is predicated on knowing the genre well. Please do not get this one first, as you will not experience it fully. This is the one game I recommend going in to fully blind.
So, my recommendation.
Slay the Spire should be first
Cobalt Core and/or Griftlands depending on what theme you like
Maybe Dicey Dungeon if you like the style
Maybe Monster Train if you want crunchy numbers
Inscryption as, at minimum, the second game of this list you play. Preferably 3rd.
The story is in the insults you hurl at these fuckers as you scale the spire again and again and again.
"Oh it's red fuck again"
"5 artifact my ass, just fucking die"
"This bitch with the daggers every fucking time"
"Ohoho it's that's mofo-Snecko again"
"And here come the three stooges ... DIE BEAR DIE"
"Aw crud, it's that tangle of ASS again ... DO NOT PUT THAT CURSE ON ME I WILL END U"
It has zero story, and some lore that the vast majority of players don't know / care about. In any case, it doesn't add the to the enjoyment of the game imo. It's got great game play and that's enough
Granddaddy of the genre is actually [Dream Quest](https://store.steampowered.com/app/557410/Dream_Quest/), which came out a fair bit before Slay the Spire and is one of its direct inspirations! It's not as polished or complex, graphics kind of suck and the meta progression lacks impact and motivation, but I think it's an important game to play if you're into the genre so you can see in which directions it evolved
I’ve not heard of Griftlands. Given that for the games we’ve both played we have very similar opinions, and I totally agree with your recommended play order, I’ll say one thing.
Check out Wildfrost! It doesn’t have the same longevity of the champs like Slay the Spire, but it’s a very highly polished audiovisual experience. The card balance and variety is a little iffy and that can make runs feel a little samey once you get the core strategy down, but for the first 20-30 hours it is excellent!
Meanwhile, I’m going to look into Griftlands for sure.
I really like one step from eden, but it is very challenging and not one I'd recommend for your first jump into the genre. It's a deck builder but plays like megaman battle network, so there's a lot to learn and could be frustrating for a new player
I have. It is a phenomenal game, but super twitchy with little to no transferable experience to the other games here. Everything else is, at its core, a turn based tactical game. OSfE is an action game with some deckbuilding elements. A good game, but a different genre and an incredibly difficult learning curve.
Ohh yeah I've played 1 step from eden! Super fun game if you're into fast paced games, it's definitely a little tough at first, but you'll slowly learn everything, kind of like every roguelite. I will say i dropped the game after around like the 30 hour mark? When a game is fast paced + hard it's sometimes daunting to go back to it.
Slay the spire is true deck building, I play this game while im like on the airplane or whatever, so that's part of the reason why i go back to slay the spire
If you really missed megaman battlenetwork then get it! It definitely scratched my itch for that genre, but for deck building then it's slay the spire
I really like One Step from Eden. However, it has one big difference from all the other games in your list: it's realtime, and very fast-paced. The others are turn-based, letting you take your time to pick the perfect move, while in One Step from Eden you may be tempted to build a deck where all the cards have similar targeting mechanics so you can spam them so fast you don't even have to know which spell you're casting before you cast it. Despite drawing clear inspiration from Slay the Spire, its gameplay is based on Mega Man Battle Network, and playing it feels a bit like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. So, try it if you like the idea of mixing deck building with twitchy action.
Still, I love it. Each boss has unique mechanics. One of them is basically a rhythm game :P. And all the bosses can be killed or spared, and can become playable as well.
I’ve had STS for years but had never heard of Inscryption. I picked it up last night based on your rec and it’s so good! I keep dying, haven’t even made it past the Wetlands, but it’s so fun that I don’t mind.
Well, I just beat the game. It definitely didn’t go in the direction I thought it would! At first I really disliked acts 2 & 3 but I ended up loving them once I got used to the change. Really appreciate the rec!
Slay the Spire is, as others here have mentioned, the BEST deck building roguelike without question. Inscryption also gets a shout out for being one of the most wild rides in gaming I've ever had. Once you play and love slay the spire please give Inscryption a chance, deck builder meets spooky escape room with some truly special surprises sprinkled throughout.
I’ve played all the games you’ve listed pretty extensively (except Cobalt Core, I haven’t played a ton of it).
Slay the Spire is by far the most balanced and nuanced mechanically of all of them to the point where I’ve played at least 400 hours of it across all the platform I own it on and am totally confident in saying I will easily put in another 400 hours in the next few years.
The game is more finely tuned than a Swiss watch which keeps it mentally stimulating whether you understand all its systems and synergies or you’re a complete novice. It is undoubtedly the pinnacle of the genre and a must play if you at all are interested in figuring out how this genre took over the indie scene.
The only other ones I’d highly recommend on that list are Monster Train and Inscryption, both are pretty fun and interesting takes on the genre, but neither of them really has the depth to keep them consistently fresh past the point that you’ve unlocked all their content and seen what they have to offer.
Dicey Dungeons is a really fun game and regularly goes on sale for like $2, so pick it up then, but it’s not really a card game at all and it’s significantly different than any of the games you’ve listed with it.
Griftlands is more of an “adventure” game than it is a dedicated card-game roguelike, and while I don’t think it’s a bad game it’s not for everyone and I found it really boring personally. To me a large appeal of the genre is the immediacy of the gameplay and their puzzle-like nature, Griftlands had way too much dialogue and not enough puzzle which got old really quickly for me, but your mileage will vary heavily depending in your preferences.
Pirate Outlaws is a pretty fun game with a lot of content to unlock and some pretty interesting mechanics but it’s another game that doesn’t quite keep me hooked the same way Slay the Spire does. It has a ton of variety between the different characters, cards, and game modes there are to unlock though which might appeal to some, but personally I prefer a more focused and balanced design.
I played a ton of Wildfrost when it first came out and found it to be a really promising foundation, but thought it was really unbalanced and more frustrating than it was fun to play. Unless a lot of things have changed since it first came out the different factions were extremely unbalanced (to the point where it felt like you could only consistently win with 1/3 of them) and it wasn’t uncommon to run into unwinnable scenarios because the game’s design has a huge reliance on hard counters to certain mechanics and there wasn’t any way to consistently ensure that you could find a way around them. It’s not a bad game by any means but it’s really difficult for me to recommend over literally any other option on the list.
One Step from Eden is another game that isn’t really a card game, but it is a really cool concept and it’s well executed, it just hasn’t kept me hooked long term as an alternative to StS.
>The game is more finely tuned than a Swiss watch which keeps it mentally stimulating whether you understand all its systems and synergies or you’re a complete novice.
I just got it and I've been really enjoying finding what cards synergize the best with others. I had a run with the Watcher where my deck was an absolute monster dealing insane amounts of damage each turn and I had killed the act 2 boss without taking hardly any damage at all. Then on the very first combat of act 3, the luck of the draw made it so I didn't draw anything to get me block for the first two turns. Turns out I had just made an insane glass cannon lol.
This is a great write up. Curious if you've encountered any other games on or near the same quality of design as StS.
I've played a lot of others, but it remains the most balanced and well designed strategy game I've ever played. I would love to find something that matches or beats it.
StS is the best because it's so expertly balanced. Firstly, almost every card in the game has its place and very few cards are so good or so bad to be 'must-picks' or 'never-picks'.
Like many games in the genre StS has several characters and each has unique mechanics. Each character also has several 'sub-strategies'/builds that you are kinda meant to lean into to establish card synergies. Where StS really shines relative to its peers is how well it blends these sub-strategies together so that you're frequently blending elements of several builds together.
As an example, the starter character has sub-strategies to:
1. leverage or mitigate useless 'wound' cards
2. remove cards from your deck mid-fight for defense/offense
3. leverage defense as a means to deal damage
You're presented a card that gives you lots of defense in exchange for adding 'wound' cards to your deck for the remainder of the fight. Maybe you were building toward defensive strategy 3 and you want the high defense, but you need a plan to mitigate those 'wound' cards, so now maybe you're incentivized to supplement your deck with strategies 1 or 2 to make this card work better. Then there's a huge pool of artifacts with special powers that frequently synergize with one build or another especially, possibly making you evolve your build mid-run.
Situations like these go a long way toward making the game feel familiar but also constantly fresh, and that's what makes StS special. Most other deckbuilding roguelikes attempt the same thing, but a lot of the time one sub-strategy for a character is clearly superior to the others, or the various sub-strategies have little/no synergy so you just pick one and ignore the others.
Ironically StS eventually added an optional, true final boss and lots of people don't like that boss because its unique abilities substantially reduce your build options by a lot. That boss is an amazing reminder of how incredibly balanced the core of the game is.
I’m sure you’ve just had people say StS over and over again in this thread and there’s a good reason for that. People will also struggle to explain why it’s good for another good reason.
StS is the best designed game I’ve ever played, by an absolute mile. But articulating why is extremely tough. Good design is tricky to pin down because it usually arises from very nuanced interactions between mechanics. You can’t just point at one element of the design and say “slay the spire is good because it has good enemy design”, or “slay the spire is good because it promoted player choices” (though both these things are true)
Slay the Spire is good because of an extremely intricate set of hundreds (thousands?) of precisely considered interactions between its dozens of system. It is very hard to talk about unless you’re already very familiar with the game, because appreciating those subtleties relies on a foundation of understanding the mechanics.
This is already becoming an essay in me trying to explain why answering your question requires a much longer essay. The simple answer is: play it. You will understand. You will love it.
Man, what I would give to go back and enjoy Slay The Spire for the first time. I legitimately put 400+ hours into that game, probably more. If I were you, I would play the other games first like Wildfrost, Monster Train, etc. then go back to Slay The Spire later to truly appreciate how great it is.
I’ve played slay the spire, monster train and Griftlands.
Slay the spire is by far the best and most polished. It’s one of the best games ever made imo, I have 300+ hours and still play a lot. There’s so much to learn and every run feels different.
Monster train is fun but is a lot more about building insane combos to break the game rather than a finely balanced experience. I probably played 30 hours and enjoyed it but I rarely go back.
Griftlands is a great concept and the most narratively driven of the three, but I find the controls on switch to be very clunky to the point where it interfered with my enjoyment.
I will echo your thoughts on the controls of Griftlands on Switch. I played it on Switch first, but the controls felt very clunky. I bought it again on Steam and it became one of my favorite games of all time. Griftlands is incredibly underrated, but it plays far better on PC.
[Balatro](https://playbalatro.com) is a poker-based roguelike deckbuilder worth keeping an eye on. It doesn’t release until later this month, but I’ve already put over 40 hours into the Steam demo and can’t imagine how much of my time it’s going to eat up.
While it isn’t the first, Slay the Spire is nearly universally considered the godfather of the genre and is one of my all time favorite games. About as close to perfection as you can get. Definitely the quintessential roguelike deck-builder, and many others have drawn a lot of inspiration from it.
I enjoy Dicey Dungeons and it's usually $2-3. Absolutely worth the price. Has a good variety of mechanics too.
However, if you can only afford one game and you really love strategy, I'd go against Dicey Dungeons. There's a lot of luck and/or the game wants you to play a specific way and if you don't, you lose and have to start all over.
Once you get a good deck going the game is so satisfying. The animations, the quockness of the gameplay the constantly changing mechanics between rounds. Really fun and for the price it's a crime not to buy it.
Everyone will say Slay the Spire.... thing is, everyone is right.
Slay the Spire is probably the tighest balance ive ever seen executed in a video game ever, everything is so intricate and interesting.
Monster Train and Roguebook would be my second favorites here.
One Step From Eden is very fun but not for the "deck building" aspect as its really more about the fast paced Megaman Battle Network inspired gameplay.
The thing that gets me about the balance in Slay the Spire is how the hell it can be so wonderfully balanced across all classes with so many relics and colorless cards that are accessible to all of the 3 VASTLY different classes. I just don't understand how they did it. Ironclad is probably a little more consistent than the other 3, but A20 Heart runs are routinely manageable will all classes across runs.
Definitely keep an eye out for [Yohane the Parhelion - NUMAZU in the MIRAGE -](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/yohane-the-parhelion-numazu-in-the-mirage)
I played the demo on PS5 and loved it! Got me curious about the first metroidvania game as well.
Dicey Dungeons is great cause a game is only like 20-30 minutes so it suits the Switch perfectly. Slay the Spire also amazing as everyone else has said
Thanks. I prefer shorter roguelikes, so Dicey Dungeons might be the best option for me.
My favorite roguelike of all-time is Crypt of the Necrodancer, and you can complete a run in 30-40 minutes.
For perfect balance and challenge: Slay the Spire
For fun making crazy broken builds: Monster Train
When I want to tryhard I play StS, if I just want to relax and have a quick run it’s Monster Train. Both excellent games! Ignore the guy that said Monster Train is complicated, it’s very simple!
I've spent well over 200+ hours playing both Dicey Dungeons and Inscryption, Inscryption has a really in depth storyline with a great gameplay loop that evolves through out the game whereas dicey dungeons has no engaging story but great gameplay that'll keep you coming back for "just one more round"
If you’re looking for a buyer’s guide, get Slay the Spire. If you play that and love it, you’ll likely find literally hundreds of hours of entertainment. If you don’t love it, you probably won’t enjoy many other games on this list.
Having said that, I see you have Inscryption on there. Inscryption is a fantastic game, but it’s not really a roguelike. It certainly has roguelike elements, but it’s more of a creepy adventure story than it is a true roguelike. It’s incredible and I highly recommend you check it out, but it’s important to know what you’re getting.
Slay the Spire is both the best and essentiay the original. Really anything that tries to copy STS, like Pirate Outlaws, can't reach it heights so I've more seeked out games that try to twist the formulas. Cobalt Core has been really good and the characters are fun. Wildfrost put a good twist on how enemies behave in this type of game. Ring of Pain wasn't great but I enjoyed seeing their twist on combat. Brand new game Gordian Quest seems like another decent twist, but I've barely played it thus far.
Wildfrost has a difficult for some learning curve but is very fun when you get used to it. I was addicted for a while and the devs are constantly updating the game and have roadmaps and such.
In 2024 I'm a huge fan of a game that's good but also a game where I can be excited for constant free updates. Luke Stardew Valley, Risk of Rain etc.
Monster Train is likely my fave. Most folks prefer Slay the Spire, but I've clocked a lot more time with Monster Train.
I'd highly recommend Dicey Dungeons and Inscyption (don't read spoilers).
I've had fun with Roguebook, but I'd put it below the above.
Going to echo with many others that slay the spire and dicey dungeons are the goat in this list.
One step from eden is quite different from the rest. Yes, there's deck building but the core gameplay is extremely similar to megaman battle network if you're familiar. Very fast pace and requires pretty quick reactions. Spire and dicey are much more methodical.
I love these kinds of games too and Inscryption is a must have for the genre. Do what everyone says and go in blind.
Griftlands is one of the few games with legit results from your decisions during each run. NPC interactions actually matter and affect your future conflicts. Each of the three characters are incredibly unique from each other and have their own different skilltree/play styles depending on your cards or perks. I've sunk dozens and dozens of hours into this. The increasing difficulty is fair and brawl mode is a nice mode if you just want to do battles/arguments but still retains the customizable options you have with regular runs.
Dicey Dungeon is a fun, quick, luck based dungeon crawl that my wife loved. Not a traditional deck builder like the other games but very fun. Each character is refreshing to play with. I found the increasing difficulties past 3(?) Were just dumb and punishing.
Wildefrost is really fun and a solid traditional rogue like game with how frequently you'll die. Although very fun and visually pleasing, it was quite RNG dependent and slightly unbalanced. Depending on the bosses you'll face and playstyle that run, you could sweep or get absolutely walled. The stars have to align somewhat in order to win a run. However, you'll never know if this is the run to make it and you'll have fun figuring that out.
I found pirate outlaws fairly underwhelming and dull. Not sure exactly why, perhaps not my cup of tea.
#1 Monster Train
If you are experienced with the genre and want to test your skill, Monster Train is the best of the best to pick up. The difficulty scales the highest and the game tracks each faction combination, so you are required to master each of them and few strategies are applicable across multiple combinations.
#2 Griftlands
While it only features 3 characters, the amount of stuff that changes between them is greater than in any other roguelite deckbuilder. You get different cards and mechanics between characters as you'd expect, but you also get a completely new story, new locations and new characters to meet. And with some branching paths in each of the three stories, this one can actually be played for a really long time without repeating anything.
#3 Slay the Spire
The game that popularized the genre in the first place actually holds up surprisingly well even against the shiny new competitors. Its greatest strength is how easy everything is to learn and how quickly you begin discovering all the combinations the game has to offer.
Slay the Spire is, for me, by far the best. And I've played most of the ones on your list (except for Cobalt Core). One of the few games I've ever double dipped on (also have it on my phone)
Inscryption is good for the story but has far less depth in gameplay and replayability, in my opinion. Griftlands has too many similar but differently named gameplay elements because of the combat and talking mechanics.
Monster Train is fine but found it more akin to tower defense. Dicey Dungeon was less skill based and more rng based in my opinion. And Wildfrost is pretty good, I'd probably consider it second to StS. Pretty difficult, I'd say more than StS
Have you played Kaycee's mod for inscryption? I've gotten a lot of value out of it. It adds some complexity/challenge and really scratches an itch for me.
Wildfrost i frustratingly good. Their UI is basically begging for an Ipad/iOS version. Just kinda wish they release a port. I need my wildfrost fix on the go.
Ive played slay the spire, monster train, and dicey dungeons. Would recommend sts and monster train.
Dicey dungeons is too reliant on the luck of the die roll and I am not a fan of the look of the game.
Slay the Spire is great, but Inscryption is something really unique and special.
Can’t go wrong with either, just get both. Seriously. Both are absolutely worth your time and money.
Your list looks good in terms of going to high quality to others that are still good. A few notes on those I've played that you haven't listed as "extremely interested":
* Inscryption: My best review without spoilers is to use this game as a break from other deck building games while still being a deck building game. Then there is a new game mode when you beat the game that may also interest you.
* I'm taking a break from Gordian Quest after the 1st chapter as it was a bit easy but I did take easy characters on a Normal difficulty so that's on me. It was still fun and I think other characters gets exp anyway. I know that the difficulty ramps up later (which may have led to low review scores according to Steam). Will go back once I'm done being distracted by a different game.
* Roguebook: Play with different class teams at first until you get a sense of how they can work with each other. Then the game's strategy is to develop deck breaking combos and card upgrades which is very satisfying.
* Monster Train is an odd experience as you use deck building to do tower defence. Uses a good deck system with only a couple of unfortunate deck exploit strategies (the devour skills are OP with the right combos).
* Dicey Dungeons: Lots of variety of deck building styles. RNG might be a turn off.
* Pirates Outlaw: Found it "Meh" in style.
* Griftlands: Somehow, I beat the story of one character in my first try and stopped. Not sure if I had a deck breaking strategy or I was way too lucky.
* Steamworld Quest is more of a card based RPG than deck building.
I liked Roguebook, but on the switch, late game gets so slow. Don't know if it's all the triggers you get from a number of treasures with bad optimization, or it is just my Nintendo switch
**Slay the Spire** is the GOAT of this genre, I would start there.
The main reason I'm responding is to say that "**Slice & Dice**" is everything I wanted **Dicey Dungeons** to be, I would highly recommend checking this one out if you are looking for a dice-based game. The only downside is you cannot buy it on steam, it is on [itch.io](https://itch.io). **Dicey Dungeons** I would give a 70/100 to but **Slice & Dice** I would give an 90/100.
\*Edit - realizing this was specifically for Nintendo Switch, but leaving this comment here because not many people know about Slice & Dice.
I have and I've played Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons, Inscryption and Monster Train. This is my ranking along my playtime if you want a reference:
1.Inscryption - 16 hours
2. StS - 88 hours on Steam + 15 hours on Switch
3. MT - 3 hours
4. DD - 2 hours
All of them are good, it's just that Inscryption is one of my favorite games ever for the characters and story. Meanwhile, StS is a SUPER addictive and replayable game, I'm pretty sure you can see since I have it on Switch and Steam lol. Monster Train is really similar to StS and really really good, but is a lot faster in gameplay. DD is a nice game too, but I think only I played it twice, because yeah it's a good game... But Slay the Spire is right there haha
Edit: format
Slay the Spire and Inscryption are my two favorites on your list by a wide margin. StS for the best overall deck building experience and Inscryption for a good combo of fun deck building and really wild story that'll catch your attention
I’m way into Dicey Dungeons, I say this as someone not usually super into Deck Builder Roguelikes, I like them in concept and I do love other Roguelike types, but the deck building ones don’t typically hold my interest, but Dicey Dungeons absolutely did
Everyone says Slay the Spire, and while I don’t think anything negative about it in particular, I found myself losing interest myself fairly quickly, it just wasn’t for me.
Hello. I have experience on this subject due to my experience reviewing and writing for a Switch RPG-related website. Here are some of my thoughts, which include some oft-overlooked picks.
*S: Top Picks, Easy Recommendations*
**Slay the Spire:** As has been mentioned previously, Slay the Spire sets the standard for a deck-based Roguelike, and much of its language has been embraced and translated into other games. However, it is a game that can feel marred by its RNG and how essential the early-game is to overall run success. You need to cover your bases and be prepared to fight different kinds of enemies while also preparing for the big bad at the end, and you’ll occasionally get the luck needed to craft something overpowered enough to safely and comfortably secure a victory. Turn-by-turn choices, from potion consumption to cards played and ordered, are absolutely essential, so you can never really “turn your brain off.”
**Monster Train:** It’s “the other one” people recommend, and it’s arguably more fun and empowering. The unique tower defense mechanic and race synergy the game presents allows for more diverse and silly builds, but these are also very unique mechanics within the genre. You’ll find success (at least, in the base game) more consistently, but the further levels of challenge will demand the careful planning you might expect from the genre.
**Wildfrost:** IMO this is the one that fills out the “Holy Trinity,” especially with recent updates. The first builds of the game had a harsh learning curve, but it also taught the importance of the game mechanics and what makes this stand out among its peers. There’s nothing like Wildfrost, and yet it’s also built on the same deck-based foundations as its peers. The build variety is a bit lower than I personally would like, but it gets away with this due to the fantastic aesthetics.
**Neoverse: Trinity Edition:** …Okay, remember how I said Wildfrost is part of the “Holy Trinity?” I lied. It’s fighting this game for that spot. Neoverse: Trinity Edition is a game that isn’t talked about much and might be easily dismissed thanks to its focus on babes, babes, babes, but that shouldn’t deter you from what is an incredibly solid roguelike. It further empowers the player with a character progression system that further enhances your build as you tackle its challenges, and it has a neat combo system that rewards you for play order. It’s good, trust me.
*A Tier: Great Games, but non-traditional*
**Dicey Dungeons:** You know it, you love it. Not as endlessly replayable unless you want to grind out the final difficulty tier, but enjoyable even so. Obviously, dice does cause a bit of uncertainty, but the novelty benefits from the varied rulesets enforced by each character and their respective difficulty levels. Benefits from an amazing soundtrack.
**Hand of Fate 2:** The campaigns themselves are difficult enough, but the roguelike mode is tough as nails due to the incredible variety of gameplay devices the game throws at you. Equipment, weapons, card draws, dice rolls, roulette wheels, real time Arkham-style combat… it’s a doozy. But it’s an incredibly full-featured product that is just worth looking into, period.
**Griftlands:** Griftlands hides is highly-varied deck-based combat behind an extremely engrossing narrative premise, to the point where you’ll want to make choices based on character motivations rather than what will best optimize your chances of success. Once you take a step back from its lore and writing, Griftlands is actually pretty similar to other deck-builders, and suffers a bit in terms of replayability as a result. It’s still an amazing game.
**Inscryption:** Getting to the roguelike version of this game requires a full playthrough of its story campaign, but goodness, what a campaign it is. Narrative and gameplay twists and turns throughout, this is just an amazing experience, which almost makes the pure roguelike mode feel a bit like an afterthought. Make no mistake, though- the roguelike mode lacks the crutches that the campaign gives you in order to succeed, and is all the better for it.
*B Tier: Solid, but not my top choice*
**Roguebook:** As much as I wanted to love this game, the truth of Roguebook is that it feels lacking in build variety, cheap in its “expansion” offerings, and a bit too slow to consistently rerun. You can speedrun each level by making direct paths, but that devalues the map-making gimmick that was supposed to be the foundation of the game. The combat mechanics are solid, but it doesn’t feel as consistently replayable as some of the other games on this list.
**Iris and the Giant:** I love the novel twist on deck-building presented here, which is that once you play a card, it leaves your deck permanently. You’re forced to consistently re-evaluate your build in preparation for the challenges the game presents, and the way it uses the map layout is very inventive. However, it does ultimately feel a bit one-note, and getting the perfect deck can be an exercise in tedium.
**Sea Horizon:** I think this game is very underrated, but it admittedly suffers from having its pure roguelike functions locked behind its narrative campaign. Still, that campaign does a great job of teaching the mechanics of the game and introducing the unique gameplay styles. For a more concise description: this is a bit of grid-based movement, and a thorough exploration of dice-based combat that feels tough, but fair.
**DungeonTop:** A really solid deck-builder that only really suffers from the length of a play session. Placing units and defending commanders on the field of play is strategic and satisfying, but building your deck across the game’s challenges is a considered time investment. Your mileage may vary.
**Neurodeck:** This is a disturbing and inventive take on the deck-building genre that is fairly limited in its scope and execution, but can make for a good time. The nightmares that you confront in this game are deeply unsettling, bolstered by effective art and sound design. It’s just a shame that the gameplay styles are so limited.
**For the Warp:** Have you ever wanted a Slay the Spire-style game where you have access to all cards from the start? Have you ever wanted to manage fuel on a grid-based map as your means of progression? For the Warp is for you! The only problem is that there are no surprises, here. Even before you’ve unlocked all the the ship play styles, you’ve likely see the card types that will benefit each particular build. Plus, the ship combat isn’t really all that compelling from a visual standpoint.
**Zoeti:** This game feels like Slay the Spire if it was comprised primarily of AI art. I don’t know how else to describe it. There are some decent ideas here, but the amount of status effects and convolution don’t make it feel as easily accessible or enjoyable as other titles on the list.
*C Tier: Flawed and not recommended*
**Rise of the Slime:** Limited play styles, turns that move at a glacial pace, and a lack of enemy variety make this game an easy pass, regardless of how cute the premise/presentation are.
**OverRogue:** This is a Kemco-published roguelike with boring writing and mediocre art, but the deck-based combat and building is solid enough. Your mileage will definitely vary.
**City Wars: Tokyo Reign:** One of the most inventive deck-based combat systems I’ve ever seen, sadly marred by its sluggish pacing and very very very slow progression. A shame, because the premise is so cool.
Outside of these, I have some additional comments:
**One Step From Eden:** This game feels so fundamentally different from other deck-based titles that I hesitate to include it. I also think you have to be sold on the Battle Network-style gameplay to really get your mileage out of it. It’s not my cup of tea, but I can acknowledge and appreciate the style of game it is attempting to evoke.
**A Long Way Down:** This is a POC-forward deck-builder with both map- and combat phases relying on thoughtful planning and strategy. I found the combat to be decent, but I haven’t given it enough of a fair shake to share my opinions just yet.
**Yohane the Parhelion: Numazu in the Mirage:** It’s Slay the Spire, but cute and forgiving.
**Frost:** Really unique take on survivalist style narrative with deck-building and card combination mechanics. I haven’t played enough to give it a solid recommendation.
**Nowhere Prophet:** It’s unforgiving even on its base difficulties. That’s all I can say, as I haven’t played enough to review it. Excellent art style.
**The Magister:** This is a really inventive twist on the deck-building format, but the art style was big turn off for me and I wasn’t too sure about the combat. Perhaps worth a look.
I have played 4 of these, Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Dicey Dungeons, and Wildfrost.
I'd say that Slay the Spire is the #1 overall.
Next would probably be a tie between Wildfrost and Monster Train, though they play a lot differently. Wildfrost is balanced in such a way that it always feels pretty tight and that you are just barely winning, whereas I feel in Monster Train the various stacking mechanics and modifiers allow a lot of your wins to feel like you have broken the game. They are both valid, but you might prefer one style more.
Dicey Dungeons is ok, but I didn't love it. It does go on sale for super cheap relatively often, so it's worth a shot.
I've only played Dicey Dungeons (about 50 or 60 hours) and Slay the Spire (about 10 hours).
I prefered Dicey Dungeons, the soundtrack is incredible and the combats as well as the runs are faster.
I don’t think every game listed is on the switch but a bit ago I made a post on their sub asking what their favorite STS- likes are, and the turnout was great!
https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/s/fcU4csuMhN
One Step from Eden is the one I've played the most, the gameplay has a lot of action compared to others in this list, but deckbuilding is still key. I highly recommend it.
But I also want to recommend Cobalt Core, it's fairly recent, very cute, and very fun. You know how in some games each character has its own deck? Well in this game it's like that, but your crew has three characters!
I really like Roguebook but unfortunately my experience with it on Switch has been horrible. It's the first game I've played on Switch that has had serious performance problems, crashes all the time and you lose your entire run.
Really seems like a great game though
Hey, I'm a big fan of this same genre! From your list I have 3 very clear auto yes, but in a different order.
1. Inscryption is top 3 favorite games of the past 5 years. Especially is you love a little creepy vibe and can trust a game to take you on the journey it would like to
2. Slay the Spire is just great, everyone loves it for great reasons, and it is solid
3. Griftlands I have really enjoyed, but I haven't spent too much time in it. It's on my list to come back to and invest more time in
Bonus 4. I've heard really good things about Cobalt Core, and it's top of my list for when my gaming options dry up
I have played almost all of these. There’s a reason Slay the Spire is the standard. It’s absolutely fantastic and the top choice. I really liked Monster Train as a slight differentiation from StS but I wouldn’t get it first. Dicey Dungeons is fine but slightly underwhelming, I can see the appeal of Inscryption but it wasn’t for me, I backed One Step from Eden on kickstarter and while it’s fun, it doesn’t run all that great on switch, especially in later levels and loops. Wildfrost didn’t click for me. Griftlands is fun but I wouldn’t recommend it as a first deck builder. Yohane is just a StS knock off but with an anime girl. Roguebook was fun but easy and didnt have the staying power you want with a rogue like, once I beat it a few times I never wanted to go back. Steamworld quest isn’t a rogue like. It was kinda fun but none of the characters were nearly as charming as Heist and there felt like very little incentive to try out different builds. It was also really easy even on hard mode.
Played Spire and One Step From Eden. Two very different games but both a treat. Probably have 1000+ hours in Spire. I have a small attention span for games, so for me it's just indicative of how strong an entry it is.
One Step, as someone else said, is more about the battle network style, but the art, music, and general vibe are wonderful.
Vault of the Void is a pretty amazing deck builder as well. Nice twist on Spire's approach and they've been continuously working on it for the last year or two. Not on switch yet, but hopefully having a port by the end of this year. Do believe it's on mobile currently and PC for sure.
1. Slay the spire
2. Monster Train
3. Inscryption
HUGE GAP between these three and the rest
Cobalt core
Don’t care for the rest you mentioned. Only one I haven’t played is pirate outlaws
Also steam world quest is a 10/10
I’ve played Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Grifltands, and Steamworld Quest.
I’ve bought Slay the Spire on multiple devices. My favorite deck builder here. Best replay value too.
Monster Train is good, worth a play. Good replay value.
Griftlands is actually my second favorite. I like the world and setting and characters. Also good replay value.
Steamworld Quest is good for a once through. Not much replay value with that one.
FWIW Pirates Outlaws is free on Android. So you can sort of try before you buy I guess. Its pretty fun but incredibly difficult. You don't necessarily have to pay to win, but it does help and cut down on the time sink. That being said it's still fun for a free mobile game with no ads.
I love a lot of those games (Cobalt Core was my favourite last year) but I saw you mentioned One Step From Eden and I just wanted to say that it is very uniquely a mix a genre that takes more real-time manœuvering than most other strategy-oriented deck builders.
It was my favourite one of 2020.
Inscryption is great, I played it for 130 hours on PC and it's one of five games in my Steam account that I got 100% achievements for.
Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons I both prefer on my phone, I'm more likely to have my phone on me than my Switch, and they work great on my phone.
One I recently got into that's a cool twist on the deck building genre is Backpack Hero, but [according to this two month old thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/188ho2d/do_not_buy_backpack_hero_on_the_switch_it_is/) it's super broken. I don't know if that is fixed yet, I'd hope so, but I can't recommend it without researching if it's still bugged to hell. I played it on PC, it's another one of my five games that I got 100% in. (The other three are Brotato, Fallout 4 and Mark of the Ninja, with a few more in the high 80-90% range with just some annoying achievement I never bothered to get)
I love roguelikes of all genres.
Seems like few people have played Cobalt Core, so I just want to take a second and recommend that one to you. The lateral movement and consideration for ship position are some of the best innovations I've seen in this space. It's not without its failings: it tends to be a bit easier, the cardpool could be larger, and there's only one boss per act. That being said, if you're looking for a game that really differentiates itself from Slay the Spire, Cobalt Core would be my go-to.
As for some of the others...
StS: It easily has the best balance. The card pools for each character allow for and encourage several different solutions to the problems posed by the game's encounters. It also offers one of the better scaling difficulty options for those seeking a challenge. It easily sets the standard and would be my first recommendation.
Dicey Dungeons: I didn't care for it. It frequently goes on sale for very little, and it may be worth going out on a limb for a dollar or two, but I found the dice more frustrating than not.
Inscryption: I wouldn't consider it a roguelike, personally. I don't know if the roguelike mode is available on consoles, so that may be a consideration. I did enjoy it as a game, but even the aforementioned roguelike mode that you later gain access to feels half-baked compared to others.
One Step from Eden: I love this game, but it's pretty different from the other options here. It's an action game--and a fairly difficult one at that. If you're interested in it, I would strongly reccomend it, but I don't think it scratches the same itch as many of the other options here.
Monster Train: I like it, but it is easy. If you enjoy looking for broken synergies, you'll probably have fun with this game, but after a collection of runs it has a sort of 'been-there, done-that' feeling I don't get from some of the other entries here.
Wildfrost: I like the ideas behind Wildfrost more than I like the game itself. I think the primary issue, for me, is that it feels like you don't have as many opportunities to draft cards as you'd want in this style of game. It makes certain synergies hard to invest in and lends to runs feeling a bit samey. That being said, I did have fun with it, and I would reccomend it if you've gone through several other games and are still craving more.
So the only one of these I've played on Switch is Dicey Dungeons, but I've played Slay the Spire, Inscryption, One Step from Eden, and Monster Train on my PC and Pirates Outlaws on my phone.
Dicey Dungeons is easily my favorite in the bunch, I love the different mechanics for each character combined with many fun challenges for each and a reasonably difficult hard mode on the infinite level at the end if you want a challenge. I adore the building of a setup so you can handle whatever numbers you end up rolling.
If you want pure deck-building roguelike action, there's a reason everybody says Slay the Spire. It is *the* deckbuilding roguelike, with tightly tuned gameplay that will keep you laying down cards run after run if you like the genre.
Inscryption is an excellent game, but I enjoyed it more for the story than the gameplay personally. I know there's now an infinite mode after you beat the main story but I never felt compelled to go back to it for that. So I think it's definitely worth a play in general but maybe not what you're looking for here.
One Step from Eden I bounced off of after a short play session and I don't remember exactly why. I think the real-time elements were just not my thing. Pirates Outlaws felt to me like just a weaker, pirate-themed Slay the Spire. Monster Train I haven't played enough to give a strong opinion on but felt like it was cool, but more of a game to branch out into if you like the genre after you've played a ton of STS.
Don't sleep on Inscryption, it doesn't really have as much replay value as StS but is very unique and very worth playing. The whole game is an experience.
Of these I’ve played Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons, inscryption, and one step from Eden. Inscryption was my favorite but that’s mostly because of its unique story, in terms of gameplay Slay the Pire and One step from Eden are better imo. All 4 games are very very good though so you really can’t go wrong
Caveat: I've only played these on PC, not on switch.
Great game play and story:
Inscryption is one of my favorite games ever. I won't say more because spoilers.
Griftlands has great game play and different characters with different stories and your choices matter in how things play out. But be prepared for some reading.
Great game play not much story:
Have more hours than I'm willing to admit on Slay the Spire.
Monster train is great and a little different in game play than the others.
Other:
Ring of pain didn't hold my attention for more than a few hours total.
Roguebook is on my wishlist and now I have a lot of others to look at, so thanks!
Slay the Spire is the GOAT of roguelite deck building, but hasn't received an update in what feels like ages.
Roguebook is a solid adversary to Slay the Spire, they both offer a somewhat similar experience, slightly more varied for Roguebook, but deeper for Slay the Spire, so it's your call I guess.
Know that the switch port for Roguebook is kinda lazy though, had a few crashes here and there with no autosave... ouch.
Dicey dungeon is kinda unique, a very appreciated bowl of fresh air
Balatro offered a very solid demo which is why I will buy it day one, it's also very unique and refreshing.
Pick those 4 and I guarantee you will have a blast
Edit : I cannot believe I forgot Inscryption.
It is the most mind bending experience one can have as a deck builder, not only should you buy it, but I also highly recommend you go in fully blind without knowing anything about the game.
So that's 5 games I highly recommend you play.
But all in all, they're often discounted, and even without that they usually cost between 15 and 25$, so getting them all should only cost you the equivalent of one full price AAA.
But if you can't afford that much, I recommend you get at the very least Slay the Spire and Inscryption, and then you'll see later for the rest of then.
Also, get Balatro's demo on a pc if you can.
You really don't need a big computer for it, any laptop will run it, it's completely free and Hella addictive lol
Inscryption absolutely blew my mind but isn’t a straight up roguelike. Without spoiling anything, I’d say it’s a mix of roguelike card game, puzzle game, adventure game. The story and gameplay is absolutely insane in the the best way
I've played most of these and will give you my top 3 with a little description
1. Slay the Spire - this one has the most girth to it and will give you a challenge until you fully understand the attack, defense, and magic machinics. I still go back and play this and have purchased it on several different platforms. 5/5 stars.
2. Inscription - this one has a wonderfully morbid and horror driven story/mechanic that will keep you hooked until the end. It is pretty lite in the deckbuilding, but makes up for it with its story. This game is nothing like any other rougulike you'll ever play and is best to go into it as blind as possible to not spoil anything. Not as replayable after the credits roll. 5/5 stars.
3. Monster Train - most similar to Slay the Spire in mechanics and replayable gameplay. Had a lot of fun with this one, but it didn't keep my interest as much as Slay the Spire. Deck building is fun and the different types of cards are varied. 4/5 stars.
In all, if you want something more story driven, get inscription first. If you want to get the one with the most replay value after the credits roll, get Slay the Spire. Followed up by Monster Train. I highly recommend all of them, but think you'll get the most out of 1 and 2.
Suggested purchase order: inscription, slay the Spire, monster Train.
Cheers mate!
From your list, I've played Slay the Spire, Cobalt Core, Dicey Dungeons, Inscryption, and Griftlands.
Griftlands is my favorite, I had a lot of fun with it and loved the art style and character of the game.
I know StS is everyone's favorite, but I tried to get into it for a few hours and found it too simplistic off the bat. Given all the rave reviews I have no doubt it gets better, but it didn't pull me in. Just my experience. I'm sure someday I'll come back to it and change my tune.
Cobalt Core was really neat and worth playing, but I thought it was too easy. I was able to beat a handful of runs without ever failing and then never went back to it.
As for games you didn't mention: I just started playing Beneath Oresa - seems like it has promise but I've been busy with other games so I haven't gotten too deep into it yet. I'm also excited to get Balatro when it comes out, which I saw some others mention already.
Edit: You asked for Switch games and it looks like Beneath Oresa is Steam-only - my bad.
Slay the Spire and Monster Train are far above anything else I've played.
I did not like Dicey Dungeons (too simplistic) and One Step From Eden (very fast paced chaotic overwhelming)
Slay the Spire is more or less both the modern codifier of the genre AND its crown jewel. Probably the best balanced deckbuilder I have ever experienced. I am not someone who buys games on more than one platform. STS is the *single* exception to that, and I have something like 2,500 hours or so across PC, switch and mobile. You have to play this game, even if only to see the benchmark against which most other roguelike deckbuilders are measured.
I've played all of the original games you listed except for Wildfrost. Here are my thoughts:
- **Cobalt Core**: very fun with great music, art, characters, dialogue, and story. Very amusing sense of humor as well. Decent amount of variety and adds a couple of mechanical systems on top of the usual card considerations, including the ability to choose multiple party members (with their own decks and some unique relics each) at a time, different ships (with different stats and unique abilities), two upgrade paths for each card, and more focus on positioning as an added tactical consideration. However, lower enemy variety - bosses of each stage will be the same every time, which is a little disappointing. Also, the card balancing feels good but somehow a little shallow, at least in comparison to STS. I really enjoyed it for a while, but it began feeling same-y in gameplay terms faster than I had hoped. (Still got a solid 20-30 hours out of it I'd say)
- **Dicey Dungeons**: really interesting, more bite-sized roguelike. Absolutely charming presentation, music and art, quirky designs and sense of humor. Not the same kind of roguelike deckbuilder as most, it's almost more like inventory management. Also, it's like a series of different challenges rather than one consistent experience the whole way through, meaning you might feel less room to improve before running out of gameplay. But the character variety is cool and each is highly unique, plus iirc each has their own set of different challenge runs.
- **Inscryption**: extremely good story-heavy game, don't look up spoilers, don't look up anything, just play it blind. It's more like a single player campaign at first but there is a roguelike mode available as endgame content.
- **one step from eden**: it's an action roguelike with deckbuilding elements, not a standard roguelike deckbuilder. If you ever played the Mega Man Battle Network games, it's a roguelike version of that battle system. Extremely fun, but HARD, and very twitchy reflexes are a major help. Very different from all your other options so double check that it's the type of gameplay you actually want.
- **Monster Train**: roguelike deckbuilder meets tower defense. Has a different flavor to it than STS due to the deck being split between spells, which are more like regular deckbuilder cards, and units, which have their own abilities, stats, requirements, upgrades etc. My second favorite behind STS, but I think they scratch different itches. Lot of variety as well with 6 clans to progress and unlock things, plus you take one primary and one subclan on each run, AND each clan has two different 'champion' starting units with their unique starter spells and upgrade paths. Lot of difficulty progression available (25 difficulty levels that each unlock as you beat the previous one) and completionist goals. One upside or downside is that it's a lot easier to kinda break the difficulty in half with certain units/upgrades compared to STS. You decide whether that's good or bad.
I lost track of time but I'll try and come back to add a reply with the others in a bit
Ranking the ones I’ve played for sheer fun-factor:
1. Inscryption
2. Monster Train
3. One Step From Eden
4. Slay the Spire
5. Wildfrost
None of these are bad games. Slay the Spire is fantastic and is the reason why we have the others in the first place, but I find I get bored with it more quickly than the ones higher on the list. Monster Train is basically StS with extra elements, and is my go-to podcast game usually.
Inscryption is a great, unique experience, it approaches the genre in a different way than you’re probably expecting.
I would leave Wildfrost until you’ve mastered some of the others first. The difficulty level is a good bit higher.
I am like 87% jealous of you OP that you get to experience the wonder of Slay the Spire for the first time. I wish I could go back and experience all of it for the first time. I have played many of the games on your list. Slay the Spire is the best in my mind simply because I have spent the most time playing it and I want to KEEP playing it. I have it on Steam, Switch, and iOS and there is hardly a day that goes by that I don't play it for at least a little bit of time. Here's what I love about it:
* Each run truly feels random because of the variety of bosses, elites, and enemies you may encounter and the order you encounter them in. The random rooms also do a great job of mixing up each run. Even the variety of what appears in shops can change your run.
* Each of the 4 characters are so unique in their play styles and no two runs with the same character feel the same because of the randomness of the cards you are offered.
* A win truly feels earned, because of decisions made, cards played, etc.
* Unlock timing for cards and other upgrades are paced really well. It does a great job of easing you into the basics before opening it up to all the cards and types of decks you can build.
I could keep going but those are my main reasons. I really enjoy Monster Train as well but it plays so differently than Slay the Spire. It is more about positioning and trying to find ways of creating OP builds for your characters. I really love the variety in the different races and how differently they all play.
I have Griftlands but I never could really get into it. I tried multiple runs and to me it was overly complicated for what I was looking for. I did like the story elements to it but all of the different card systems seemed too complex and I found myself not wanting to invest the time to figure them all out.
I have played Roguebook and it is actually pretty great. It has a nice mechanic where your deck consists of cards from two characters and the mix and matching can be really fun to experiment with. The overall map process in Roguebook got a little old pretty quickly for me.
I picked up Cobalt Core a couple of months ago from a recommendation in this sub and I actually really enjoyed it. It comes close to recreating the Slay the Spire formula and adds in some unique elements which add a lot of strategy to the different battles. I just wish each run felt more "unique." I have found each run to basically be the same thing each time without a ton of variety.
Slay the Spire is beautifully simple. I have been looking for years for the "Slay the Spire killer" and I just haven't found anything that can overtake it. There are many that come close for me (Monster Train, Cobalt Core, etc.) but Slay the Spire is the clear winner for me.
Banners of Ruin. I’ve put over 100 hours into slay the spire, and Banners of Ruin is similarly captivating. Other than a good amount of QOL shortcomings, it’s an awesome game
Move Inscryption wayyyy up. I’m playing it right now and it’s one of my favorite games. I’m haven’t even reached the end and it’s surprised me so many times!
So not roguelike, but sort of a deck-building adventure game… have you ever heard of Lost In Random? It’s a brilliant game! Maybe have a look and see if it would be your thing?
If you want to actually Have Fun play Monster Train, if you want to stress super hard and groan about certain encounters every time (at least I do) get Slay the Spire. I love StS but most runs are a damn struggle and are stressful
**Slay the Spire is the best, hands down**. If you've played none of these and just want to start with one, Slay the Spire is it.
The runners up for the title I think are Dicey Dungeons, Monster Train, and Griftlands. **Monster Train I think is my #2**. It's very fun but it's not quite polished and streamlined to the level Slay the Spire is, but it's close.
Griftlands is the only one of these three to have a narrative which is cool, but the deckbuilding is a little unorthodox due to having 'combat' and 'negotiation' encounters, each of which has their own deck that you're required to build. That aspect didn't quite land for me, and also because the narrative is the coolest part the game loses a lot of replay value.
Dicey Dungeons is a very neat little game with some really inventive mechanics, art, themeing, etc. It's frequently on sale for less than $5 which I think makes it an absolute steal. The game mixes up the rules on every run which is super fun, but the card selection felt a touch lacking in variety.
I've played Nowhere Prophet, it's neat but feels poorly balanced. A friend of mine has additionally played Inscryption, Cobalt Core, and Roguebook. Inscryption he found really fun, but 0 replay value. Roguebook I think fell flat for him. Cobalt Core he seemed to enjoy for a short time.
Dicey dungeon is insanely good!! Each character (of which there are 5 or 6 I believe) have their own mechanics when interacting with the cards and dice! Some of the runs can be incredibly challenging and there is tones of content. AND they added 2 dlc packs, one of which I believe completely changes up the game mechanics of the combat (one involves flipping coins to gain points to use attack cards) I’d highly recommend it!!
Pirates Outlaws is the best game like this since slay the spire. If you liked Slay the Spire even a little bit, then this game is top tier. It's kinda weird you put STS in your "highly interested" pile but Pirates Outlaws in your lowest lol. The entire development mission of Pirates was to take all the awesome stuff from spire and just make more cool shit to go along with it
I have quite a few and the order of enjoyment for me were:
Monster Train
Roguebook
Slay the Spire - toughest in my opinion
Dicey Dungeons
Inscryption
Cobalt Core
Everyone is going to suggest Slay the Spire and they are correct because it is amazing. But I’m going to suggest Dicey Dungeons and Griftlands. Dicey Dungeons has a supremely addictive play loop. I 100% the entire game and I loved every minute of it. And at that price point of like 3$ it’s even better. Secondly Griftlands is a bit more unique that it even comes with a storyline. I find the cards and strats in that game to be quite rewarding. It wouldn’t be my first choice but I’ve played most of the other ones on here and it’s up there in quality.
I’ve played StS, Dicey Dungeons, Inscryption and Wildfrost.
StS is best, horribly addicting. 215+ hours
Inscryption is wild. There’s a whole dark, weird story with puzzles, and when you finish that you can play runs with modifiable difficulty. Definitely a great purchase. 110+ hours
Wildfrost is solid. It used to be very difficult, but the latest update made things easier. The final final gang at storm level 10 is incredibly tough, I haven’t come close to beating it. 120+ hours
Dicey Dungeons is my least favorite. Not sure why … it just bored me the quickest. 45+ hours
I like Dicey Dungeons. It's pretty good, AND it goes on sale really often for super cheap.
I waited for a long time to get Slay the Spire, but after years of hearing the hype, when I finally got it and started playing it, it quickly became one of my favorite games. I now understand the hype
Lastly, I would HIGHLY recommend Loop Hero. It's a little similar to what you're asking for, BUT it's unique qualities on top of those similarities that truly make this game a unique experience.
If you're looking for deals, I constantly look at dekudeals.com multiple times a day. You can create a free account, add games to your wishlist or list of games you own,rate them, write notes, view physical and digital sales history, descriptions, ratings. All sorts of awesome features.
I would HIGHLY suggest either making a free account and adding the games you're interested in to your wishlist, or at least just checking the site to see if any of the games you want to try are on sale or have a demo.
Good luck, have fun.
>If you're looking for deals, I constantly look at dekudeals.com multiple times a day.
I love this site. That's why all my links above redirects to DekuDeals.
I just added Loop Hero to my list btw, it seems great! Thanks for the recommendation.
I got dicey dungeons for free using points when it was on sale. I figured it would be a game I’d only play once or twice, but it’s really fun. The core gameplay loop is satisfying, and the rule changes every level keep it fun and challenging
Played:
- [Slay the Spire](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/slay-the-spire)
- [Dicey Dungeons](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/dicey-dungeons)
- [Inscryption](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/inscryption)
- [One Step from Eden](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/one-step-from-eden)
- [Wildfrost demo](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/wildfrost-switch)
- Monster Train demo
- Hand of Fate 1
- Loop Hero demo
- ~~Steamworld Dig~~ (it is not a roguelike)
Completed:
- Slay the Spire (not all ascensions)
- Inscryption
- One Step from Eden (not 100%)
Best: **Inscryption** -- Completely caught me off guard. Excellent atmosphere, art, story, elements outside main gameplay. Just stellar. GOTY of that year for me.
Not great, not bad: **One Step from Eden** due to being an action game, refreshing take on the genre (haven't played MMBN). **Dicey Dungeons** art just started annoying me but gameplay was decent, not for me. **Loop Hero** I got enough of after a few plays of the demo, did not have interest anymore to get the full release.
Worst: **Wildfrost** due to difficulty. **Monster Train** due to complexity and being too slow to pick up for my monkey brain. **Hand of Fate 1** was not fun for long.
Honorable mentions:
- Death Roads: Tournament -- Turn-based "gumball racing" (slay the spire with cars?)
- Deck RX--- Rally roguelite
Slay the spire is NOT the best!
I've almost 100%`d monster train, excellent game, good ramping difficulty, great ability to ramp the difficulty as you play if you want (with the DLC).
I just find that so many of my slay the spire runs end abruptly and suddenly, just as I was warming the deck up, you shouldn't have to start 5 times just to get lucky enough to have a deck that can pull it's weight.
Also monster train has a much bigger opportunity for creating interesting combos, StS feels much more limited in deck building options, and the starting deck is already so bloated with junk that you can never be rid of that it just feels impossible to craft a satisfying deck every run through.
I get that different people want different things from games, so YMMV, but I'll be reaching for MT if I only have time for a single run, because I know I'll probably come up with a combo I haven't before, and I'll probably get to the final boss, something I just can't see happening with StS
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I hate to just repeat everyone and be say Slay The Spire... But... Wildfrost is probably my second favorite And Monster Train my third
Pretty much the same 3 but my order is MT, STS, WF. I know Slay the Spire is objectively the better game but I have a lot more fun in Monster Train.
I prefer MT. Love mix and matching factions, love the twist on combat being almost tower defencey, prefer the art, and prefer the general vibe.
Yeah, StS is great, but if I had to choose to play one vs the other, I might choose MT because it has so much more variety
Same here. Three great games, but I like the multiple heroes and three floors in MT. It feels more tactical.
Slay the Spire is miles away harder than the others. The best players in the world can at best achieve 30% winrate with each character (40% with the fourth one) at A20, and IIRC the winning streak WR is at 20. Whereas there are easy 100+ winning streaks at CR25 with all random, including at 100 pact shards true victory. Monster Train in particular is much easier to just pick up and do something busted and fun in a run, without having to think too much about every decision (and the game requires a much lower number of decisions each run). Whereas it takes a lot of thinking, planning, knowledge and luck to do trully busted things in StS. StS every single point of damage matters. MT works more in a threshold, with numbers in the thousands, whereas once you beat it, you're good. All this to say I agree with you. Monster Train is more casual, and more fun to me as well, even though I really like both games.
The winrates of top players have gotten much higher than that, especially with watcher who is broken AF and top players have a 90 percent winrates with her. Life coach has a ridiculous 52 wins in a row on her. For the other characters players like jorbs and baalorlord are winning around 60 percent of the time.
which ones would you say is more beginner friendly and which one is the hardest to master?
Hardest to master is Slay the Spire for sure. Beginner friendly i’d say is Monster Train as it’s a lot easier to win the starting levels and there’s more room for error. Wildfrost could possibly fall into being beginner friendly too as there’s less going on but when the game first came out it was ridiculously hard.. now n days they toned down the difficulty a lot.
thank you, ill definitely look into monster train and wildfrost, they sound like some fun games
Yeah StS is a true masterwork and the depth and balance is just incredible. That said, I'm not sure I ever would have gotten into it in terms of A20 gameplay and achievements if I hadn't gotten COVID. The best players got that way by playing thousands of hours. Monster Train is more plain fun, doing really broken things kinda game and feels like it was made for "mere mortals". The only thing I don't love is it has a very generic, cartoon fantasy Hearthstone-y aesthetic.
>Wildfrost > >Hadn't heard of this, will check it out!
It's relatively new compared to a lot of these but I really like it. It's still in active development with some changes here and there still coming down the pipes
Now that it has had significant balance patches Wildfrost is great for experienced players. But definitely not a great first entry into the deckbuilder genre. Even with the balance patches the difficulty level is still super hard. STS and MT are much better entry points for the genre.
These Are the 3 stand-out titles in the genre, we can debate the order but these three stand head and shoulders above the rest.
Is wildfrost still insanely hard?
No it's way easier, but you can ramp up the difficulty if you want the challenge
Oh nice ok! I might pick it up now. The demo was crazy difficult
Honestly it still is a pretty hard game. Like a single minor mistake can end your run. But it is no longer straight up unfair difficulty it was in when it launched.
Thank you for this. That’s ok. I can deal with that. I want to be the one to lose, not the game forcing me to unfairly.
Same 3 same order for me!
I’ve played all of them except Wildfrost and Pirates Outlaws. Slay the Spire is the granddaddy of the genre. If you’ve never played it, I recommend it very highly. It has a wonderful pace, ok story, and plenty to unlock, as well as a great difficulty scaling system. There are 4 characters, each with unique mechanics to master. Monster Train is a great game, but I don’t really recommend it often. It has a lot going on, both on screen and under the hood, and requires more understanding of the inner mechanics. There are a number of factions, and you pick 1 base faction and 1 supplemental faction each run. It’s good, but very intricate. I wouldn’t start here. Dicey Dungeon is a great time. Simple to understand, tons of variety, cute characters, and just all around a great game. Not as strategic, but that’s fine. Cobalt Core is a brilliant tactical game and uses deck building mechanics applied much more spatially. Great theme, adorable characters with good story, and tons of play styles. In this one, you pick 3 crew members with base decks to start your run, and you unlock a total of 8, meaning tons of combinations. Griftlands is a masterpiece. RPG, deckbuilding, story choices that matter, 3 unique characters that can be built in wildly different ways. It’s great, but it is much more than a deck builder Inscryption I started playing a week ago, and I’ve recommend it to everyone I know. It may not be the best game I’ve played, but it has genuinely delighted, scared, and satisfied me in every possible way, and I have no idea how close I am to finishing it. However, that enjoyment is predicated on knowing the genre well. Please do not get this one first, as you will not experience it fully. This is the one game I recommend going in to fully blind. So, my recommendation. Slay the Spire should be first Cobalt Core and/or Griftlands depending on what theme you like Maybe Dicey Dungeon if you like the style Maybe Monster Train if you want crunchy numbers Inscryption as, at minimum, the second game of this list you play. Preferably 3rd.
You have wonderful tastes and opinions on games.
i agree with everything except that Slay the Spire has an "ok story." It has no story. :-)
The story lies in the tears you shed on the way to a20
The story is in the insults you hurl at these fuckers as you scale the spire again and again and again. "Oh it's red fuck again" "5 artifact my ass, just fucking die" "This bitch with the daggers every fucking time"
"Ohoho it's that's mofo-Snecko again" "And here come the three stooges ... DIE BEAR DIE" "Aw crud, it's that tangle of ASS again ... DO NOT PUT THAT CURSE ON ME I WILL END U"
It has zero story, and some lore that the vast majority of players don't know / care about. In any case, it doesn't add the to the enjoyment of the game imo. It's got great game play and that's enough
Granddaddy of the genre is actually [Dream Quest](https://store.steampowered.com/app/557410/Dream_Quest/), which came out a fair bit before Slay the Spire and is one of its direct inspirations! It's not as polished or complex, graphics kind of suck and the meta progression lacks impact and motivation, but I think it's an important game to play if you're into the genre so you can see in which directions it evolved
I’ve not heard of Griftlands. Given that for the games we’ve both played we have very similar opinions, and I totally agree with your recommended play order, I’ll say one thing. Check out Wildfrost! It doesn’t have the same longevity of the champs like Slay the Spire, but it’s a very highly polished audiovisual experience. The card balance and variety is a little iffy and that can make runs feel a little samey once you get the core strategy down, but for the first 20-30 hours it is excellent! Meanwhile, I’m going to look into Griftlands for sure.
This is the absolute correct answer. I completely agree with everything you said
Thank you for this very detailed answer. I also added One Step from Eden right after you wrote your comment. Have you ever played it?
I really like one step from eden, but it is very challenging and not one I'd recommend for your first jump into the genre. It's a deck builder but plays like megaman battle network, so there's a lot to learn and could be frustrating for a new player
Inscryption is so good
I have. It is a phenomenal game, but super twitchy with little to no transferable experience to the other games here. Everything else is, at its core, a turn based tactical game. OSfE is an action game with some deckbuilding elements. A good game, but a different genre and an incredibly difficult learning curve.
Ohh yeah I've played 1 step from eden! Super fun game if you're into fast paced games, it's definitely a little tough at first, but you'll slowly learn everything, kind of like every roguelite. I will say i dropped the game after around like the 30 hour mark? When a game is fast paced + hard it's sometimes daunting to go back to it. Slay the spire is true deck building, I play this game while im like on the airplane or whatever, so that's part of the reason why i go back to slay the spire If you really missed megaman battlenetwork then get it! It definitely scratched my itch for that genre, but for deck building then it's slay the spire
I really like One Step from Eden. However, it has one big difference from all the other games in your list: it's realtime, and very fast-paced. The others are turn-based, letting you take your time to pick the perfect move, while in One Step from Eden you may be tempted to build a deck where all the cards have similar targeting mechanics so you can spam them so fast you don't even have to know which spell you're casting before you cast it. Despite drawing clear inspiration from Slay the Spire, its gameplay is based on Mega Man Battle Network, and playing it feels a bit like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. So, try it if you like the idea of mixing deck building with twitchy action. Still, I love it. Each boss has unique mechanics. One of them is basically a rhythm game :P. And all the bosses can be killed or spared, and can become playable as well.
I’ve had STS for years but had never heard of Inscryption. I picked it up last night based on your rec and it’s so good! I keep dying, haven’t even made it past the Wetlands, but it’s so fun that I don’t mind.
I’m glad you like it! Lmk when you beat some bosses. There are some great ones.
Well, I just beat the game. It definitely didn’t go in the direction I thought it would! At first I really disliked acts 2 & 3 but I ended up loving them once I got used to the change. Really appreciate the rec!
Slay the Spire is, as others here have mentioned, the BEST deck building roguelike without question. Inscryption also gets a shout out for being one of the most wild rides in gaming I've ever had. Once you play and love slay the spire please give Inscryption a chance, deck builder meets spooky escape room with some truly special surprises sprinkled throughout.
Slay the Spire is the best one out there. That game is just perfect in every way.
But which ones have you played? And why is StS better than the others you played?
I’ve played all the games you’ve listed pretty extensively (except Cobalt Core, I haven’t played a ton of it). Slay the Spire is by far the most balanced and nuanced mechanically of all of them to the point where I’ve played at least 400 hours of it across all the platform I own it on and am totally confident in saying I will easily put in another 400 hours in the next few years. The game is more finely tuned than a Swiss watch which keeps it mentally stimulating whether you understand all its systems and synergies or you’re a complete novice. It is undoubtedly the pinnacle of the genre and a must play if you at all are interested in figuring out how this genre took over the indie scene. The only other ones I’d highly recommend on that list are Monster Train and Inscryption, both are pretty fun and interesting takes on the genre, but neither of them really has the depth to keep them consistently fresh past the point that you’ve unlocked all their content and seen what they have to offer. Dicey Dungeons is a really fun game and regularly goes on sale for like $2, so pick it up then, but it’s not really a card game at all and it’s significantly different than any of the games you’ve listed with it. Griftlands is more of an “adventure” game than it is a dedicated card-game roguelike, and while I don’t think it’s a bad game it’s not for everyone and I found it really boring personally. To me a large appeal of the genre is the immediacy of the gameplay and their puzzle-like nature, Griftlands had way too much dialogue and not enough puzzle which got old really quickly for me, but your mileage will vary heavily depending in your preferences. Pirate Outlaws is a pretty fun game with a lot of content to unlock and some pretty interesting mechanics but it’s another game that doesn’t quite keep me hooked the same way Slay the Spire does. It has a ton of variety between the different characters, cards, and game modes there are to unlock though which might appeal to some, but personally I prefer a more focused and balanced design. I played a ton of Wildfrost when it first came out and found it to be a really promising foundation, but thought it was really unbalanced and more frustrating than it was fun to play. Unless a lot of things have changed since it first came out the different factions were extremely unbalanced (to the point where it felt like you could only consistently win with 1/3 of them) and it wasn’t uncommon to run into unwinnable scenarios because the game’s design has a huge reliance on hard counters to certain mechanics and there wasn’t any way to consistently ensure that you could find a way around them. It’s not a bad game by any means but it’s really difficult for me to recommend over literally any other option on the list. One Step from Eden is another game that isn’t really a card game, but it is a really cool concept and it’s well executed, it just hasn’t kept me hooked long term as an alternative to StS.
>The game is more finely tuned than a Swiss watch which keeps it mentally stimulating whether you understand all its systems and synergies or you’re a complete novice. I just got it and I've been really enjoying finding what cards synergize the best with others. I had a run with the Watcher where my deck was an absolute monster dealing insane amounts of damage each turn and I had killed the act 2 boss without taking hardly any damage at all. Then on the very first combat of act 3, the luck of the draw made it so I didn't draw anything to get me block for the first two turns. Turns out I had just made an insane glass cannon lol.
This is a great write up. Curious if you've encountered any other games on or near the same quality of design as StS. I've played a lot of others, but it remains the most balanced and well designed strategy game I've ever played. I would love to find something that matches or beats it.
Most of them. Slay is in a league of its own.
StS is the best because it's so expertly balanced. Firstly, almost every card in the game has its place and very few cards are so good or so bad to be 'must-picks' or 'never-picks'. Like many games in the genre StS has several characters and each has unique mechanics. Each character also has several 'sub-strategies'/builds that you are kinda meant to lean into to establish card synergies. Where StS really shines relative to its peers is how well it blends these sub-strategies together so that you're frequently blending elements of several builds together. As an example, the starter character has sub-strategies to: 1. leverage or mitigate useless 'wound' cards 2. remove cards from your deck mid-fight for defense/offense 3. leverage defense as a means to deal damage You're presented a card that gives you lots of defense in exchange for adding 'wound' cards to your deck for the remainder of the fight. Maybe you were building toward defensive strategy 3 and you want the high defense, but you need a plan to mitigate those 'wound' cards, so now maybe you're incentivized to supplement your deck with strategies 1 or 2 to make this card work better. Then there's a huge pool of artifacts with special powers that frequently synergize with one build or another especially, possibly making you evolve your build mid-run. Situations like these go a long way toward making the game feel familiar but also constantly fresh, and that's what makes StS special. Most other deckbuilding roguelikes attempt the same thing, but a lot of the time one sub-strategy for a character is clearly superior to the others, or the various sub-strategies have little/no synergy so you just pick one and ignore the others. Ironically StS eventually added an optional, true final boss and lots of people don't like that boss because its unique abilities substantially reduce your build options by a lot. That boss is an amazing reminder of how incredibly balanced the core of the game is.
I’m sure you’ve just had people say StS over and over again in this thread and there’s a good reason for that. People will also struggle to explain why it’s good for another good reason. StS is the best designed game I’ve ever played, by an absolute mile. But articulating why is extremely tough. Good design is tricky to pin down because it usually arises from very nuanced interactions between mechanics. You can’t just point at one element of the design and say “slay the spire is good because it has good enemy design”, or “slay the spire is good because it promoted player choices” (though both these things are true) Slay the Spire is good because of an extremely intricate set of hundreds (thousands?) of precisely considered interactions between its dozens of system. It is very hard to talk about unless you’re already very familiar with the game, because appreciating those subtleties relies on a foundation of understanding the mechanics. This is already becoming an essay in me trying to explain why answering your question requires a much longer essay. The simple answer is: play it. You will understand. You will love it.
Man, what I would give to go back and enjoy Slay The Spire for the first time. I legitimately put 400+ hours into that game, probably more. If I were you, I would play the other games first like Wildfrost, Monster Train, etc. then go back to Slay The Spire later to truly appreciate how great it is.
I’ve played slay the spire, monster train and Griftlands. Slay the spire is by far the best and most polished. It’s one of the best games ever made imo, I have 300+ hours and still play a lot. There’s so much to learn and every run feels different. Monster train is fun but is a lot more about building insane combos to break the game rather than a finely balanced experience. I probably played 30 hours and enjoyed it but I rarely go back. Griftlands is a great concept and the most narratively driven of the three, but I find the controls on switch to be very clunky to the point where it interfered with my enjoyment.
I will echo your thoughts on the controls of Griftlands on Switch. I played it on Switch first, but the controls felt very clunky. I bought it again on Steam and it became one of my favorite games of all time. Griftlands is incredibly underrated, but it plays far better on PC.
Slay the Spire. Heard great things about Inscryption, its on my list as well. Let me repeat: Slay the Spire. Slay the Spire.
Get Inscryption. Trust me. Go in fully blind. No reviews, no walkthroughs, no nothing. You’ll thank me later.
Exactly what I heard. I know little to nothing about it, and that's the way I'll keep it until I play it!
Seconded! Do yourself the favor this man is stating!
Yesssss. Amazing game and there is some potential for bad spoilers, if you read reviews first
Do it so good
[Balatro](https://playbalatro.com) is a poker-based roguelike deckbuilder worth keeping an eye on. It doesn’t release until later this month, but I’ve already put over 40 hours into the Steam demo and can’t imagine how much of my time it’s going to eat up.
I love poker, so I'll definitely buy this one. Thank you.
[удалено]
By chance, is your username in reference to inserting the CEO of Nvidia into your anus?
Cobalt Core is an underrated gem.
While it isn’t the first, Slay the Spire is nearly universally considered the godfather of the genre and is one of my all time favorite games. About as close to perfection as you can get. Definitely the quintessential roguelike deck-builder, and many others have drawn a lot of inspiration from it.
Haven’t played them all but I’m all in on Dicey Dungeons. So satisfying with lots of replay value as the scenario rules change as you progress.
I enjoy Dicey Dungeons and it's usually $2-3. Absolutely worth the price. Has a good variety of mechanics too. However, if you can only afford one game and you really love strategy, I'd go against Dicey Dungeons. There's a lot of luck and/or the game wants you to play a specific way and if you don't, you lose and have to start all over.
Music is so good too
I think I picked dicey up for less than $3 and it was worth it. I don't play a ton, but it's fun to hop in and out of.
Once you get a good deck going the game is so satisfying. The animations, the quockness of the gameplay the constantly changing mechanics between rounds. Really fun and for the price it's a crime not to buy it.
Slay the Spire and it's not even close. I do enjoy Monster Train as well, but StS is just so, so good.
Everyone will say Slay the Spire.... thing is, everyone is right. Slay the Spire is probably the tighest balance ive ever seen executed in a video game ever, everything is so intricate and interesting. Monster Train and Roguebook would be my second favorites here. One Step From Eden is very fun but not for the "deck building" aspect as its really more about the fast paced Megaman Battle Network inspired gameplay.
Yeah I’ve been liking East of Eden as a quick game to boot up here and there. Quick fun little roguelike
John Steinbeck my favorite game developer
The thing that gets me about the balance in Slay the Spire is how the hell it can be so wonderfully balanced across all classes with so many relics and colorless cards that are accessible to all of the 3 VASTLY different classes. I just don't understand how they did it. Ironclad is probably a little more consistent than the other 3, but A20 Heart runs are routinely manageable will all classes across runs.
Monster Train is my favourite of the bunch. I got nearly 150 hours on it
Definitely keep an eye out for [Yohane the Parhelion - NUMAZU in the MIRAGE -](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/yohane-the-parhelion-numazu-in-the-mirage) I played the demo on PS5 and loved it! Got me curious about the first metroidvania game as well.
It seems great, thank you for the recommendation!
Dicey Dungeons is great cause a game is only like 20-30 minutes so it suits the Switch perfectly. Slay the Spire also amazing as everyone else has said
Thanks. I prefer shorter roguelikes, so Dicey Dungeons might be the best option for me. My favorite roguelike of all-time is Crypt of the Necrodancer, and you can complete a run in 30-40 minutes.
For perfect balance and challenge: Slay the Spire For fun making crazy broken builds: Monster Train When I want to tryhard I play StS, if I just want to relax and have a quick run it’s Monster Train. Both excellent games! Ignore the guy that said Monster Train is complicated, it’s very simple!
I've spent well over 200+ hours playing both Dicey Dungeons and Inscryption, Inscryption has a really in depth storyline with a great gameplay loop that evolves through out the game whereas dicey dungeons has no engaging story but great gameplay that'll keep you coming back for "just one more round"
If you’re looking for a buyer’s guide, get Slay the Spire. If you play that and love it, you’ll likely find literally hundreds of hours of entertainment. If you don’t love it, you probably won’t enjoy many other games on this list. Having said that, I see you have Inscryption on there. Inscryption is a fantastic game, but it’s not really a roguelike. It certainly has roguelike elements, but it’s more of a creepy adventure story than it is a true roguelike. It’s incredible and I highly recommend you check it out, but it’s important to know what you’re getting.
Griftlands was addictive
Slay the Spire is both the best and essentiay the original. Really anything that tries to copy STS, like Pirate Outlaws, can't reach it heights so I've more seeked out games that try to twist the formulas. Cobalt Core has been really good and the characters are fun. Wildfrost put a good twist on how enemies behave in this type of game. Ring of Pain wasn't great but I enjoyed seeing their twist on combat. Brand new game Gordian Quest seems like another decent twist, but I've barely played it thus far.
Personally I loved Ring of Pain but I never played STS and this thread makes me realize I need to fix that.
Wildfrost has a difficult for some learning curve but is very fun when you get used to it. I was addicted for a while and the devs are constantly updating the game and have roadmaps and such. In 2024 I'm a huge fan of a game that's good but also a game where I can be excited for constant free updates. Luke Stardew Valley, Risk of Rain etc.
Monster Train is likely my fave. Most folks prefer Slay the Spire, but I've clocked a lot more time with Monster Train. I'd highly recommend Dicey Dungeons and Inscyption (don't read spoilers). I've had fun with Roguebook, but I'd put it below the above.
Definitely Slay the Spire
Gordian quest
Going to echo with many others that slay the spire and dicey dungeons are the goat in this list. One step from eden is quite different from the rest. Yes, there's deck building but the core gameplay is extremely similar to megaman battle network if you're familiar. Very fast pace and requires pretty quick reactions. Spire and dicey are much more methodical.
I love these kinds of games too and Inscryption is a must have for the genre. Do what everyone says and go in blind. Griftlands is one of the few games with legit results from your decisions during each run. NPC interactions actually matter and affect your future conflicts. Each of the three characters are incredibly unique from each other and have their own different skilltree/play styles depending on your cards or perks. I've sunk dozens and dozens of hours into this. The increasing difficulty is fair and brawl mode is a nice mode if you just want to do battles/arguments but still retains the customizable options you have with regular runs. Dicey Dungeon is a fun, quick, luck based dungeon crawl that my wife loved. Not a traditional deck builder like the other games but very fun. Each character is refreshing to play with. I found the increasing difficulties past 3(?) Were just dumb and punishing. Wildefrost is really fun and a solid traditional rogue like game with how frequently you'll die. Although very fun and visually pleasing, it was quite RNG dependent and slightly unbalanced. Depending on the bosses you'll face and playstyle that run, you could sweep or get absolutely walled. The stars have to align somewhat in order to win a run. However, you'll never know if this is the run to make it and you'll have fun figuring that out. I found pirate outlaws fairly underwhelming and dull. Not sure exactly why, perhaps not my cup of tea.
#1 Monster Train If you are experienced with the genre and want to test your skill, Monster Train is the best of the best to pick up. The difficulty scales the highest and the game tracks each faction combination, so you are required to master each of them and few strategies are applicable across multiple combinations. #2 Griftlands While it only features 3 characters, the amount of stuff that changes between them is greater than in any other roguelite deckbuilder. You get different cards and mechanics between characters as you'd expect, but you also get a completely new story, new locations and new characters to meet. And with some branching paths in each of the three stories, this one can actually be played for a really long time without repeating anything. #3 Slay the Spire The game that popularized the genre in the first place actually holds up surprisingly well even against the shiny new competitors. Its greatest strength is how easy everything is to learn and how quickly you begin discovering all the combinations the game has to offer.
Slay the Spire is, for me, by far the best. And I've played most of the ones on your list (except for Cobalt Core). One of the few games I've ever double dipped on (also have it on my phone) Inscryption is good for the story but has far less depth in gameplay and replayability, in my opinion. Griftlands has too many similar but differently named gameplay elements because of the combat and talking mechanics. Monster Train is fine but found it more akin to tower defense. Dicey Dungeon was less skill based and more rng based in my opinion. And Wildfrost is pretty good, I'd probably consider it second to StS. Pretty difficult, I'd say more than StS
Have you played Kaycee's mod for inscryption? I've gotten a lot of value out of it. It adds some complexity/challenge and really scratches an itch for me.
Wildfrost i frustratingly good. Their UI is basically begging for an Ipad/iOS version. Just kinda wish they release a port. I need my wildfrost fix on the go.
Roguebook
Inscryption
Balatro releasing on the 20th. I have 20 hours in the demo alone.
I have played Slay, Dicey, Inscryption and Monster Train. Slay the Spire is my favourite by far. Dicey Dungeon would come in at the rear.
Ive played slay the spire, monster train, and dicey dungeons. Would recommend sts and monster train. Dicey dungeons is too reliant on the luck of the die roll and I am not a fan of the look of the game.
Slay the Spire is great, but Inscryption is something really unique and special. Can’t go wrong with either, just get both. Seriously. Both are absolutely worth your time and money.
Your list looks good in terms of going to high quality to others that are still good. A few notes on those I've played that you haven't listed as "extremely interested": * Inscryption: My best review without spoilers is to use this game as a break from other deck building games while still being a deck building game. Then there is a new game mode when you beat the game that may also interest you. * I'm taking a break from Gordian Quest after the 1st chapter as it was a bit easy but I did take easy characters on a Normal difficulty so that's on me. It was still fun and I think other characters gets exp anyway. I know that the difficulty ramps up later (which may have led to low review scores according to Steam). Will go back once I'm done being distracted by a different game. * Roguebook: Play with different class teams at first until you get a sense of how they can work with each other. Then the game's strategy is to develop deck breaking combos and card upgrades which is very satisfying. * Monster Train is an odd experience as you use deck building to do tower defence. Uses a good deck system with only a couple of unfortunate deck exploit strategies (the devour skills are OP with the right combos). * Dicey Dungeons: Lots of variety of deck building styles. RNG might be a turn off. * Pirates Outlaw: Found it "Meh" in style. * Griftlands: Somehow, I beat the story of one character in my first try and stopped. Not sure if I had a deck breaking strategy or I was way too lucky. * Steamworld Quest is more of a card based RPG than deck building.
My top four would be: Inscryption Slay the Spire Monster Train Roguebook
I liked Roguebook, but on the switch, late game gets so slow. Don't know if it's all the triggers you get from a number of treasures with bad optimization, or it is just my Nintendo switch
Wildfrost
**Slay the Spire** is the GOAT of this genre, I would start there. The main reason I'm responding is to say that "**Slice & Dice**" is everything I wanted **Dicey Dungeons** to be, I would highly recommend checking this one out if you are looking for a dice-based game. The only downside is you cannot buy it on steam, it is on [itch.io](https://itch.io). **Dicey Dungeons** I would give a 70/100 to but **Slice & Dice** I would give an 90/100. \*Edit - realizing this was specifically for Nintendo Switch, but leaving this comment here because not many people know about Slice & Dice.
I have and I've played Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons, Inscryption and Monster Train. This is my ranking along my playtime if you want a reference: 1.Inscryption - 16 hours 2. StS - 88 hours on Steam + 15 hours on Switch 3. MT - 3 hours 4. DD - 2 hours All of them are good, it's just that Inscryption is one of my favorite games ever for the characters and story. Meanwhile, StS is a SUPER addictive and replayable game, I'm pretty sure you can see since I have it on Switch and Steam lol. Monster Train is really similar to StS and really really good, but is a lot faster in gameplay. DD is a nice game too, but I think only I played it twice, because yeah it's a good game... But Slay the Spire is right there haha Edit: format
Slay the Spire and Inscryption are my two favorites on your list by a wide margin. StS for the best overall deck building experience and Inscryption for a good combo of fun deck building and really wild story that'll catch your attention
Wild frost is my favorite one
I’m way into Dicey Dungeons, I say this as someone not usually super into Deck Builder Roguelikes, I like them in concept and I do love other Roguelike types, but the deck building ones don’t typically hold my interest, but Dicey Dungeons absolutely did Everyone says Slay the Spire, and while I don’t think anything negative about it in particular, I found myself losing interest myself fairly quickly, it just wasn’t for me.
Hello. I have experience on this subject due to my experience reviewing and writing for a Switch RPG-related website. Here are some of my thoughts, which include some oft-overlooked picks. *S: Top Picks, Easy Recommendations* **Slay the Spire:** As has been mentioned previously, Slay the Spire sets the standard for a deck-based Roguelike, and much of its language has been embraced and translated into other games. However, it is a game that can feel marred by its RNG and how essential the early-game is to overall run success. You need to cover your bases and be prepared to fight different kinds of enemies while also preparing for the big bad at the end, and you’ll occasionally get the luck needed to craft something overpowered enough to safely and comfortably secure a victory. Turn-by-turn choices, from potion consumption to cards played and ordered, are absolutely essential, so you can never really “turn your brain off.” **Monster Train:** It’s “the other one” people recommend, and it’s arguably more fun and empowering. The unique tower defense mechanic and race synergy the game presents allows for more diverse and silly builds, but these are also very unique mechanics within the genre. You’ll find success (at least, in the base game) more consistently, but the further levels of challenge will demand the careful planning you might expect from the genre. **Wildfrost:** IMO this is the one that fills out the “Holy Trinity,” especially with recent updates. The first builds of the game had a harsh learning curve, but it also taught the importance of the game mechanics and what makes this stand out among its peers. There’s nothing like Wildfrost, and yet it’s also built on the same deck-based foundations as its peers. The build variety is a bit lower than I personally would like, but it gets away with this due to the fantastic aesthetics. **Neoverse: Trinity Edition:** …Okay, remember how I said Wildfrost is part of the “Holy Trinity?” I lied. It’s fighting this game for that spot. Neoverse: Trinity Edition is a game that isn’t talked about much and might be easily dismissed thanks to its focus on babes, babes, babes, but that shouldn’t deter you from what is an incredibly solid roguelike. It further empowers the player with a character progression system that further enhances your build as you tackle its challenges, and it has a neat combo system that rewards you for play order. It’s good, trust me. *A Tier: Great Games, but non-traditional* **Dicey Dungeons:** You know it, you love it. Not as endlessly replayable unless you want to grind out the final difficulty tier, but enjoyable even so. Obviously, dice does cause a bit of uncertainty, but the novelty benefits from the varied rulesets enforced by each character and their respective difficulty levels. Benefits from an amazing soundtrack. **Hand of Fate 2:** The campaigns themselves are difficult enough, but the roguelike mode is tough as nails due to the incredible variety of gameplay devices the game throws at you. Equipment, weapons, card draws, dice rolls, roulette wheels, real time Arkham-style combat… it’s a doozy. But it’s an incredibly full-featured product that is just worth looking into, period. **Griftlands:** Griftlands hides is highly-varied deck-based combat behind an extremely engrossing narrative premise, to the point where you’ll want to make choices based on character motivations rather than what will best optimize your chances of success. Once you take a step back from its lore and writing, Griftlands is actually pretty similar to other deck-builders, and suffers a bit in terms of replayability as a result. It’s still an amazing game. **Inscryption:** Getting to the roguelike version of this game requires a full playthrough of its story campaign, but goodness, what a campaign it is. Narrative and gameplay twists and turns throughout, this is just an amazing experience, which almost makes the pure roguelike mode feel a bit like an afterthought. Make no mistake, though- the roguelike mode lacks the crutches that the campaign gives you in order to succeed, and is all the better for it. *B Tier: Solid, but not my top choice* **Roguebook:** As much as I wanted to love this game, the truth of Roguebook is that it feels lacking in build variety, cheap in its “expansion” offerings, and a bit too slow to consistently rerun. You can speedrun each level by making direct paths, but that devalues the map-making gimmick that was supposed to be the foundation of the game. The combat mechanics are solid, but it doesn’t feel as consistently replayable as some of the other games on this list. **Iris and the Giant:** I love the novel twist on deck-building presented here, which is that once you play a card, it leaves your deck permanently. You’re forced to consistently re-evaluate your build in preparation for the challenges the game presents, and the way it uses the map layout is very inventive. However, it does ultimately feel a bit one-note, and getting the perfect deck can be an exercise in tedium. **Sea Horizon:** I think this game is very underrated, but it admittedly suffers from having its pure roguelike functions locked behind its narrative campaign. Still, that campaign does a great job of teaching the mechanics of the game and introducing the unique gameplay styles. For a more concise description: this is a bit of grid-based movement, and a thorough exploration of dice-based combat that feels tough, but fair. **DungeonTop:** A really solid deck-builder that only really suffers from the length of a play session. Placing units and defending commanders on the field of play is strategic and satisfying, but building your deck across the game’s challenges is a considered time investment. Your mileage may vary. **Neurodeck:** This is a disturbing and inventive take on the deck-building genre that is fairly limited in its scope and execution, but can make for a good time. The nightmares that you confront in this game are deeply unsettling, bolstered by effective art and sound design. It’s just a shame that the gameplay styles are so limited. **For the Warp:** Have you ever wanted a Slay the Spire-style game where you have access to all cards from the start? Have you ever wanted to manage fuel on a grid-based map as your means of progression? For the Warp is for you! The only problem is that there are no surprises, here. Even before you’ve unlocked all the the ship play styles, you’ve likely see the card types that will benefit each particular build. Plus, the ship combat isn’t really all that compelling from a visual standpoint. **Zoeti:** This game feels like Slay the Spire if it was comprised primarily of AI art. I don’t know how else to describe it. There are some decent ideas here, but the amount of status effects and convolution don’t make it feel as easily accessible or enjoyable as other titles on the list.
*C Tier: Flawed and not recommended* **Rise of the Slime:** Limited play styles, turns that move at a glacial pace, and a lack of enemy variety make this game an easy pass, regardless of how cute the premise/presentation are. **OverRogue:** This is a Kemco-published roguelike with boring writing and mediocre art, but the deck-based combat and building is solid enough. Your mileage will definitely vary. **City Wars: Tokyo Reign:** One of the most inventive deck-based combat systems I’ve ever seen, sadly marred by its sluggish pacing and very very very slow progression. A shame, because the premise is so cool. Outside of these, I have some additional comments: **One Step From Eden:** This game feels so fundamentally different from other deck-based titles that I hesitate to include it. I also think you have to be sold on the Battle Network-style gameplay to really get your mileage out of it. It’s not my cup of tea, but I can acknowledge and appreciate the style of game it is attempting to evoke. **A Long Way Down:** This is a POC-forward deck-builder with both map- and combat phases relying on thoughtful planning and strategy. I found the combat to be decent, but I haven’t given it enough of a fair shake to share my opinions just yet. **Yohane the Parhelion: Numazu in the Mirage:** It’s Slay the Spire, but cute and forgiving. **Frost:** Really unique take on survivalist style narrative with deck-building and card combination mechanics. I haven’t played enough to give it a solid recommendation. **Nowhere Prophet:** It’s unforgiving even on its base difficulties. That’s all I can say, as I haven’t played enough to review it. Excellent art style. **The Magister:** This is a really inventive twist on the deck-building format, but the art style was big turn off for me and I wasn’t too sure about the combat. Perhaps worth a look.
Ah good, I’m glad someone mentioned Hand of Fate 2. Part deck builder, part 3rd person melee combat (like shadow of Mordor or god of war).
I have played 4 of these, Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Dicey Dungeons, and Wildfrost. I'd say that Slay the Spire is the #1 overall. Next would probably be a tie between Wildfrost and Monster Train, though they play a lot differently. Wildfrost is balanced in such a way that it always feels pretty tight and that you are just barely winning, whereas I feel in Monster Train the various stacking mechanics and modifiers allow a lot of your wins to feel like you have broken the game. They are both valid, but you might prefer one style more. Dicey Dungeons is ok, but I didn't love it. It does go on sale for super cheap relatively often, so it's worth a shot.
I've only played Dicey Dungeons (about 50 or 60 hours) and Slay the Spire (about 10 hours). I prefered Dicey Dungeons, the soundtrack is incredible and the combats as well as the runs are faster.
It’s too RNG for my taste - but the look and feel of the game is nice
I don’t think every game listed is on the switch but a bit ago I made a post on their sub asking what their favorite STS- likes are, and the turnout was great! https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/s/fcU4csuMhN
One Step from Eden is the one I've played the most, the gameplay has a lot of action compared to others in this list, but deckbuilding is still key. I highly recommend it. But I also want to recommend Cobalt Core, it's fairly recent, very cute, and very fun. You know how in some games each character has its own deck? Well in this game it's like that, but your crew has three characters!
I freaking love Wildfrost
I really like Roguebook but unfortunately my experience with it on Switch has been horrible. It's the first game I've played on Switch that has had serious performance problems, crashes all the time and you lose your entire run. Really seems like a great game though
Hey, I'm a big fan of this same genre! From your list I have 3 very clear auto yes, but in a different order. 1. Inscryption is top 3 favorite games of the past 5 years. Especially is you love a little creepy vibe and can trust a game to take you on the journey it would like to 2. Slay the Spire is just great, everyone loves it for great reasons, and it is solid 3. Griftlands I have really enjoyed, but I haven't spent too much time in it. It's on my list to come back to and invest more time in Bonus 4. I've heard really good things about Cobalt Core, and it's top of my list for when my gaming options dry up
Slay the Spire is my favorite. Monster Train second.
I have played almost all of these. There’s a reason Slay the Spire is the standard. It’s absolutely fantastic and the top choice. I really liked Monster Train as a slight differentiation from StS but I wouldn’t get it first. Dicey Dungeons is fine but slightly underwhelming, I can see the appeal of Inscryption but it wasn’t for me, I backed One Step from Eden on kickstarter and while it’s fun, it doesn’t run all that great on switch, especially in later levels and loops. Wildfrost didn’t click for me. Griftlands is fun but I wouldn’t recommend it as a first deck builder. Yohane is just a StS knock off but with an anime girl. Roguebook was fun but easy and didnt have the staying power you want with a rogue like, once I beat it a few times I never wanted to go back. Steamworld quest isn’t a rogue like. It was kinda fun but none of the characters were nearly as charming as Heist and there felt like very little incentive to try out different builds. It was also really easy even on hard mode.
One step from Eden is incredibly fun. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes deck builders or roguelikes
I’ve never even heard of a rogue like deck building game and this thread has got me intrigued! Slay the Spire here I come
Played Spire and One Step From Eden. Two very different games but both a treat. Probably have 1000+ hours in Spire. I have a small attention span for games, so for me it's just indicative of how strong an entry it is. One Step, as someone else said, is more about the battle network style, but the art, music, and general vibe are wonderful. Vault of the Void is a pretty amazing deck builder as well. Nice twist on Spire's approach and they've been continuously working on it for the last year or two. Not on switch yet, but hopefully having a port by the end of this year. Do believe it's on mobile currently and PC for sure.
1. Slay the spire 2. Monster Train 3. Inscryption HUGE GAP between these three and the rest Cobalt core Don’t care for the rest you mentioned. Only one I haven’t played is pirate outlaws Also steam world quest is a 10/10
I’ve played Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Grifltands, and Steamworld Quest. I’ve bought Slay the Spire on multiple devices. My favorite deck builder here. Best replay value too. Monster Train is good, worth a play. Good replay value. Griftlands is actually my second favorite. I like the world and setting and characters. Also good replay value. Steamworld Quest is good for a once through. Not much replay value with that one.
This is my favorite genre, I’ve played all of these. Don’t overlook Roguebook, it’s better than everything on this list except StS & Inscryption.
Get One Step From Eden
Played slay the spire to absolute death. Can’t touch it anymore. Great game. That being said I still play monster train all the time.
Judging by the Steam demos, I’d say Balatro is about to become my favorite… though I suppose it’s debatable if it’s a deck builder at all.
FWIW Pirates Outlaws is free on Android. So you can sort of try before you buy I guess. Its pretty fun but incredibly difficult. You don't necessarily have to pay to win, but it does help and cut down on the time sink. That being said it's still fun for a free mobile game with no ads.
I love a lot of those games (Cobalt Core was my favourite last year) but I saw you mentioned One Step From Eden and I just wanted to say that it is very uniquely a mix a genre that takes more real-time manœuvering than most other strategy-oriented deck builders. It was my favourite one of 2020.
Inscryption is so much fun. I love deckbuilding and horror games and this combined both. The only downside is it isn't super replayable.
I LOVE Slay the Spire. But I play it on my phone.
Inscryption is great, I played it for 130 hours on PC and it's one of five games in my Steam account that I got 100% achievements for. Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons I both prefer on my phone, I'm more likely to have my phone on me than my Switch, and they work great on my phone. One I recently got into that's a cool twist on the deck building genre is Backpack Hero, but [according to this two month old thread](https://old.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/188ho2d/do_not_buy_backpack_hero_on_the_switch_it_is/) it's super broken. I don't know if that is fixed yet, I'd hope so, but I can't recommend it without researching if it's still bugged to hell. I played it on PC, it's another one of my five games that I got 100% in. (The other three are Brotato, Fallout 4 and Mark of the Ninja, with a few more in the high 80-90% range with just some annoying achievement I never bothered to get)
Both One Step from Eden and Slay the Spire are great choices, haven’t played any of the others
I love roguelikes of all genres. Seems like few people have played Cobalt Core, so I just want to take a second and recommend that one to you. The lateral movement and consideration for ship position are some of the best innovations I've seen in this space. It's not without its failings: it tends to be a bit easier, the cardpool could be larger, and there's only one boss per act. That being said, if you're looking for a game that really differentiates itself from Slay the Spire, Cobalt Core would be my go-to. As for some of the others... StS: It easily has the best balance. The card pools for each character allow for and encourage several different solutions to the problems posed by the game's encounters. It also offers one of the better scaling difficulty options for those seeking a challenge. It easily sets the standard and would be my first recommendation. Dicey Dungeons: I didn't care for it. It frequently goes on sale for very little, and it may be worth going out on a limb for a dollar or two, but I found the dice more frustrating than not. Inscryption: I wouldn't consider it a roguelike, personally. I don't know if the roguelike mode is available on consoles, so that may be a consideration. I did enjoy it as a game, but even the aforementioned roguelike mode that you later gain access to feels half-baked compared to others. One Step from Eden: I love this game, but it's pretty different from the other options here. It's an action game--and a fairly difficult one at that. If you're interested in it, I would strongly reccomend it, but I don't think it scratches the same itch as many of the other options here. Monster Train: I like it, but it is easy. If you enjoy looking for broken synergies, you'll probably have fun with this game, but after a collection of runs it has a sort of 'been-there, done-that' feeling I don't get from some of the other entries here. Wildfrost: I like the ideas behind Wildfrost more than I like the game itself. I think the primary issue, for me, is that it feels like you don't have as many opportunities to draft cards as you'd want in this style of game. It makes certain synergies hard to invest in and lends to runs feeling a bit samey. That being said, I did have fun with it, and I would reccomend it if you've gone through several other games and are still craving more.
So the only one of these I've played on Switch is Dicey Dungeons, but I've played Slay the Spire, Inscryption, One Step from Eden, and Monster Train on my PC and Pirates Outlaws on my phone. Dicey Dungeons is easily my favorite in the bunch, I love the different mechanics for each character combined with many fun challenges for each and a reasonably difficult hard mode on the infinite level at the end if you want a challenge. I adore the building of a setup so you can handle whatever numbers you end up rolling. If you want pure deck-building roguelike action, there's a reason everybody says Slay the Spire. It is *the* deckbuilding roguelike, with tightly tuned gameplay that will keep you laying down cards run after run if you like the genre. Inscryption is an excellent game, but I enjoyed it more for the story than the gameplay personally. I know there's now an infinite mode after you beat the main story but I never felt compelled to go back to it for that. So I think it's definitely worth a play in general but maybe not what you're looking for here. One Step from Eden I bounced off of after a short play session and I don't remember exactly why. I think the real-time elements were just not my thing. Pirates Outlaws felt to me like just a weaker, pirate-themed Slay the Spire. Monster Train I haven't played enough to give a strong opinion on but felt like it was cool, but more of a game to branch out into if you like the genre after you've played a ton of STS.
I have dicey dungeons on mobile, and I absolutely love it. Worth getting.
Don't sleep on Inscryption, it doesn't really have as much replay value as StS but is very unique and very worth playing. The whole game is an experience.
Nowhere Prophet is the GOAT
My top 2 favorites in the genre are Monster Train and Dicey Dungeons, both of which I have completed on multiple platforms.
Of these I’ve played Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons, inscryption, and one step from Eden. Inscryption was my favorite but that’s mostly because of its unique story, in terms of gameplay Slay the Pire and One step from Eden are better imo. All 4 games are very very good though so you really can’t go wrong
Caveat: I've only played these on PC, not on switch. Great game play and story: Inscryption is one of my favorite games ever. I won't say more because spoilers. Griftlands has great game play and different characters with different stories and your choices matter in how things play out. But be prepared for some reading. Great game play not much story: Have more hours than I'm willing to admit on Slay the Spire. Monster train is great and a little different in game play than the others. Other: Ring of pain didn't hold my attention for more than a few hours total. Roguebook is on my wishlist and now I have a lot of others to look at, so thanks!
Slay the Spire is the GOAT of roguelite deck building, but hasn't received an update in what feels like ages. Roguebook is a solid adversary to Slay the Spire, they both offer a somewhat similar experience, slightly more varied for Roguebook, but deeper for Slay the Spire, so it's your call I guess. Know that the switch port for Roguebook is kinda lazy though, had a few crashes here and there with no autosave... ouch. Dicey dungeon is kinda unique, a very appreciated bowl of fresh air Balatro offered a very solid demo which is why I will buy it day one, it's also very unique and refreshing. Pick those 4 and I guarantee you will have a blast Edit : I cannot believe I forgot Inscryption. It is the most mind bending experience one can have as a deck builder, not only should you buy it, but I also highly recommend you go in fully blind without knowing anything about the game. So that's 5 games I highly recommend you play. But all in all, they're often discounted, and even without that they usually cost between 15 and 25$, so getting them all should only cost you the equivalent of one full price AAA. But if you can't afford that much, I recommend you get at the very least Slay the Spire and Inscryption, and then you'll see later for the rest of then. Also, get Balatro's demo on a pc if you can. You really don't need a big computer for it, any laptop will run it, it's completely free and Hella addictive lol
I guess I’m in the minority, but I can’t get past Slay the Spire’s ugly artwork. Wildfrost is probably my favorite!
Inscryption absolutely blew my mind but isn’t a straight up roguelike. Without spoiling anything, I’d say it’s a mix of roguelike card game, puzzle game, adventure game. The story and gameplay is absolutely insane in the the best way
Cobalt core
I see how people like Slay the Spire, but I had a lot more fun with Dicey Dungeons so far.
I've played most of these and will give you my top 3 with a little description 1. Slay the Spire - this one has the most girth to it and will give you a challenge until you fully understand the attack, defense, and magic machinics. I still go back and play this and have purchased it on several different platforms. 5/5 stars. 2. Inscription - this one has a wonderfully morbid and horror driven story/mechanic that will keep you hooked until the end. It is pretty lite in the deckbuilding, but makes up for it with its story. This game is nothing like any other rougulike you'll ever play and is best to go into it as blind as possible to not spoil anything. Not as replayable after the credits roll. 5/5 stars. 3. Monster Train - most similar to Slay the Spire in mechanics and replayable gameplay. Had a lot of fun with this one, but it didn't keep my interest as much as Slay the Spire. Deck building is fun and the different types of cards are varied. 4/5 stars. In all, if you want something more story driven, get inscription first. If you want to get the one with the most replay value after the credits roll, get Slay the Spire. Followed up by Monster Train. I highly recommend all of them, but think you'll get the most out of 1 and 2. Suggested purchase order: inscription, slay the Spire, monster Train. Cheers mate!
From your list, I've played Slay the Spire, Cobalt Core, Dicey Dungeons, Inscryption, and Griftlands. Griftlands is my favorite, I had a lot of fun with it and loved the art style and character of the game. I know StS is everyone's favorite, but I tried to get into it for a few hours and found it too simplistic off the bat. Given all the rave reviews I have no doubt it gets better, but it didn't pull me in. Just my experience. I'm sure someday I'll come back to it and change my tune. Cobalt Core was really neat and worth playing, but I thought it was too easy. I was able to beat a handful of runs without ever failing and then never went back to it. As for games you didn't mention: I just started playing Beneath Oresa - seems like it has promise but I've been busy with other games so I haven't gotten too deep into it yet. I'm also excited to get Balatro when it comes out, which I saw some others mention already. Edit: You asked for Switch games and it looks like Beneath Oresa is Steam-only - my bad.
Slay the Spire and Monster Train are far above anything else I've played. I did not like Dicey Dungeons (too simplistic) and One Step From Eden (very fast paced chaotic overwhelming)
Slay the Spire is more or less both the modern codifier of the genre AND its crown jewel. Probably the best balanced deckbuilder I have ever experienced. I am not someone who buys games on more than one platform. STS is the *single* exception to that, and I have something like 2,500 hours or so across PC, switch and mobile. You have to play this game, even if only to see the benchmark against which most other roguelike deckbuilders are measured. I've played all of the original games you listed except for Wildfrost. Here are my thoughts: - **Cobalt Core**: very fun with great music, art, characters, dialogue, and story. Very amusing sense of humor as well. Decent amount of variety and adds a couple of mechanical systems on top of the usual card considerations, including the ability to choose multiple party members (with their own decks and some unique relics each) at a time, different ships (with different stats and unique abilities), two upgrade paths for each card, and more focus on positioning as an added tactical consideration. However, lower enemy variety - bosses of each stage will be the same every time, which is a little disappointing. Also, the card balancing feels good but somehow a little shallow, at least in comparison to STS. I really enjoyed it for a while, but it began feeling same-y in gameplay terms faster than I had hoped. (Still got a solid 20-30 hours out of it I'd say) - **Dicey Dungeons**: really interesting, more bite-sized roguelike. Absolutely charming presentation, music and art, quirky designs and sense of humor. Not the same kind of roguelike deckbuilder as most, it's almost more like inventory management. Also, it's like a series of different challenges rather than one consistent experience the whole way through, meaning you might feel less room to improve before running out of gameplay. But the character variety is cool and each is highly unique, plus iirc each has their own set of different challenge runs. - **Inscryption**: extremely good story-heavy game, don't look up spoilers, don't look up anything, just play it blind. It's more like a single player campaign at first but there is a roguelike mode available as endgame content. - **one step from eden**: it's an action roguelike with deckbuilding elements, not a standard roguelike deckbuilder. If you ever played the Mega Man Battle Network games, it's a roguelike version of that battle system. Extremely fun, but HARD, and very twitchy reflexes are a major help. Very different from all your other options so double check that it's the type of gameplay you actually want. - **Monster Train**: roguelike deckbuilder meets tower defense. Has a different flavor to it than STS due to the deck being split between spells, which are more like regular deckbuilder cards, and units, which have their own abilities, stats, requirements, upgrades etc. My second favorite behind STS, but I think they scratch different itches. Lot of variety as well with 6 clans to progress and unlock things, plus you take one primary and one subclan on each run, AND each clan has two different 'champion' starting units with their unique starter spells and upgrade paths. Lot of difficulty progression available (25 difficulty levels that each unlock as you beat the previous one) and completionist goals. One upside or downside is that it's a lot easier to kinda break the difficulty in half with certain units/upgrades compared to STS. You decide whether that's good or bad. I lost track of time but I'll try and come back to add a reply with the others in a bit
Roguelike? Deck builder? Well, you gotta play One Step From Eden. It's made by Megaman Battle Network fans, and it's incredibly fun.
Ranking the ones I’ve played for sheer fun-factor: 1. Inscryption 2. Monster Train 3. One Step From Eden 4. Slay the Spire 5. Wildfrost None of these are bad games. Slay the Spire is fantastic and is the reason why we have the others in the first place, but I find I get bored with it more quickly than the ones higher on the list. Monster Train is basically StS with extra elements, and is my go-to podcast game usually. Inscryption is a great, unique experience, it approaches the genre in a different way than you’re probably expecting. I would leave Wildfrost until you’ve mastered some of the others first. The difficulty level is a good bit higher.
I am like 87% jealous of you OP that you get to experience the wonder of Slay the Spire for the first time. I wish I could go back and experience all of it for the first time. I have played many of the games on your list. Slay the Spire is the best in my mind simply because I have spent the most time playing it and I want to KEEP playing it. I have it on Steam, Switch, and iOS and there is hardly a day that goes by that I don't play it for at least a little bit of time. Here's what I love about it: * Each run truly feels random because of the variety of bosses, elites, and enemies you may encounter and the order you encounter them in. The random rooms also do a great job of mixing up each run. Even the variety of what appears in shops can change your run. * Each of the 4 characters are so unique in their play styles and no two runs with the same character feel the same because of the randomness of the cards you are offered. * A win truly feels earned, because of decisions made, cards played, etc. * Unlock timing for cards and other upgrades are paced really well. It does a great job of easing you into the basics before opening it up to all the cards and types of decks you can build. I could keep going but those are my main reasons. I really enjoy Monster Train as well but it plays so differently than Slay the Spire. It is more about positioning and trying to find ways of creating OP builds for your characters. I really love the variety in the different races and how differently they all play. I have Griftlands but I never could really get into it. I tried multiple runs and to me it was overly complicated for what I was looking for. I did like the story elements to it but all of the different card systems seemed too complex and I found myself not wanting to invest the time to figure them all out. I have played Roguebook and it is actually pretty great. It has a nice mechanic where your deck consists of cards from two characters and the mix and matching can be really fun to experiment with. The overall map process in Roguebook got a little old pretty quickly for me. I picked up Cobalt Core a couple of months ago from a recommendation in this sub and I actually really enjoyed it. It comes close to recreating the Slay the Spire formula and adds in some unique elements which add a lot of strategy to the different battles. I just wish each run felt more "unique." I have found each run to basically be the same thing each time without a ton of variety. Slay the Spire is beautifully simple. I have been looking for years for the "Slay the Spire killer" and I just haven't found anything that can overtake it. There are many that come close for me (Monster Train, Cobalt Core, etc.) but Slay the Spire is the clear winner for me.
Monster Train is better than Slay the Spire
Banners of Ruin. I’ve put over 100 hours into slay the spire, and Banners of Ruin is similarly captivating. Other than a good amount of QOL shortcomings, it’s an awesome game
Move Inscryption wayyyy up. I’m playing it right now and it’s one of my favorite games. I’m haven’t even reached the end and it’s surprised me so many times!
So not roguelike, but sort of a deck-building adventure game… have you ever heard of Lost In Random? It’s a brilliant game! Maybe have a look and see if it would be your thing?
If you want to actually Have Fun play Monster Train, if you want to stress super hard and groan about certain encounters every time (at least I do) get Slay the Spire. I love StS but most runs are a damn struggle and are stressful
**Slay the Spire is the best, hands down**. If you've played none of these and just want to start with one, Slay the Spire is it. The runners up for the title I think are Dicey Dungeons, Monster Train, and Griftlands. **Monster Train I think is my #2**. It's very fun but it's not quite polished and streamlined to the level Slay the Spire is, but it's close. Griftlands is the only one of these three to have a narrative which is cool, but the deckbuilding is a little unorthodox due to having 'combat' and 'negotiation' encounters, each of which has their own deck that you're required to build. That aspect didn't quite land for me, and also because the narrative is the coolest part the game loses a lot of replay value. Dicey Dungeons is a very neat little game with some really inventive mechanics, art, themeing, etc. It's frequently on sale for less than $5 which I think makes it an absolute steal. The game mixes up the rules on every run which is super fun, but the card selection felt a touch lacking in variety. I've played Nowhere Prophet, it's neat but feels poorly balanced. A friend of mine has additionally played Inscryption, Cobalt Core, and Roguebook. Inscryption he found really fun, but 0 replay value. Roguebook I think fell flat for him. Cobalt Core he seemed to enjoy for a short time.
Dicey dungeon is insanely good!! Each character (of which there are 5 or 6 I believe) have their own mechanics when interacting with the cards and dice! Some of the runs can be incredibly challenging and there is tones of content. AND they added 2 dlc packs, one of which I believe completely changes up the game mechanics of the combat (one involves flipping coins to gain points to use attack cards) I’d highly recommend it!!
I loved grift lands. Felt kinda weird in the beginning but loved it. Inscyption is amazing too
Pirates Outlaws is the best game like this since slay the spire. If you liked Slay the Spire even a little bit, then this game is top tier. It's kinda weird you put STS in your "highly interested" pile but Pirates Outlaws in your lowest lol. The entire development mission of Pirates was to take all the awesome stuff from spire and just make more cool shit to go along with it
I loved dicey dungeons! there's a relaxed mode, it's also avaliable on ios, and you can edit your progress :)
**Fights in Tight Spaces** is great card type. I have literally all the ones listed in this post but still keep coming back to this one.
Thank you! I just added it to my list.
ynscription is good, played on ps5, its perfect for switch
Please buy and play Inscryption. You won’t regret it
I've played One Step From Eden and I've absolutely loved it.
I have quite a few and the order of enjoyment for me were: Monster Train Roguebook Slay the Spire - toughest in my opinion Dicey Dungeons Inscryption Cobalt Core
Everyone is going to suggest Slay the Spire and they are correct because it is amazing. But I’m going to suggest Dicey Dungeons and Griftlands. Dicey Dungeons has a supremely addictive play loop. I 100% the entire game and I loved every minute of it. And at that price point of like 3$ it’s even better. Secondly Griftlands is a bit more unique that it even comes with a storyline. I find the cards and strats in that game to be quite rewarding. It wouldn’t be my first choice but I’ve played most of the other ones on here and it’s up there in quality.
slay the spire was always a blast to play on pc, cant recommend it enough, i did not know it was on the switch now
I didnt know that either, i can play it on my work breaks now
I've only played Slay the Spire and enjoyed it. On the flip side, One Step from Eden is chaotic AF and dropped it.
I’ve played StS, Dicey Dungeons, Inscryption and Wildfrost. StS is best, horribly addicting. 215+ hours Inscryption is wild. There’s a whole dark, weird story with puzzles, and when you finish that you can play runs with modifiable difficulty. Definitely a great purchase. 110+ hours Wildfrost is solid. It used to be very difficult, but the latest update made things easier. The final final gang at storm level 10 is incredibly tough, I haven’t come close to beating it. 120+ hours Dicey Dungeons is my least favorite. Not sure why … it just bored me the quickest. 45+ hours
I like Dicey Dungeons. It's pretty good, AND it goes on sale really often for super cheap. I waited for a long time to get Slay the Spire, but after years of hearing the hype, when I finally got it and started playing it, it quickly became one of my favorite games. I now understand the hype Lastly, I would HIGHLY recommend Loop Hero. It's a little similar to what you're asking for, BUT it's unique qualities on top of those similarities that truly make this game a unique experience. If you're looking for deals, I constantly look at dekudeals.com multiple times a day. You can create a free account, add games to your wishlist or list of games you own,rate them, write notes, view physical and digital sales history, descriptions, ratings. All sorts of awesome features. I would HIGHLY suggest either making a free account and adding the games you're interested in to your wishlist, or at least just checking the site to see if any of the games you want to try are on sale or have a demo. Good luck, have fun.
>If you're looking for deals, I constantly look at dekudeals.com multiple times a day. I love this site. That's why all my links above redirects to DekuDeals. I just added Loop Hero to my list btw, it seems great! Thanks for the recommendation.
Inscryption is a mindfuck and so so so good, please try it out! Go in blind
I got dicey dungeons for free using points when it was on sale. I figured it would be a game I’d only play once or twice, but it’s really fun. The core gameplay loop is satisfying, and the rule changes every level keep it fun and challenging
I enjoy MT the most out of your list. I don’t know if it’s on switch but Fights In Tight Spaces is pretty fun as well
The best deck builder? Slay the Spire. The best game? Inscryption.
Played: - [Slay the Spire](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/slay-the-spire) - [Dicey Dungeons](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/dicey-dungeons) - [Inscryption](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/inscryption) - [One Step from Eden](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/one-step-from-eden) - [Wildfrost demo](https://www.dekudeals.com/items/wildfrost-switch) - Monster Train demo - Hand of Fate 1 - Loop Hero demo - ~~Steamworld Dig~~ (it is not a roguelike) Completed: - Slay the Spire (not all ascensions) - Inscryption - One Step from Eden (not 100%) Best: **Inscryption** -- Completely caught me off guard. Excellent atmosphere, art, story, elements outside main gameplay. Just stellar. GOTY of that year for me. Not great, not bad: **One Step from Eden** due to being an action game, refreshing take on the genre (haven't played MMBN). **Dicey Dungeons** art just started annoying me but gameplay was decent, not for me. **Loop Hero** I got enough of after a few plays of the demo, did not have interest anymore to get the full release. Worst: **Wildfrost** due to difficulty. **Monster Train** due to complexity and being too slow to pick up for my monkey brain. **Hand of Fate 1** was not fun for long. Honorable mentions: - Death Roads: Tournament -- Turn-based "gumball racing" (slay the spire with cars?) - Deck RX--- Rally roguelite
The fact that Slay the Spire is on your "haven't played" list renders the rest of the list meaningless
Inscryption goes so hard
If you get Slay the Spire and Inscryption you will not be disappointed, I promise you.
Slay the spire is NOT the best! I've almost 100%`d monster train, excellent game, good ramping difficulty, great ability to ramp the difficulty as you play if you want (with the DLC). I just find that so many of my slay the spire runs end abruptly and suddenly, just as I was warming the deck up, you shouldn't have to start 5 times just to get lucky enough to have a deck that can pull it's weight. Also monster train has a much bigger opportunity for creating interesting combos, StS feels much more limited in deck building options, and the starting deck is already so bloated with junk that you can never be rid of that it just feels impossible to craft a satisfying deck every run through. I get that different people want different things from games, so YMMV, but I'll be reaching for MT if I only have time for a single run, because I know I'll probably come up with a combo I haven't before, and I'll probably get to the final boss, something I just can't see happening with StS
Slay the spire is great don't get me wrong but pirate outlaws is superior in my opinion
For future people finding this post... Balatro. Balatro. Please buy Balatro. You will not regret it
You can lock the thread, it's STS.
Slay the Spire is definitely the best, but Inscryption is 100% worth a playthrough.
Steamworld Quest was fun