Slay the Spire - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Wednesday, January 23 2019 will be a day remembered in infamy. The day that the human race committed, inexorably, to self-destruction. The day that cardsy-roguey titan Slay The Spire left early access and got itself a full release. Such a lovely game, such a lovely game. You can check it out any time you like, but you can never Save & Quit.

And so I bring you these words as a dual warning: 1) BEWARE OF THE INCREDIBLE VIDEOGAME AND THE TERRIBLE THINGS IT WILL DO TO YOU 2) the price is due to be raised at any point between now and the 23rd, so get in quick. (Except don’t, because it will destroy you>).

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Slay the Spire - Dinosaurs

Hello!

We're going into full release in just under a week so we have been hard at work finishing up Steam Trading cards, making some final balance adjustments, and ensuring that the game is as stable as possible.

Hotfix
  • Fixed a crash on startup caused by an outdated Settings file not initializing properly (if you haven't played in a few months).

Reddit AMA
We're holding an AMA on Reddit on January 23 at 5pm (PST)!
For those not in the know, it means we'll be answering any questions you may have about the game or the team.
When it's up, we'll link it from our subreddit page:https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/

Price Increase
The price of the game is increasing shortly before full release.
Last chance to get the game at our Early Access rate!

Incomplete Languages
As many of you know, Slay the Spire was graciously translated by the community. Unfortunately, not all languages were fully translated or became outdated over time.

The following languages will become unavailable in the full release (but available in the beta branch):
  • Greek
  • Norwegian
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Serbian (Cyrillic)
  • Serbian (Latin)

Did you know that Slay the Spire has been fully translated into 15 languages? Remarkable! For discussion, contribution, or just saying "Thanks!" to the translation efforts, come visit the localization community at our Discord server. If you aren't playing Slay the Spire in English, it's all thanks to them!

Community Fan Art
Oh nooo, where are we going to showcase art when the weekly updates stop?! Actually, we recommend the artwork community on Steam:


The Defect by @Mezlocillin


Wholesome Gremlins! by u/Sofreen


Sleepy Silent by u/bakuhakudrawsthings

Patch Notes

Balance
  • Book of Stabbing enemy's multi-stab attack strikes 1 less time on Ascension 18.
  • Colosseum event's second fight is now a Gremlin Nob + Taskmaster (rather than 2 Gremlin Nobs)
  • Gambling Chip relic now triggers after card-draw based relics such as Ring of Serpent.
  • Spire Growth's constrict power nerfed 15 -> 12 on Ascension 18.
  • Writhing Mass' strong hit damage nerfed 34 -> 32. 40 -> 38 (Ascension 2)

UI and Effects
  • Adding a VFX for cards when they are removed from your deck.
  • A Thousand Cuts now activates 0.3s faster in Fast Mode and 0.2s faster without.
  • Adding controller support for death and victory screens. Allows players to see score bonus info.
  • (Controllers) Button prompt for Singing Bowl's +2 Max HP button now dynamically placed so it doesn't overlap text.
  • Cards now fade out slightly faster when they're removed from decks (0.5s -> 0.33s)
  • Draw and Discard piles are now visible during hand card select screens as they can be interacted with.
  • Map Legend no longer moves slightly upon scrolling.
  • Map Legend placed slightly higher so cursor doesn't hover Map Legend icons after pressing Proceed to open a map.
  • Piercing Wail card is now 1.2s faster with Fast Mode.
  • Rest option now becomes disabled if you can't Rest (Coffee Dripper relic).
  • Smith option now becomes disabled rather then disappearing when using Midas mod or Fusion Hammer relic.
  • Updated assets for the Wheel of Change event.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed issue where card rewards via Prismatic Shard could contain duplicates.
  • Fix for crash issues with Note For Yourself event and modded cards.
  • Fixed issue where certain game modes became unavailable after switching profiles until restarted.
  • Fixed issue where opening map during death fadeout starts the next run with an empty map on screen.

Localization
  • Updates for EPO, DEU, DUT, IND, POL.
Slay the Spire - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

A couple of weeks back, Slay The Spire introduced official mod support. I knew this would mean amazing new things for the amazing roguey-cardsy game, but I did not appreciate quite how> amazing until today.

The Googly Eyes mod is the mod of forever.

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Jan 10, 2019
Slay the Spire - Dinosaurs

Hello!

This week's patch brings Rich Presence support, VFX, bug fixes.

Full Release January 23
In preparation for the full release and ports coming later this year, we're spending time to ensure that the game is stable. Ports are being worked on and we'll be announcing those dates as soon as we get them!


Hemokinesis!

Price Increase
Will be on January 21, 2019.
Again, a big thank you to all of our Early Access testers!

Rich Presence
Now you can see what game mode, floor, or character your friends are playing as in Slay the Spire.


Only Dinosaurs (Hey, that's me) has Rich Presence here!

We've added support for this feature in Steam and will be expanding support to other platforms such as Discord.

Community Fan Art
Feeling artsy?! Want something featured? Just ping us at @MegaCrit on Twitter or @Developers at our Discord server.


Jaw Worm by NightmareRoach


Ironclad camping out by @BlueStorm4WG


Ironclad being exhausted by u/Dragonclaude

Patch Notes

Gameplay
  • Meal Ticket relic buffed. Heals 10 -> 15.
  • Meal Ticket relic no longer spawns beyond floor 48 (unless Endless mode).
  • Reaper card now heals the correct amount if the player has The Boot relic.
  • Stone Calendar relic buffed. Damage 50 -> 52 for flavor.
  • The Bomb card damage buffed from 30 -> 40.

UI and Effects
  • Adding VFX for the Heart's buff move.
  • Adding VFX for Heart's debuff move.
  • Adding VFX for Hemokinesis card.
  • Adding VFX for Reaper card.
  • Draw, Discard, and Exhaust piles can now be viewed during Codex/Discovery card selection.
  • Improvements to counter on Stone Calendar to make it more obvious when it will trigger.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed issue where facing too many elites causes a crash (due to modifiers/Endless).
  • Fixed issue where restocked cards via Courier were hard to select using controller.
  • Fixed issue which allowed you to cancel selecting a card to bottle by interacting with the top menu.
  • Fixed evoked Orbs affecting card reward outcome (affects seeded runs).
  • Shifting power no longer triggers when Transient receives 0 damage.

Localization
  • Updates for DEU, DUT, EPO, ITA, JPN, RUS, SPA, ZHS, ZHT.
Slay the Spire

Say hello to my beautiful oily children. There are the brown bruiser slime twins, who dish out a solid amount of damage to my enemies at the start of each turn. They're tough lads, but to be honest I prefer my quadruplet of cultist slimes. They are purple, and they have little claw arms, and they gain two attack every turn until combat is over. Towards the bottom of the class we have acid slime, who damages and poisons people just a little bit every turn. That one is a real brat. I think I might eat him soon.

I'm playing Slay the Spire with Michael Mayhem's awesome fan-made character class, The Slimebound, which you can get on the Steam Workshop for free.  It comes with 75 cards, new events, and even adds lines of dialogue when you meet other slimes in the Spire. 

In case you're not familiar with the game, slimes are a common enemy you encounter in the first few acts. Now you can become the blob, and make tiny angry blobs in your image. The slimes kids seem to get on with each other well enough, though I have my worries about greed ooze, who I found in a puddle of shit halfway through the first act. Every time I rest at a campsite greed steals 50 gold and grows stronger, and when I consume him, he just comes right back.

Yes, sometimes, in times of need, I have to regretfully eat the kids. Sometimes it helps me to block enemy attacks. Sometimes I do it to spawn different children who might deal more damage. The Spire is a tough place, and if I don't have enough bruiser slimes to wipe out a foe, I'm going to have to sacrifice some of my wobbly babies for an advantage. 

This is a well-executed mod. The cards are nicely illustrated and have a suitably drippy effect. You start off with just a few slots you can grow slimes into, but like the Defect's orb slots, you can use cards to create more. A LOT more. Though it has a smallish health pool the Slimebound's default power regenerates health for every slime you have active at the end of combat, so you can create loads of minions, use cards to have them deal damage, and then eat them at the end of combat to get right back to full health.

I love minions, so I pressed on with the slime-generating synergy in my playthrough, and ended up reaching the heart. I was able to sacrifice multiple slimes to generate tons of energy and good card draw. In panicked moments I could generate a few slimes for extra block, but otherwise I was able to let the kids autoattack enemies each turn until the cultist slimes became massive enough to delete every enemy health bar.

It's a really fun combo to build, and I saw other potential synergies on my journey to the top. You can stack a special 'slime' status effect on enemies that you can attack to deal bonus damage and heal up. There are also cards that trigger extra damage off 'tackle' moves. You can also use classic slime moves against your foes, like 'lick' and 'SLIME CRUSH!!!', though the latter leaves you exhausted for a turn after you use it.

This is exactly the sort of update I was hoping for from Slay the Spire's Steam Workshop page. The mod fits perfectly into the game and builds on the design ideas behind the three official classes. I got lucky on my first run, so it's hard to tell if it's a little too powerful at the moment, but it looks like the creator is making balance passes and tweaking the mod over time. 

You need a few other supporting mods for The Slimebound to work, but they are linked from the Slimebound Steam Workshop page. All you have to do is click 'subscribe' on each of them and then select 'play with mods' when you launch Slay the Spire. The mod's co-creator, Michael, is a game developer who has recently released a new party game called Sumo. If you're curious you can find it on Steam Early Access.

Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire finishes its run in Early Access on January 23, but that impending deadline hasn't stopped the developers from pushing out a major new feature in the first patch of the year. Patch 54, released on Thursday, includes Steam Workshop support for modders who want to make their own cards or other changes. All you have to do to enable mod support is choose "Play with mods" from a new launcher when you start the game. Presumably this will disable Steam Achievements, but we haven't verified for ourselves yet (and achievements aren't mentioned in the patch notes).

Modders have already been tinkering with Slay the Spire for awhile, but Workshop support will naturally make mods easier to install, and should make for a more vibrant mod scene. As of this writing, there are already 41 mods in the Workshop, including an API to make modding easier, content packs that add cards and relics to the game, and several new characters. Here are some to check out if you've already shown the spire who's boss a few times.

Replay the Spire and Hubris both add a whole bunch of relics, dozens of cards, new bosses, events, and run modifiers. Replay the Spire is the bigger of the two, and also adds some elite units. But either one should give you a significantly expanded possibility pool for any given run.

The Construct: One of several new mod characters, The Construct seems especially fleshed out, with a pool of more than 100 cards and a detailed description on its mod page: "The Construct's main strength is versatility - cards with the Cycle keyword will automatically discard themselves and redraw if you can't make use of them. Combine this with Mode Shift cards that allow you to alter your Strength and Dexterity on the fly, and you can ensure you always have the right tools for the job." It even includes its own bundled "mini expansion" that adds a new risk/reward overheating mechanic.

The Construct

The Disciple: A character "themed after the Time Eater" with "four central themes: Card Retention, Intent Shifting, Card Transforming, and Temporary Relic Cycling." The Disciple already has quite a bit of positive feedback.

Mimic Mod: If you thought the chests treasure rooms were too safe and rewarding, this is the mod for you. Now they might be mimics.

Colored Map: Pretty simple, but you can change the colors of icons on the progress map to make them easier to distinguish. Or just ugly, if that's your jam.

RatMod: A mod for the character The Silent, which adds more cards and new mechanics: bleeding, silvered, combo, and echo. Combo and silvered sound the most interesting: combo cards do more damage based on how many cards were played before them, and silver cards force the enemy to cleanse and deal damage based on stacked silver cards. Mostly, though, I like this mod for its picture, which I'm pretty sure is an opossum.

Slay the Spire - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Oh, great. The very last thing I needed was another reason to play Slay The Spire every day for the rest of my life, forever and ever and ever and ever. On the other hand, perhaps I can finally fulfil my dream of replacing The Time Eater with a GIF of Jareth the Goblin King, which I’ve just decided I’ve wanted since the day I was born.

Yep, Spire mods – via the doughty Steam Workshop – are very much go. Let’s all look forwards to this perfectly-honed machine becoming a big ol’Katamari of madly conflicting ideas.

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Jan 3, 2019
Slay the Spire - Dinosaurs

Happy New Year!

This week's patch brings Steam Workshop support, bug fixes, and a few touch-ups here and there.

Steam Workshop
Utilizing and keeping up-to-date with community-made mods are now easier as we're enabling Steam Workshop support today.

Have you wanted more cards, relics, characters? Many hardworking players have been modding Slay the Spire for quite a while and they can now be easily accessed through the workshop. Check them out here!

Browse the Workshop page, subscribe to some mods, and upon launching the game, choose the "Play with Mods" option.

Now you are a professional mod user

For support and info on installation, bug reporting, or creating mods, join the modding community at our Official Discord channel at #modding. We want to play your mods!

Community Fan Art
Some excellent renditions to kick off the year


The Ironclad by nathanj


The Silent by u/khazan0


The Defect by @Nicxan

Patch Notes

Hotfixes
  • Fix for Card Reward screens sometimes not dismissing, causing duplicate card selection issues.

Gameplay and Balance
  • A Note For Yourself event is now available if you aren't playing your highest ascension AND the ascension level is 14 or less.
  • If you have unlocked The Ending achievement, you can now enable the final act in custom mode.
  • Stone Calendar relic damage buffed 40 -> 50.
  • The Specialized Daily Mod now allows Alchemize (was restricted because the mod Brewmaster used to exist)

UI and Effects
  • Improved controller navigation of Rest Site options when there are 5 options.
  • Recall option now appears in Run History screens when hovering a rest site room node.
  • Removed flame VFX that appeared when Reptomancer was defeated.
  • Smiling Mask relic stops flashing if Card Removal Service has been utilized.
  • The Input Settings menu button now utilizes a different image.
  • The Standard play menu button now utilizes a different image.
  • Updated relic asset for Blood Vial.
  • Credits updated and improved timing for the Thanks for Playing message.

Bug Fixes
  • Adding a check for a Cancel button (Safer for Modders!)
  • Adding a check for a potential game exit crash instead of returning to menu.
  • Adding logic so Beyond elites score increments more accurately in case of future/custom Acts.
  • Blight rolling now increments relic rng seeds correctly (consistency on save/load)
  • Fix Run History corruption due to save/load (again).
  • Fixed card randomization inconsistencies caused by save/load.
  • Fixed events which sometimes rerolled when loading a save after an event-based combat.
  • Fixed instances where certain screens could be opened while on that screen, causing visual issues.
  • Fixed issue where a non-dismissable Map could be dismissed by navigating menus in a specific order.
  • Fixed issue where Blood Potion wouldn't heal the player if used immediately after combat.
  • Fixed issue where City and Beyond Elites killed score bonuses weren't showing up if you won/lost in The Ending.
  • Fixed issue where Entropic Brew did not give players potions if used post-combat.
  • Fixed issue where opening deck/map/settings and returning would enable cancelling out of certain screens (like choosing cards for bottles).
  • Fixed issue where opening deck/map/settings during Card Removal Service caused the card to not remove unless you access the shop again.
  • Fixed issue where potion seeds weren't persistent on save/load.
  • Fixed issue where Toy Ornithopter relic wouldn't trigger outside of combat.
  • Fixed issues where navigating from screen -> map/deck -> settings would dismiss some screens such as Sealed Deck.
  • Fixed issues where some monsters dealt the incorrect damage with Philosopher's Stone on turn 1.
  • Note For Yourself event no longer crashes with modded cards.
  • Opening Settings during Draft mod now properly hides the top banner.
  • Potential fix for Prismatic Shard returning duplicate cards on rare occasions.
  • Prevent Run History corruption when loading saves in Event rooms.
  • The Specialized Mod now gives you 5 of a random card and works with mods Draft and Sealed Deck.
  • Tingsha, Sword Boomerang, Bouncing Flask, Rip and Tear, Thunder Orbs, Havoc, and Juggernaut now utilize seeded enemy target randomization.

Performance
  • Reduced some unnecessary saving when encountering bosses.

Localization
  • Adding shop assets for EPO.
  • Updates for EPO, DEU, DUT, EPO, FRA, ITA, KOR, SPA, UKR, ZHS, ZHT.
Jan 2, 2019
SpyParty - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (RPS)

The doors have been opened, the games inside have been devoured, and now it’s time to recycle the cardboard. Below you’ll find all of our picks for the best PC games of 2018, gathered together in a single post for easy reading.

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Kenshi - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Brendan Caldwell)

We ask the tough questions here at RPS. We re like Jeremy Paxman but in a very long bear costume. We once asked 15 developers what they d do if they were stuck in a room with a clone of themselves. This is important stuff.

Today, we ask another question: What would you gift the games industry for the holidays? We put this query to a bunch of game artists, writers and designers to see how charitable they were feeling. Today, you get to open these presents. Happy holidays!

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