It’s been fascinating to watch the rise of the deck-building roguelike ever since Slay The Spire launched in early access in 2017. The trajectory has closely mirrored that of the tabletop deck-builder, which landed in the hobby like a meteor with the release of 2009’s Dominion. Then, as now, game designers lined up to improve and perfect a mechanic that had made waves by putting card-drafting and engine-building - previously hallmarks of time-intensive collectible games - into a balanced, single-sitting experience.
In the same way that tabletop games like Quarriors brought dice to the card-based formula, roguelike deck-builders are now experimenting with them as a way to bring new gameplay innovations to the genre. SpellRogue, developed by a two-person team and published by Ghost Ship Games (Deep Rock Galactic), will be instantly familiar to fans of the roguelike genre, but it presents new challenges with the introduction of six-sided dice as the primary mechanic.
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PostsRather than a hand of cards, you develop a small arsenal of spells. Each turn, you roll several dice; spells must be activated by assigning dice to them. A basic spell might simply deal damage equal to the number shown on the die, while more complex ones might require an even number or an exact roll. The biggest effects require several dice to be committed. They’re not easy to pull off, but when the dice land exactly right it’s a rush.
During my time with the game, I took the role of Lapis, a Water Elemental with a defensive playstyle and the power to reroll dice to get the perfect setup. There are enough spells available that two runs as the same character can be completely different; in one run, Lapis would filter low rolls through their Ice Ward spell, building up defenses and getting the dice back once the spell had been cast three times. The returned dice could then be re-rolled and applied to attack spells or buffs for later.
My next run as Lapis saw a focus on the aforementioned countdown spells, which would inflict poison and an increasing defense debuff each time they went off. Rather than spend dice directly, I found a spell that, with a roll of exactly five, would cause a rainstorm, steadily eroding the countdown numbers of the big spells while I fired away with other powers.
SpellRogue has been in development for three and a half years, and while players can give it a try with the free demo available on Steam, Danish developers Thorbjørn Nielsen and Tim Løye Skafte are excited for the full game to reach the public. Lapis is the only character playable in the demo, but will be joined by Hazel and Azar, Earth- and Fire-elemental characters respectively, when the game enters early access on February 12.
I asked Nielsen and Skafte for details about other characters in a recent interview, but the pair were tight-lipped. Skafte did let on that Azar would focus on exploiting low-numbered dice, but we’ll have to wait until the early access launch to see exactly how that plays.
Nielsen in particular is excited to see how the game’s metrics change once it’s available to a wider audience. Taking a quick look at the data from playtests, he finds that currently the hardest boss is the Hydra, with only seventy percent of players who encounter it surviving. Given that the Hydra acts much like its mythical counterpart, spawning more heads each time one is destroyed, seventy percent seems like a surprisingly high number. Of course, the sample size consists of the game’s playtesters in the Discord community, roguelike fans all, so when the game reaches the general public it’s likely that it really will take a spell-slinging Hercules to slay the beast.
Skafte mentioned the Crones, another boss inspired by Greek mythology, as a foe that has given players a challenge. The trio quickly juggle buffs, healing, and attacks, passing their one eye amongst themselves to enhance the holder’s effects. More than seventy percent of players have beaten the Crones in playtest, but I’m not one of them.
The developers are very proud of their game, and rightly so based on everything I’ve seen of it. Asked what he would tell a player who was considering buying the game, Nielsen excitedly says, “Just try it for twenty minutes and I think you’ll like it!” He then sits back and reflects, on how easy it is to pick up and understand. “You can very quickly get into the feeling of making combos.” Given how much time I’ve sunk into the demo alone, I can personally verity that claim.
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