Having been in early access for a couple of years, Slay the Spire is a title that was slowly making waves for a while. With its full launch on PC earlier this year, the deck-building roguelike title captured the attention – and hearts – of millions, and it hasn’t looked back since. With its subsequent PS4 and Nintendo Switch launches, it’s only gone from strength to strength. We recently sent across a few of our questions about the game to the developers at MegaCrit, hoping to get some answers about what lies ahead for their breakout hit- the following questions were answered by MegaCrit founder and Slay the Spire’s lead designer Anthony Giovannetti.
"Early Access was absolutely integral to the success of Slay the Spire. It allowed us to grow and develop with our community, and greatly improve balance while improving bugs and addressing requested features. "
Having been in early access for over a year, how pivotal do you think that soft launch period was for Slay the Spire, especially in terms of things like listening to feedback and even acting upon it?
Early Access was absolutely integral to the success of Slay the Spire. It allowed us to grow and develop with our community, and greatly improve balance while improving bugs and addressing requested features.
With Slay the Spire now being out of early access, how have things changed in terms of ongoing support for the game?
We have shifted from the hyper speed weekly update schedule to a slower update cycle when larger more impactful updates are ready. We are currently working on a 4th character.
Can you talk us through what your plans are for Slay the Spire going forward?
Porting to other platforms, and a 4th character with some other content updates are what is currently on the roadmap.
"Mod support has been beloved by the community, and something we are very happy is with. I love seeing the creative stuff that our community comes up with!"
Mixing card battle games and roguelites isn’t something that would have even entered many minds not too long ago, but you’ve done it, and done it very well at that- how did that idea come about?
Roguelikes and deckbuilding games seemed like a natural mechanical pairing. The roguelikes give you a good framework for why the player is developing a new deck each time they play. I always enjoyed deckbuilders like Dominion and Ascension, and found drafting and deckbuilding to be my favorite part of traditional CCGs.
How important has the game’s mod support for its Windows version been? Is that an area you plan on focusing more going forward?
Mod support has been beloved by the community, and something we are very happy is with. I love seeing the creative stuff that our community comes up with! We have tried some minor things to make modding slightly easier, but in general the best thing we can do is sit back and not break things for the modders.
Card games seem to do very well on mobile devices- Slay the Spire isn’t strictly speaking a CCG, but have you given any thought to bringing it to the platform anyway?
Yup! We have announced that we will be porting to mobile. I do not have exact dates, but expect sometime later this year.
"Many players have started playing Slay the Spire on Switch, and are loving it. There are still some bugs we are working through, but consoles in general will continue to get updates and improvements. "
The Switch has become something of a haven for indie titles, and Slay the Spire seems to have found a solid audience on the system- how well has the game performed on the platform since its launch?
Many players have started playing Slay the Spire on Switch, and are loving it. There are still some bugs we are working through, but consoles in general will continue to get updates and improvements.
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