Board Game Reviews Ep #291: SLAY THE SPIRE: THE BOARD GAME

This board game was sent to me by Contention Games:

Slay the Spire: The Board Game on BoardGameGeek:

[CDawgVA]

Can confirm we played this for 4 hours, it's unbelievably fun. Getting one asap.

[disk]

"You have no max hand size"

Every Slay the Spire player just got reeeeal excited

[xhantechan]

Same here, as Slay The Spire being one of my favorite games I was very sceptical if it was possible to turn into a board game so I was amazed by how well they captured the spirit AND did their own thing. We played a whole run for like 6 hours but it felt like way less. Especially the fact that you don't necessarily have to wait too much on the other players keeps it from getting stale

[naggls]

As someone who's introduced two new groups of 3 completely new players to the board game, I think this board game works great even if you've never played the genre. One thing I've noticed is that multiplayer can make deck-building mistakes a lot less harsh. This is all of my friends' first time, but I've been on ascension 20 so I've often been able to supplement damage during bosses and elites, others have been able to block others who didn't properly add block to their deck, and some can hit multi-target when you haven't built AoE. In this sense, StS the Board Game can be more forgiving. It also helps the numbers are simple, so its easy for people to follow along and StS's innate rulings are so good that the game is easy to pick up.
Both this board game and the video game I feel have their own advantages. The video game can do things the board game can never do such as dead branch's card generation or a lot of the cards that create other cards are heavily altered to simplify the experience. The Board Game's co-op is super nice for getting casual people into StS and playing with friends provide a completely different experience, to the point where I could see 4 player deck building being different than how a single player would play it. If you are interested in card games, 100% recommend it.

[happygilmore]

A game like this begs the question "when the video game is so good, why should I play the board game?" I think the co op aspect of it answers that question well. I'm impressed they pulled it off. Maybe something we could see as a feature in sts 2??

[KrakatonMain]

Little tip I quickly learned with the playmats: whichever side you tend to START rolling UP, tale that side and roll it inside out a little bit when UNrolling the full mat. It'll flatten the whole thing out perfectly just by doing that.
Also, ever since I started playing regularly with multiple people, the sleeves on starter cards specifically have started wearing down FAST (specifically the corners). So very minimal shuffling when shuffling your deck. It's easy to overshuffle with a deck as small as 30 or even 40 cards, which is about the average size you'll see by the end of Act III. Just a quick, light shuffle when resetting your deck, and don't shuffle at the end of combat. Only shuffle at the start, when resetting your draw pile, and when events prompt you to. Thankfully, a pack of 100 sleeves will cover all starter decks twice and only costs like $11 or $13 USD.
Hopefully this helps some people! I might try to put together a video myself at some point with storage and upkeep advice. Regardless of whether or not I do, please leave any other tips on the replies here so everyone (including myself) can take the best care of their copies of the game!

[Hanarchy]

My parents were apart of the team who made the companion app!

[Bleuchz]

This is my game of the year and I don't see that changing. Its a top 10 all time easy. We have started skipping Act 1 (its in the rules and done very cleverly) so that we can do acts 2&3 in a night.

Hope this game is a huge success for them. It stands on its own apart from the video game. imo.

[GearDiego]

With the beta art you can create a 5th playable character as "The Prismatic"

[tykat]

Thank you for reviewing my partner and I were looking forward to it!

[TheCatGuy]

Wait it's actually a board game now?! I need that

[jeppejuul]

Just played my first game. It took 7 hours but we completed in first try.

I had never played the video game before but my friend i played it with had played it for 2000 hours.

I immediately went home and bought the video game and now im obsessed

[SubmitToTheBiomass]

"wow this sounds amazing; I love the video game!"
>it costs 156 canadian dollars and is also out of stock
"well shit"

[BlueShellshock]

I'm not sure how I feel about this, since normally the computer keeps track of everything for you, it seems odd to more to a physical version of the game. That being said, they did a great job simplifying a lot of mechanics -- I like how there's only one die that determines enemy incoming attacks, whether relics are active, or whether a card effect is relevant that turn, you don't just roll a bunch of dice constantly.

And... Multiplayer Coop? That's pretty awesome.

[kappanova]

I´ve never considered the whale´s name actually be spoken aloud

[Rendolf]

As the video was starting it hit me just how many of the game's systems are perfect for being adapted to a board game, especially since it's deck-building already. The main thing I wasn't sure how they'd do was the enemy combat, but using the die for the random attacks is a great idea!

[Ridiculous]

I fucking love Slay the Spire, and the board game is just as good, pledging to the kickstarter for it was the best choice I made that year

[tamado]

"There is no max hand size"
Scrawl gonna go crazy with that

[VangaurdTDS]

Woah as a big fan of the game, this looks amazing, thank you for showcasing this!

[docholiday]

Slay the spire has been an addiction of mine for a few months now. So the fact they turned it into a board game is amazing to see