When most games today focus on streamlined experiences that promote steady progress, there’s something almost anachronistic about the roguelike, with its constant restarts and uneven level design. And yet it’s in this environment that the formula has blossomed and spread into countless different genres, precisely because of those factors. With this summer’s Dead Cells the latest of its kind to find success, it’s clear that there are still countless ways to tweak that formula into subtly different, compelling results.

In the last couple of years there are only two games that I've put over a hundred hours into. One of them is an obscure DS title that I speedrun and the other is Slay the Spire, in indie deckbuilder roguelite that just doesn't hold up to this much play. Yet I can't stop.

Months after it first hit Steam Early Access I still enjoy dropping into Slay the Spire to see what cards I'm dealt in its procedurally generated dungeon runs. With the addition of its newest character, The Defect, I can see myself returning a lot more often.

Slay the Spire is an Early Access game that's tearing it up on Steam, and for good reason. It's one of the most imaginative roguelikes in recent memory. The game also now has a daily challenge mode, which the developers recently tweaked to make it worth playing all on its own.

Slay The Spire is one of Steam's latest Early Access gems thanks to its polished combination of roguelike dungeon crawling and traditional card game mechanics. The game's quite challenging at first, but some players have already been discovering special combos that allow them to rip through the game with ease.