Slay the Spire’s board game adaptation hits funding goal in 6 minutes

Hit video game Slay the Spire is getting a board game adaptation, and funding looks to be going well. Slay the Spire: The Board Game’s Kickstarter, run by Contention Games, reached its funding goal in six minutes before hitting $1 million on its first day live. It’s still climbing (pun intended). The board game looks to be a fairly faithful adaption of the video game, but with a small tweak. Slay the Spire: The Board Game will be cooperative for one to four players, in contrast to the original’s solo play. Funding closes on Nov. 18, with backer rewards slated for Dec. 2023.

Slay the Spire, the video game, is a truly excellent deck-builder and roguelike. Players select a starting character (Ironclad, Silent, Defect, or Watcher) with a unique deck, which they use in a series of challenges. The video game requires strategic choices at every turn, from the path you’ll take — and whether you’ll fight monsters, heal at a campfire, burn cards, or buy up stronger cards at a merchant — to building a deck that works synergistically. Each playthrough unlocks additional cards and relics, which players can use to make their characters more powerful (and more chaotic) on subsequent runs.

Image: Contention Games

The board game makes those virtual cards real, with an art style that appears incredibly faithful to the video game. The board game, backed at the “Slayer’s Pledge” reward tier, includes more than 730 cards total, spread across events, relics, character cards, curses, potions, and more. There are lots of familiar faces, with mini-figures and player boards for each of the four possible characters. There are more than 80 unique cards for each of these characters, making for dozens of combinations. The map board also has the signature look of the video game’s overworld map, with forking dungeon paths.

The beauty of Slay the Spire is in the wild combos and plays you can create, like building a character that never runs out of action points thanks to regeneration, or one that throws 20 daggers at the enemy every time they get hit. It looks like an exciting addition to the tabletop space, and a delight for solo players of the video game who always wished they could play it with others.