Exploring A New Kind of Roguelite: Moonsigil Atlas | Design Club

[music]
Good time zone internet. Hello and welcome to Design Club, the only game design show on the internet that promises and delivers showing you something truly weird. I am your humble host Will, joined as always by my pal Jeff. Say hi to the people, Jeff.
Hi to the people, Jeff. Hey everybody, I'm Jeffrey Yohalem, the studio director of Extra Credits and more importantly for this, long-time game designer. And also important for this, long-time rogue, rogue-lite and all of the above player.
[laughter]
Going back to Actually, Will, I was thinking about this the other day.
Uh-huh.
I remember playing NetHack
Hack?
Hack. Um like when they came out.
Yeah.
Which would have been 40 ish years ago.
Yeah, so so you're playing like you you played like the bronze age of of So so I would say I would say that

I wouldn't call it the stone age, but yeah.
No, no, like we were getting to rogue stone age. Okay, so we have rogue of the stone age. NetHack Hack is like the bronze age. I'm going to say I started playing in what is the silver age, which is like the OG Binding of Isaac Wrath of the Lamb era. Right?
like there was an age between those possibly.
I feel like there was, but it also feels like it wasn't significant, right? Like
Actually, that's fair. I feel like after Uh let's see. Hack NetHack Oh, Moria. Moria was the other one
Right.
You're right, there were pro- I think there was a dearth.
Right, yeah. It was the dark It was the dark times, right? Uh and then after that, we have what I'm going to call the golden age and uh non-controversially and without any objection whatsoever, I'm going to say that the golden age is marked by the release of Slay the Spire. Um
Yeah.
genuinely. I I think it is. Um Slay the Spire 1, not two. Uh, and so now we're in like this weird

golden age of roguelites where we have enough roguelike roguelite games that I can play a new one every week.
And still have a list.
And still have a list. A significant list. And still get emailed codes for games that like I just won't have time for. Like it is truly weird. Um, so
But that means the rogues in the rogue That means rogues won.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
It's kind of like saying, you know, RPGs. RPGs won. There are now RPG mechanics in everything. Your Call of Duty has leveling up in progression and you know, all of the thing that RPGs brought in.
The battle pass system. The idea of a battle pass is fundamentally, you perform quests to earn experience to level up to get better stuff. The battle pass is a kind of RPG, right? Like
Yeah, or is borrowing have a look is borrowing RPG mechanics.

Yes.
Yeah, not every game is an RPG. Many, many, many games borrow RPG mechanics
Yes.
and bring them in.
Yes.
In the way that almost no other genre That'd be an interesting topic at some point. I'm trying to think of another genre that has spilled so broadly as RPGs.
I think it's a really interesting idea. Yeah. Um, well, especially because when you consider that RPGs spilled out into literature.
Yeah.
Right?
Just finished book eight of Dungeon Crawler Carl a day or two ago.
Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, I I finished it like the week it came out cuz I uh I always This is weird and a bit of a tangent, but it'll be fast. I always feel like when a new piece of media that comes out that I'm interested in is like happens, I need to consume it as quickly as possible before Twitch chat accidentally spoils it. Like cuz I feel like that's just a thing. Right? Like I feel like that that is

like an inevitability. So, yeah. Yeah, RP well, yes, the RPGs RPGs have had strong crossover literature for forever because of the roots of TTRPGs, but also the mechanics of RPGs are now a literary element in like the underlying mechanics, not like I cast a fireball, right? But like I gained 12 XP is like a mechanic that is portrayed as a trope in literature.
Yeah, or specifically recognizing [clears throat] that there are game-like elements to the thing you are participating in and having actual awareness as opposed to meta awareness. So, you're like, I can go do this to level up this skill and if I do these things, I'll level up and unlock this thing.
Yeah, I I also like this a lot. My favorite part was when he said, "I'm Carl." and Carl'd all over that guy. The funny part is that that's accurate,

but not in the way you think. And also not specifically. Like it's happened more than once, right? But like anyway.
Kind of like a Carl plan.
Yeah. Um
Um oh, I was going to recommend to Sorry, it scrolled off. The person who said they were stuck on one.
Mhm.
If
[clears throat]
If you haven't listened to the Audible versions or the the SoundBooth Theater productions, which you can get on Audible or directly from SoundBooth.
Mhm.
They are amazing.
By all accounts, they are phenomenal. Yeah.
The uh the narrator they found for it um has become such a part of the series that he and the author now do like AMAs and video things together.
That's great.
Like they're now buddies.
Okay, so now that we've been thoroughly distracted, let's let's pitch this weird game. So, we we talked a little bit about roguelites. We talked a little bit about Slay the Spire heralding in the golden age. One of the things that has happened

pretty consistently, at least in roguelike deck builders, is that many of them have adopted very similar elements, right? Monster Train and Slay the Spire both have a kind of resource, energy or mana. We'll say mana because energy is weird and can be misconstrued about like, "This roguelite doesn't have energy." is like bad, right? Like, it doesn't have the the je ne sais quoi, right? So, we'll say mana. Um, so many of the deck builders that have come out in the wake of Slay the Spire have some kind of mana, um, which is a change from the OG deck builders, Ascension and uh Dominion, right? Which is play every card that you have in your hand and cards are the only resource, um, usually speaking. Uh, so that's a whole thing. Um, the other one is that uh from RPGs and from many other games, gold as a currency or some kind

of, you know, shells, uh pennies, whatever.
We can call it gold. Basically, loot that loot that drops as currency that you save up to buy things. Usually it's stores, occasionally in other places.
Correct. Um, and having that be extremely fractional and having that be like an economic thing, right? If we talk about Spire, when you get like the decision tree for Spire is relatively straightforward. Relatively. Before anyone's like, "Well, Slay the Spire is No, it's relatively straightforward
There are always exceptions, but
Right. until you get to a shop. And the second you walk into to shop with like any reasonable amount of gold, the decision tree goes and just like vanishes into 10,000 little threads of like things you could have done in combinatorics and like all of that, right? Economics in these games often leads to a very weird sort of um fracturing of the decision tree in a

bunch of different ways.
And it also but goes back to hearkening from some of the old the original rogues, which is kill them all monster, get a little treasure or get a little get an item possibly, get some gold.
Yeah. So, imagine my surprise when Tuesday, this past Tuesday, I booted up a new game for the Rogue Review that someone had mentioned in the Discord. We have a games you might not have tried channel where people recommend games and recommend games for Rogue Review and recommend games for stream. And I booted up this game and it doesn't have either of those things. It doesn't use mana at all and it doesn't use incredibly fractionated currency, not in the way that you're thinking. So,
Does it use cards?
It does. But the cards are more than just a card.
Okay.
The best way to explain this is probably to
haven't seen this game yet. So, what has

been promised to me and me for the past couple of days I'm going to get to see something cool and new.
Right. So, um let's let's get this out of the way. This game is Moon Sigil Atlas. You can look it up for yourself. We'll be showing it on screen here in a second. We're going to dive in. Jeff hasn't seen any of this. I have played 4 and 1/2 hours as of time of recording. I will probably be playing more. So, without any further ado, let's get into the game.
Do I get to shrink? I get to shrink.
All right. So, this is our starting screen. First off, I would like to point out that the aesthetics of this game immaculate. Uh I love the aesthetics. I love the music. The music will be going up and down uh so that you can always hear us above the music, but in moments when we're quiet and we're thinking, you'll be able to hear more of it. So, um
That's funny. Just looking here real quick, they do a thing that has become in my mind part of the hallmark of a

Actually, any team could do it, but I'll call it at least an indie plus game, which is they've devoted time to their landing screen.
Mhm.
A lot of games didn't used to do this. I think Slay the Spire 1 didn't.
Right.
But you come here Slay the Spire 2 this, like if you look, there's the reflection of the on the water that is shimmering and you we have the little kind of firefly sparks going up. There are twinkling stars. I think we have fully left the era of static loading screens looking anything other than like really small team who just doesn't have time to do it.
Yeah. I I think people recognize that this is a place that you can
I mean
like it makes a first impression. And this, by the way, is not static. Uh it will be different There are different versions of this landing screen.
Oh, cool.
Um for the different zones. So, uh I have a run in progress, but I just used that to set this up. So, we're

going to begin a new run. We also have a run history and a compendium, but we'll deal with those later because they're going to present a bunch of mechanics out of order. So, we're going to do a new run. Okay. We have three available characters to us. This is Feldrun, the Lost Chronicler. We also have Alidoro, the Shard Keeper. And Torkhul, the Stars Ablaze. For reasons of complexity, we are going to be playing Feldryn. I'm not going to put that up to chat. I'm not leaving that to Jeff because the complexity curve is not so much a curve as um like a ramp. And then you just sort of go into free fall. And it's really fun and really weird, but it can be a little terrifying. So, these are our cards. Okay, these are two of Feldryn's um

unique cards. There are also three different decks we'll be able to play with Feldryn, but for right now we're sticking with this one. So, uh we have a deck that includes these two cards, dissipate and starfall.
to swap screens so I get a higher resolution.
Yep.
Okay.
Um and uh we will explain a little bit of about what these cards do in the in the first um in the first fight, but I want to point out the parts of the card just so that everyone's on the same page. So, every card has a name.
Mhm.
This, which is normally where art would be, but this is not art. This is very important.
Oh, it's art.
Yeah, it it it's art, but it's not
I thought it
just there to be pretty. It's not purely aesthetic. Um we have the effect of the card, right? In this case, dissipate says play remove a non-hostile sigil from the board. We might have a piece of uh lore text. Um

we have Weirdly, this is reminder text, and then this is the effect. We also have up here two dots. These are upgrade slots for the card. Cool. So, that those are the parts of a card in Moon Sigil Atlas. Um and now, I should note, as promised, one thing is missing. How do you play the card? There's no cost.
Actually, it's funny. If I was looking at this right here,
Mhm.
I might think that the two dots might be a mana cost.
Interesting. Yes, I can see why you would think that. I in my mind, I don't think they're
the upper left or upper right, which are usual placements for them.
Mhm.
But it is prominently at the top next to a name.
Interesting. See, in my mind, they're not prominent enough to be a mana cost. Um but I can see why looking at it, you

might think that. Um
Like it feels like the two means something.
Yes.
And usually with a with a card or a CCG, the something that has a number associated with it is mana.
Yeah, that's true.
Or yeah, the thing you expend to play it.
Yes. Okay. Um we also some other furfurs. We have mastery. This is how much XP I've earned on Feldren. We also have an eclipse modifier system that's like ascensions, but dear god, we're leaving it on zero. Uh to
Oh, good question.
Mhm.
See the little mastery triangles?
Mhm.
And I see that Feldren has triangles like built into his character design, specifically his staff.
Yep.
Do the other characters have different little symbols for mastery or is it
Uh
are triangles part of
Triangles are part of everyone's aesthetic.
Oh, okay. I see it on her belt.
Mhm. And uh Tark Thall has it here on his lantern.
Okay.

So, great question. Yes, everyone uses them. Uh okay. So, let's begin a run.
I wonder if that's why there are three of them.
Okay. That's a good thought. All right. So,
Ooh.
This is the lore. This is the person for whom we are going to defeat the great evils of the world. Um, and we are given, as in many roguelites, a choice. Um, we didn't get my favorite choice here, but that's okay. Um, we're going to be taking Boon of Fortitude because Boon of Destruction removes from us the opportunity to have conversations about two fights. So, we're going to be taking the Boon of Fortitude. A Boon of Destruction could be good in some cases.
And in most games, more health means you basically get to play longer if you're learning.
Yes. Okay, so this is our
Spire-like slash Actually, it reminds me

a little more of FTL.
A bit, yes. But that I think that is also in part the star aesthetic, right?
Yeah, absolutely. If this was turned sideways or if this is oriented 90° to the right, it would be hard not to say FTL.
Sure. So, we have some We have a plethora of different symbols, uh, far more that I think I would say than I normally expect. But I also want to point out that um, we're missing uh, a generic campfire rest. We're also missing generic events. Those Those question marks or campfires don't appear here. Um, everything is no. Right? Everything is This is a fight. This is a This is a specific kind of upgrade. This is a Right? This is a specific upgrade. This is a card remove.

This is a elite combat and so on and so on. Um, also there's a forbidden card back here. So, we're going to We're probably going to aim for that cuz I like forbidden cards.
It's It's so funny to me actually just thinking about the um, since we were talking about Moria and Rogue and some of the other ones.
Mhm.
that um this is reminding me that in those ones, you know, it was randomly generated, but you'd have a certain number of rooms generated per level and you'd be going through to find the staircase going down.
Yep.
How we've gone to basically abstraction of rooms because it was rooms connected by corridors.
Right.
These are basically rooms connected by corridors.
Yes.
And the end part is the staircase down.
Correct. I find that um one of the ways that I usually think about uh map generation in most Roguelites uh is in terms of the tile, right? Like the generic tile or room and how those are just like the key Those are the nodes, right? And the connections between those nodes are usually either

functionally or completely irrelevant. Okay, so let's uh we only have one choice, which is interesting. We must begin with combat. Welcome to the screen we'll be spending most of our time on. Let's talk about parts. Next to me.
Okay.
Yes, Jeff. Actually, Jeff, do do initial observations and then I'll tutorialize.
Oh, either way, I was just going to look and okay, so
[clears throat]
upper left and it's always upper left or upper right with some rare exceptions. Um actually, no, wait, it isn't. We are not seeing a health bar above a character head. It is part of the screen interface.
Yes.
Um many current Rogues put it over character head to kind of show this is character because they're specifically like you and enemy are kind of on a line.
Yep.
This is using not quite an isometric

perspective, but it's using a 3D view, third person.
Mhm.
And we see an enemy has appeared along with something in the moon, which we'll be investigating. I see that the boss has hit points. I see the boss has a floating symbol next to it. Oh, okay. So, that's its intent marker.
Mhm.
There's something clearly denoting shield. Um right there. And it looks like there is space to put a boss on the or a monster on the other side.
Correct.
So, this implies you could in some cases be fighting up to two things. We have kind of a standard hand size of five. Um End turn is clearly moved away from every other button, which is nice. But, that also tells me that there this will be turns and not a continuous play kind of game.
Mhm.
I see the standard kind of cards left to draw and cards in discard pile.

Yeah.
Opposite sides to kind of show where they move from across the board. Interestingly, exhaust is put above your card deck. Usually, I see it near discard, but that's
Yes. I will tell you for freezies, this character is not the reason that that is necessary. There is a character who um the the green character, the the the shard keeper, is built around exhausting and recurring cards from the exhaust pile at specific times. And so, for her specifically, it is a resource far more than it is a graveyard.
Got you. Um we can obviously see the um cards we have for play. They do the usual little drift hover, so you can kind of mouse over and see more about them. But, the probably the most unusual thing, like this would look fine on plenty of other games. It's kind of the big something in the middle is the one thing

that's the most unusual.
Yes. So, this is how we play cards instead of using an earth. In order to play a card,
Mhm.
you must take it from your hand and when you drag it, it becomes a uh a series of of uh triangular tiles of uh sigils on the board. And you can left
I see now they all have shapes, so this is what explains what the shapes are meaning.
That's correct. And you can left click to play it or and this is the most important thing I have discovered, you can right click to preview. So, I can preview my entire turn before I commit to playing anything, uh which is very good. I can use Q and E to rotate these pieces.
Oh, there's also a thing I should have mentioned, there's a big number in the middle of the board.
Correct. I That is our health.

It is in two It is in two spots.
It There we go. It is the same number. Okay.
Okay. Um so,
been able to fit four of your five things onto the board.
Correct. But if they were smaller or differently shaped, I would be able to fit more or less or in a weird way. And
Yeah.
um uh pull these off. The region I am playing them in matters because
Yeah. Some of that is uh yeah.
Okay.
And glowy.
Correct. This glow corresponds to this shield. This region of the play area is the only region of the play area that is eligible for me to play cards and have them block or shield against this monster to the left. You're correct and that's Yeah.
Does it have to be entirely within that or just overlap any part of it?
Interesting question.

The You see how wards this thing that say rune?
Mhm.
And and [clears throat] and they have a small picture of they have a representation of the rune in the card. That rune has to be in that region. So, for instance, this would block.
Mhm.
Right? And you can even see uh on the on the shield icon there that if I rotate it such that the rune is not within
Yep, zero.
And the moment
Okay.
it's within, it works.
Now, I see bolt, for example, has nothing highlighted.
Correct.
Oh, because it can't generate shield.
Correct. I can put this wherever I feel like I can make it fit, right? But wards have specific requirements on where I need to play them. So,
Interesting. Okay.
for instance, one of the ways you could make a a boss more difficult or a an enemy more difficult is to change the size of this region.
Yep.
Or the shape of that region.

Yeah.
Right? Which is a very interesting different way to engage with your ability to play cards rather than simply saying your cards cost more, right? Which it can be an interesting thing, right? There are plenty of of different uh deck builders that do like, "This encounter means your the defensive cards cost one more or your offensive cards cost one more or whatever, right?" Um But this is different, right? This has a more, I would say, textured approach to limiting the cards you can play. So, uh all of that yapping out of the way, let's uh let's attack.
Oh, and then they happen immediately on play. Okay.
When you left click, they happen immediately, which is important for reasons we'll discuss later. Um I have no need to block here because the enemy isn't intending to buff rather than intending to attack.
And there's no extra effect from playing.
Correct.
We discard the remaining cards. There

are some games where you keep it, some games where you don't.
Yes. Okay. So,
We have different colors now, Will, on the cards.
The colors indicate um not rarity, but like category, rarity category. The brown ones are generic starters. The blue ones are Feldren cards. There will be other blue Feldren cards. There will be light blue uncommon Feldren cards, and there will be gold rare Feldren cards.
Got you. So, basically, the Bolton wards are strikes and defends.
Right. Um
Okay, so I see a pair of attacks coming in. It looks like each for five.
Correct. Now, um one of the interesting things here uh is I will demonstrate multiple things at once. So, I'm going to put this Starfall down in this region. So, I have a rune that will apply four shield, and I will deal four * 2 damage to the

enemy. Interesting, it doesn't show it. Okay. Then, remember when I said like the the it playing immediately is important?
Mhm.
Well, I have this card called Dissipate.
Ah.
So, this lets me I have played this card, I have done its effect, I have done its shield, I have done its damage.
Mhm.
I'm just going to remove it.
So, that doesn't let you Yeah.
I can play a ward in the same spot. And interesting. Okay. It now tells us, when I play this card and get this ward, it says fully blocked. If I plus five is 10, and I'm blocking eight.
Mhm.
Because, and this is very interesting, each of these attacks evaluates non-reductively against the shield.

Mhm.
So, the shield is a total damage mitigation for each incoming attack from that source.
So, it's ablative armor.
Uh
Or should we not ablative, it's a threshold or um
Yes.
subtractive.
Yes, correct. So, right.
it subtracts eight damage from every incoming So, if that, for example, had been a 10 and a three,
Correct.
would be completely blocked, the 10 would pass two through.
That is correct. Yes.
Okay.
Yep. Uh and then I'll play some bolts because we got to do damage. Okay, so the enemy's down to 10. I'm not taking anything. I'm going to hit enter. Uh and then we win because I have three bolts in hand and the enemy is at 10. So, I'll just get them onto the field. By the way, very nice.
list is basically just how much you can play. This case it's what you can place before you run out of space.
Correct. But, what what gets really weird is the

ways that we interact with that. So, for instance, if I drew six bolts, we can see I could play six bolts
Mhm.
in this space. But, I wouldn't be able to play six wards. Right? Okay. So, we get a new card. Um
The usual choose one of three.
Choose one of three. So, we have three uh options. Right?
Oh, interesting.
Mhm.
The Echoing Blast looks like some sort of power equivalent from Slay the Spire because it says on turn start.
So, this
Persist. There we go.
Persist. Now, this is weird because if I play a power in Slay the Spire, it's in play and it doesn't take up space. But this does. So, echoing blast deals seven damage to all enemies. That's more than a That's more than a bolt.
continue to take up board space, so

you're sacrificing future placement.
Correct. And And then I have to think about it, right? What if What if the only play What if I draw in the middle of the turn and the only place I have to place it is in the defensive region of an enemy?
Mhm.
Well, if I put it there, then I can't block for the next several turns. Because I I put this there, but I might draw dissipate and be able to pull it back to pull it off the board, but that's a maybe, right? And now I'm putting dissipate
it dissipates, I assume it removes the effect ongoing effect.
Correct. Um, all ongoing effects are tied to onboard sigils.
Mhm.
Right? Um, and so that's sort of an interesting point, right? Now we have um, another one which is eternal. This sigil is not removed from your board at the end of your turn. That's permanent.
Okay.
And this says, at the start of turn, add a copy of gravel to your hand. It inherits this sigil's focus, if any. And we can go uh, down here and see that a gravel

is a one
Nice. It's a tiny card that does two damage.
Yep. Um, it's a shiv. It's a pebble. It's a, you know, any kind of like little interesting thing. Um, I just I love this so much. Hold on, I have to put this on screen. Oh, did I not put it on this I didn't. Dang it. Okay, I'll have to add that to this list. Uh, the uh, the featured chat is Ah, there it is. Yes, give triangle. Exactly. Um, so So, this eternal, right? This eternal means that this card it doesn't go back in your deck, but it is permanently on the board, right? But if I remove it, dissipate. I won't get the card back because the card's gone, right? This The sigil once the sigil is on the board and the card that created it are two separate things. I can remove
roughly a power actually. It's very similar to a power again.
Yes.
And then we have our first I was

wondering if there was going to be draw card cards.
There are indeed.
Answers.
And fortify says is a smaller So this is more efficient in many ways than a ward.
Mhm.
It applies four shield and we draw two cards.
Yeah.
Very interesting. So Jeff, what do you what do you they All of these are totally viable. What what do we take?
Right. And this also follows the tradition that all new things you get are inherently better than the strikes and defaults or the starter kit.
Yes, absolutely.
Um Echoing blow seems really good. Um Actually, is it two turns after? Is it 21 damage total or 14 damage total? Oh, for an additional X turn. So I would guess that means you play it, then one turn, then two turns. So 21 total damage.
Yes.

And your typical attacks did six, was it? Strikes?
Uh we can look.
Oh, that's right. Four.
They deal four. Also, as per usual, I I do want to call out like the basic right? Like we have a card collection and an atlas and we can look at the map at any time. And these are all like in my opinion, like bare minimum things, right? If you're doing a roguelike deck builder and I can't look at my deck and the map at any time for any reason during any choice I make, why? Like that information just needs to be continuously available to the
So, the thing that's interesting that part of my much rogue experience has taught me is some of the first stuff you look for is the ability to just up your damage.
Mhm.
That literally your first couple choices are almost always what can I do to vastly increase my damage output because that puts me ahead of the curve for the near future fights.

Mhm.
Because of that, I would choose either Echoing Blast or Stony Vault.
Stony Vault seems slower because it doesn't do any immediate damage but over time like if I was midway through this and just needed like a damage boost Stony Vault seems very good.
The
But but the length of the last fight was like four or five turns.
Right.
So
And a key thing to note is that um the turn start at a copy of Gravel and inherits the Sigil's focus if any.
Mhm.
That's important because that will increase. Focus is a flat boost to the amount of damage that a spell does and we do know that we will later on have the option to permanently give focus to one of our cards. So
Got you. So, this could be something that was basically worth buffing um or worth upgrading
Yes.
to turn more powerful.
Yes. Right.
So, I think that's the better long-term

card but as a first first card to pick, I think Echoing Blast basically let's make sure we can win fights.
Yeah.
It is what my gut tells me.
I did also want to clarify something because this does not have a play effect. It does not do seven when it comes in.
Oh, wait. You're right. Oh. So, that is slower than I was Okay, thank you. I missed that.
That missed that the first time, too.
Yeah. Okay, so that's 14 instead. I'm actually still I still think echoing blast is
Okay.
what I would pick here.
I also did want to call out we're not going to skip the first one, but we we got the option to skip for one astral dust. That's that's the closest this game comes to currency is that you can skip a reward for an astral dust. The astral dust if you get three of them gives you an astral jet.

And we'll talk about what you can use those for when we get there.
Um
Okay.
So, we have a choice. We can either upgrade We we can we can take the left path and get two more fights
Mhm.
and either add a shield rune or removing a tile from one of our cards
Mhm.
interesting [clears throat] as an upgrade opportunity. Or we can go right and get a combat and then either a card pack or a card remove and then another fight and then the focus upgrade.
Um Will, since this is since you've done a couple, what's interesting?
Um I hate I hate the starter deck a lot and so my first thought would be to like go and get bolts out of our deck as quickly as possible. Um
Especially considered we just picked up basically a dot. Was the dot a one use or was it does it keep coming back?

It comes back. It comes back. It doesn't say anything about exhausting, right? The default is that a sigil is played, performs its effect for one turn and then is removed. If it doesn't say anything to the contrary on the card
Yeah, I just
Yeah.
I I couldn't I wasn't remembering.
Yeah.
Yeah, basically removing a removing a card is often very strong in these and that gives us the ability to cycle back to that one more quickly and build up basically a small dot cannon.
Yep.
Again, having only seen one set of rewards.
Yeah. All right, here's our next fight. We have two Wasteland Scorpions. Now, of note, you correctly guessed that we would have more than one opponent.
Mhm.
And one of the interesting and difficult things about this is that this is the region for this scorpion, and this is the region for this scorpion. So, you don't block in general.

You block specific or shield against specific enemies with specific
regions of the board.
So, I have a question.
Yes.
How about on the damage?
Well, this says deal four damage, so I can play it somewhere. Here, I'll play I'll play it in the middle, or I'll play it over here cuz this guy's not attacking us.
Right.
And now I select an enemy. I choose left or right.
Was that there last time, or because there was only one target it was not?
Because there was only one target there was not.
Okay.
Um we're going to pick on this guy. Also worth noting,
Mhm.
this is better than you thought it was.
all damage. Yep.
Because it's to all enemies, right? Which is significant in a case where we're already running into multi fights, right? I'm just going
How just um so I know, how rare is healing in this game?
Uh extremely.
Okay.
There's a node You've seen a node on the map that is a healing node.

Mhm.
It's all the way up here.
What I'm curious is like not full blocking. Like if because our block is coming in increments of four right now.
You could if it were advantageous. But is it advantageous, right? Like this is a question that comes up a lot in spire, right? Because in spire stuff often hits you for six and your defense block for five. It's one of the reasons that your first point of dexterity is often such a big deal because now your defense block for six and you can block exactly
Or tungsten rod or a couple of other
Right. Or there are many other effects which will do that. Um So one of the that is sort of an interesting quandary that arrives again and again. Here I am of the opinion that it is always worth it to full block unless you have a specific inclination to do something else with that space. Right?
All right, let's get our blocks in then.

Like that and like Can I get two in? Did I screw this up? I sure as heck did.
Right. I needed an extra rotate.
Yeah, cuz I could have No.
That's That's right. You can always Well, from what I saw before you can get four of the five in of the basics.
I would have That's fine. And it tells me that I full block this one in the morning. So this has gained two strength. The enemy deals one additional damage per stack. Lasts the entire encounter. Okay. So we can do
say that again that
This enemy does one additional damage per stack.
There we go.
Lasts the entire encounter. Many effects last the entire encounter.
So okay. So we can wipe him out.
Uh
This turn.
Correct instead of blocking.
Mhm.

Okay.
And not not not bothering to remove because no need.
I'm going to I'm going to begin I'm going to begin declining the idea of playing unnecessary cards just to keep us moving.
Sure. Screwed this up. Amazing. So, because of the way that this thing is shaped
Right. So, that basically the damage over time you should have played it a little further to the left.
Yeah. And I'm going to get bailed out by dissipate here.
There we go.

And now we can just do damage.
Correct. I like how they do the check there to make sure that there's once the sec first enemy's gone, it just reverts to mono targeting rules.
Correct. It's very nice. Okay. So, we have several options here. We have our first This is an uncommon or what I'm going to call an uncommon.
Oh, I see. Different color on top. Okay.
Okay. Exploration is a two-tile card that's eternal
Eternal.
and says at turn start at a copy of seek to your hand, which is use a tile to draw two cards.
Okay. So, pure card draw.
Correct.
So, basically Eternals really are powers from Slay the Spire kind of thing.
sort of long-term change to the game.
Yeah.
Amara's Prophecy is a chunky sigil that deals 10 damage increased by two for each extra card drawn this turn.
Okay, so that's our That's our first synergy card I've seen.

Mhm. And then this will be the second. Adjacent sigils temporarily gain focus five and it clarifies that um the uh, they must share an edge. Adjacency is edge-based, not node-based. So, like it um, I should uh, so if we look at exploration, this tile and this tile are adjacent to this, but these three are not because they only share this vertex.
Rather than these uh, sides. Uh, this is a great question. Um, director ask, is card draw the best in these kinds of games? When will card draw be adversarial? Great question. Sometimes you will have things in your deck that you do not want to draw now or do not want to draw in general. Things like curses or status effects, things that force you to play them instead of playing other things. Um,
Things that are ethereal in Slay the

Spire.
Correct.
That basically if you don't play them go away if they're advantageous.
Yes.
So, there can be things. It depends on the design of the game.
Correct. So, we could take more damage. I'm kind of of a mind that we should take exploration here. Uh, Evan has a great question. Is there max hand size? I believe it's 10. It's essentially screen real estate choice, but I believe it's 10.
Temporarily gain five focus also sounds strong, but
I should also note that I believe that adjacent sigil triggers must happen
after placement.
Correct. So, like you need to place this down and then put things down next to it, not put this down next to things that have already gone. Right? Because because the damage happens when you play it, right? If I played a bolt and then play this, it wouldn't retroactively give the bolt five more damage. I'd need to play this first and then play the bolt.

So, it does constrain our ordering.
Mhm.
[clears throat]
I think if we hadn't taken a damage card first, I'd be going for the mirror's pro prophecy unobjectively.
Yeah.
Now I'm torn between like taking, you know, do we have enough to support a second or two more cards per turn? Um, versus do we just need one more chunky damage card? It's going to put us ahead enough of the curve that at that point we're just good.
Well, especially because we're about to have an opportunity to remove a bad damage card.
Right.
I'm okay with taking I'm not taking I'm okay with taking Mary's. We'll take Mary's for now and see what we get.
Back in 20 seconds. Let me see what my cat is doing.
Isn't that always the way of it, chat? You're you're doing a thing, you're hanging out, you're having a good time, cat. Hi Roulette. How's it going? Uh Chat, are there any other questions about my explanation? Um

that that you have. What is the seek that exploration mentions? Great question. Seek is a one tile draw two. Draw two cards exhaust. So, it is a way every turn you get to draw two additional cards for a small Is there a shop? No. There is no shop because there is no currency. Where on this UI UX would you see a currency? The closest that we have is this astral dust. But there's no shop. We can't spend it. We're not gaining anything from this fight besides this card. Right? Which is unusual.
And both of those really do seem good.
Yep. Um
Oh, one thing I'm noting, too. Almost most rogues Actually, not most. Some roguelikes

making make skipping a this is just a choice. Others incentivize it. Slay the Spire makes it just a choice with occasional relics that incentivize it.
Yes.
Monster Train gives you gold for skipping.
Yep.
Um
The
And so this falls into the we'll give you a small thing or we'll give you a thing for skipping.
Yes. I also want to point out the idea that with exploration um and removing a card, we would be much more able to play um our echoing blast over and over again.
That had also been my thought. I said both of those seem like good choices. Which take your pick, Will?
I'm going to take exploration cuz it's rarer.
All right.
Okay, then we're going to go to a card removal cuz god do I hate bolts. Okay, a dark star tells you various hits it demands an offering. Now, worth noting, if we had one,

Mhm.
we would be presented the option to trade an astral gem to remove a second card.
Mhm, interesting.
We don't have one, so we're not offered that choice, but I will tell you that if we had one, we would be offered the ability to remove a second card here. And that is what astral dusts are used for. They increase the efficacy of all of these non-combat nodes or many of them, not all of them, many of them.
Intere- So, we could also have skipped our first two card rewards knowing where that was to basically double remove here.
A gem is three dust.
Oh, three dust.
Which is why I didn't mention it. Because you would have to skip three times or you also get one every time you fight an elite.
Got you.
That's the big reward for fighting an elite is you get a card and that.
Nice. Woah.
Surprise, you can fight more than two enemies. You can fight three. Um you can

theoretically fight Uh it will So, in this case, the entire play region is divided up into thirds.
Yeah.
And now that it was last
good here.
is especially good. But where do we put it? Cuz we could put it here cuz this one's not attacking us. But it's probably attacking us next turn. And this is what we want.
it somewhere like there and then focus down that skeleton or scorpion first.
Yes.
And basically clears off board space that we can safely use.
Correct. So, I'm going to plan the turn first because I think that's really important for this turn.
Yeah. So, that four will block the double threes.
Correct. This
Actually, I have a question, Will.
Mhm.
Oh, okay. You can say Never mind. Do it like that. Yep. And then you can put the exploration

there. Or here.
hoping that it doesn't play it next turn.
I think we're going to try and kill the upper left as quickly as possible. I would say say that we stack into that area.
Okay.
But your call.
And then by the way, once you've finished planning, you can just [clears throat] click to commit in any order you choose.
That's a good quality. Oh.
Very useful like one of the things that I think has maybe I have not uh waxed poetic enough about is God, this game has so many good quality of life features. One of them we'll talk about when we get to upgrades. Um but uh it's very good. All right. So, this got two strength and is now attacking for seven, but is however the only thing attacking us.
Mhm.
Um so this is eight and four kills this

one? Who would like to?
Do we want to play seek first? Oh, never mind. That will That will um loop our deck. Is there anything we want to do before
Correct. So one of the very interesting and important things and one of the reasons we uh someone asked earlier why you might not draw.
Mhm.
If we draw now, we will shuffle the deck. Cuz there are only four There's only one card left in the deck and seek draws two. So when in a deck builder like this, when you cannot draw card for your deck, your discard pile is shuffled together and flipped over and becomes your new deck. But the cards in my hand won't be in that deck. Because they're in my hand.
Let's look at our discard for a second, Will. So if we seeked now, we would have a 20% um that we'd be drawing two cards out of five.

Um so we'd have a basically a 20% chance twice um or a 16 out of 25% chance.
We have a one in four. Because we're drawing the one card here and seek doesn't count as one.
It's a guaranteed one. Excuse me. So one in four tries, so three in four um nine out of 16 um So that's seven out of 16. So yeah.
So we play the Aquire's last again, right? But the interesting thing is would would that change what we do this turn?
Right.
And I think the answer is probably not.
us up for the turn after to have basically 14 damage applied everything which automatically kills the Celest. Second minor Celestial scorpion.
Correct. Cuz we can do this and then dissipate it.
Okay. But yeah, the chance of for example getting Starfall again

like we would probably dissipate.
And then we can play this. And then we can play the seek. And if we don't draw another damage card, we can bolt this one.
Mhm.
And if we do them, we're good.
Yeah, let's try it.
Okay. Now, this gets played, we bolt you down.
Mhm.
Then we we're going to remove this.
Yep. Then we're going to bolt this. Then we're going to seek here.
We need shield by the way.
Do we?
Oh, wait, hold on. Isn't that attacking for four on the bottom left?
I'm already blocking for four because I played the uh
Oh, the thank you. And then you dissipated the four on the
in that region. Yeah.
Oh, I'm mistaking the four there for the uh thing that you did. Yep.
Yep. Okay.

Uh Shago. Also, it will darken cards if you simply don't have room to play them.
That's nice.
Okay. Um What is the flag, too? This enemy and its ally deal one damage with additional damage per stack last the entire encounter.
So, our first job is to look where we can play our bolt because we want to make sure that we kill the nine.
Correct.
And that finishes off that threat.
And then once again, we can Starfall here.
Let's see. And then have the ability to remove it.
Right. And then we'll dissipate it.
Mhm.
And then we'll ward it. Right. Is there a way I suppose this works.

And then we know the last card is echoing blast. So if I seek
Yep. We can play it again.
We can play it again. Down here. I don't have room to play it and bolt and this is better. So now that this is run out of persist that it's removed.
Big attack coming in.
Taking 12. Um we can block 12. That's no problem. But let's do that. Interesting maybe problem. We don't have room cuz once again I put the thing in the wrong spot cuz I'm smart. Uh
You can start shoving it as far away from the enemy as possible.
Yep. We can guarantee draw Starfall which may help. Although this was the only spot for it. Um

I think we're blocking eight.
Yeah. Yeah and this is why the game melts your brain.
Correct. Oops.
I should wait. Go one more. Let's see. There No never mind. Okay.
Yep.
You can play it but it's not inside.
Right.
So we're going to take four and we could pop down more damage.
Yep.
And we could theoretically seek, but is there
Uh if we seek, we know we're drawing both Starfall, and that won't help. So, we want them next turn when they will.
Yep. So, we've taken our first damage.
Yep. Uh and then we did.
win.
All right, cool.

So, we have three options. We have a second Echoing Blast, a recall, which is a weird shape that moves a card from our discard pile directly to our hand,
Mhm.
and a Stargaze, which gives all adjacent sigils to maximum of three draw a card. So, the question is
that means on play?
Mhm?
I assume that means on play.
Yeah, so
No, I'm curious to like if you
I'm curious to like if you put an Eternal Seek down, and you put that next to it, does that trigger?
It only triggers when that card is played.
Okay.
Adjacent sigils only trigger when the sigil gets played adjacent to this one.
Mhm.
Right?
So, recall seems pretty strong. If you like the cards you have,
Correct.
which we do,
Uh-huh.
for a couple of them,
Mhm.
recall is pretty good.
Right, or we could take redundancy of cards that we already have and take an

Echoing Blast.
Right, and that would let us basically set up on the far away from the creature more and more dots that just just could keep firing.
Yes.
That, for example, is a good strategy for combining with strong shielding. We don't have an extra strong shielding card yet.
Correct.
So, if we take this, our the next thing we're really looking for is extra shielding to basically stall out.
Correct. Also worth noting that we uh are going to be able to give one of our cards focus, and then we're going this way cuz I want a forbidden card um and cuz forbidden cards are cool uh and they really warp my brain. Um So
I feel like we don't need more card draw yet because we already have seek.
Agreed. Um and it's better to thin the deck rather than have more card draw in many, though not all cases.
Yeah.
Hellraiser comes to mind from STS2, right? You see Hellraiser, you just take every pummel strike you can.

I just this morning or last night watched a replay of Jorbs going crazy with a uh Hellraiser deck.
Okay.
Mostly cuz somebody in his chat called out, "Hey, this would be funny if you got a Hellraiser." And then his very next reward was one. And he's like, "Now I feel obliged to take it."
Yeah. Okay.
Okay.
So
Let's do this.
Harness the power, we're going to permanently give focus to to a card in our deck.
So this adds two two number, correct?
It adds two to a damage number, specifically.
Uh not shield?
Correct.
Uh okay.
Shield is bolster, focus is damage. Now, I want to call something out real quick.
The big red warning?
The big red warning. Phenomenal. Absolutely phenomenal. Warning, this will only affect cards that directly deal damage.

In fact, there have been a couple of cases where I've tried to apply a keyword that might have worked to a thing, and it explains why that doesn't work. So for instance, um if I upgrade a card to draw a card
Mhm.
or if I add shield to a persistent card the shield only or the rune only triggers the turn it is played, not on persistent turns, and the game makes that clear before you hit the okay button. Yeah. And the dev dropped by on Tuesday and said that all of these warnings are written in tester pain. Every single one of these is something that somebody tried in testing, and then they added flags to it to add these warnings to prevent other people from having those problems. Which I think is great. Because this is not One of the things that I really like is when I am a humongous proponent. We

talked a little bit about this last week of games should tell you how their rules work. That's That's my personal preference. Right? I could definitely see cases for games that don't, but my preference is that games are transparent and up-front with the way that their rules work. They do not need to teach you how to efficiently win or what the best strategy is. That is left as an exercise to the player, but this
should strive for clarity.
Yes. He's a
Unless it's the style of the game. Binding of Isaac, for example,
Yes.
is fairly famous for not telling you.
Correct. So, we could upgrade an echoing blast to deal nine damage.
the one I was thinking because that that is our highest and the one that we're planning to keep.
Correct.
Uh actually, the the other one did it once or twice. Um Where's our What's the one that looks like the Death Star shooting?
Mm. Yes, the Starfall. Yes, it would deal six damage twice.
So, let's see here.

This is more immediate burst versus more long-term value in upgrading the echoing blast.
Right. I guess if we think we're going to be going through our deck enough to get two of the other things in play, that is greater long-term damage.
Mhm.
Both of these provide the same amount of you know, because they're double hits. So, those both provide the same amount. The only interesting thing about Starfall is you get the damage that turn. Which means if you're trying to finish something off, this is putting you four points closer to finishing it off on the turn that you might need to.
Break one down.
So, basically, you're getting immediacy versus the chance of having two Starfalls up at the same time and getting higher quantity.
Yes.
So, both of these are perfectly reasonable choices.
Yeah. I'm going to recommend we put it on Starfall cuz we are short upfront damage.
Mhm.
Uh and I happen to I'm going to I'm

going to spoil something. Uh we're going to need to do a bunch of damage to something very quickly in the boss fight.
Ooh. And that's where game knowledge comes in.
Okay, we're actually taking a forbidden card pack. These are both perfectly serviceable. We could remove another bolt. We could do another thing. This is forbidden.
Mhm.
And I love these. These are so
the What are the cards in Balatro that just truly um
Oh, some of the Jokers?
No, not the Joker, the All right, let's see. Anyway, let me see here.
Okay. So, All right, Syphon, on play we exhaust it. But, at the start of each of our turns, we infuse each card in our hand with focus one the rest of the fight.
So, that was the add one damage, right?
Correct. To every card in our hand at the start of every turn. Okay.
So, that's that's uh demon strength.

Uh yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Uh only it only affects cards in hand because we don't have a We don't have a like a character, right? We only have our sigils, which is kind of interesting, right? It is worth noting that like there are no on-player effects. Everything is on the board.
Card in Oh, sorry. It was card in hand. I was thinking get hand out deck for a minute.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
Um yes, and Aurelia is absolutely correct. Um that's a a lot to put on screen, but uh I I do want to say Aurelia is completely correct. It doesn't stop you. When it gives you the warning, it says, "Hey, this probably doesn't work the way you think it does. And if you have another idea,
Right.
then sure. And in fact, it has warned me um it warned that little card that gives you gravel every turn, and the gravel inherits the focus of the primary card. It does warn you that that card is not affected by its own focus. You're still just going to get the gravel, right? But you can do it because you understand what you're

doing, right?
Right.
Okay. Fading Vengeance deals nine times two damage, and when we play it, we infuse this card with ghost. Um ghost is other sigils can be placed over this one, covering any clearing any covered tiles. So, you can essentially make it so that it occupies a region, but doesn't prevent you from playing.
Wait, hold on. So, okay. So, it's huge. So, what that means is you need a large space to put it down, but once it's down, it doesn't block anything.
Uh I actually don't know if when we play it the first time, it's ghosty because it infuses the card with ghost for the second time it is played. I believe
Oh.
So, the first time you actually have to play it honestly, and the second time you can play it with ghost. Because it does not itself have ghost as a like, it would have ghost where Siphon

has eternal if it did.
Wait, so play you infuse this card with ghost. Does it infuse on play?
Yes.
But does that mean that it is then ghosted once it's
For the next time through the deck.
Okay.
And then the last one is transcend. This space in the middle is not occupied. It is the Triforce. You can add three random rare cards to your draw pile and shuffle your draw pile and then exhaust it. I love forbidden cards so much. These are so wacky, right? There there are so so many wacky options. Do any of these speak to you, Jeff?
So I like So things that build up and finish a fight for me,
Mhm.
like siphon,
Sure.
feel extra strong.
Okay.
Um I'm just looking through Hannah has the advantage of being small.
Yes.
Uh transcend, I don't know enough about random rare cards

Sure.
to know how good that it sounds.
rare cards are a pain. Like much like many other uh games, um rare
It's situational.
does not necessarily mean yeah, more powerful. It means more complicated. Yeah, transcend is not good, but is fun. Yes.
Mhm.
Um and fading vengeance is a big old honking damage card, but probably not. Um
Yeah.
So I think we're I think we're taking siphon.
Okay.
All right. Uh now we have another choice. We can remove a sigil from one of our cards, remove a tile, or we can give another card focus. And I'm going to say
a tile. Um
We're Oh, we have to do a fight.
we're changing its shape.
Yes. We'll do this fight first and then we'll get there. All right. Okay.
Okay, single opponent.
Single opponent has a hostile ghost sigil in place that says whatever we play overlapping sigil, apply one stack

of strength to all enemies. And strength we know
adds to damage.
Adds a damage and last the entire encounter.
So, basically and the whole board is red.
Correct.
So, every card we play makes the opponent stronger.
Yes.
So, echoing blast is going to be especially good here.
Yes. What's the maximization for this? I can get three in here, I think. I'm going to do some experimenting. I could do this.
We only have two anyway.
Right, I know. I'm just trying to remember what the maximization for wards on one of these is. Right? And then we put this down up here. And then we'll probably forego the bolt.
Yeah, I have a question, Will. If that's your maximization for shield, should you rotate the echoing blast to fill that empty space or is that where you're planning Yeah.

Can't. Oh, you're talking about this.
Yeah.
Um Maybe. This space is less valuable.
Okay. And we could put seek in that upper in that tiny little upper right hand corner.
seek is like a whatever. Yeah, you're right, let's do this. Um so, we're going to do this. That and that. Now, it's worth noting by the way that this, because it's overlapped, you see how the boundary has changed? If we had a If we had our
dissipate
Mhm.
When we remove a sigil, it won't be replaced with more ghost. Right? It's gone from these ones.
come back every turn?
Uh depends. It depends It depends on the fight. I don't remember if this one does or not.
Let's find out. It does. Okay.

But, it itself is not attacking right now. So, we can do this. Second, echoing blast.
Mhm. Starfall.
Yep. And probably not anything else.
There we go.
Correct. We could have chosen to pass entirely. Like here, we could choose to pass entirely, but the ghost sigil is not in place this turn.
Oh, yeah.
We can block. I actually don't think we play exploration. I think we play this.
Yeah.

We're going to take three.
And turn start, bam bam.
And then we win, because our bolts now deal five damage a piece because of our siphon. And it only has nine. So, its strength is irrelevant because it's dead. Dead for the ducket.
Yeah, so that the dots there worked exceptionally well based on the mechanic of that elite.
So, uh we've got some options. We can deal 11 damage to the enemy with the least remaining health, but it's big.
[clears throat]
persist too. Okay.
We can fortify, which gives us four shield and two cards.
Mhm.
We can torment to discard a card and then draw two cards. I don't think it's torment because we have seeks already. I kind of think fortify is the pick cuz we would need more block cards, especially ones that aren't the size of water starfall.
Yeah.

So
Smaller block card seems good.
Yep. Especially because now we're going to go to the Sigil of Forging removal.
So for those unfamiliar with rogues, one of the big things about cards and the reason Will and I like removal so much is we're by taking cards that aren't as good out of our deck that increases the chance of drawing the cards that are better.
Yep. It's a we're increasing the average card quality.
Mhm.
Okay. So we get to change something's shape. This is one of the ways you can upgrade a card. So you can add a keyword, you can change its stats, you can add a rune, you can change the shape of the card by removing a tile.
So Will, one of the things I've been thinking about for that, scroll down for me.
Mhm.
Um Echoing Blast because it stays around.
Mhm.
Going from three to two tiles

seems exceptionally good.
Yep.
Um Syphon would go down to one tile and not a weird shape.
Right.
So that in some cases even though it's only a two-tile to begin with, going down to a single triangle for something that sticks around also seems exceptionally strong.
If we remove one of these tiles, that's a 33% reduction in area.
Right.
Over the turns that it is present, right? Cuz it persists for three total turns.
Yeah.
But Syphon is a 50% reduction forever because it's permanent.
Right. And its shape is weird. Like in some cases
Yes.
going down a third versus going down 50% might actually be stronger because we're planning to place multiple of those during the match.
Yes.
But I kind of like the siphon one because then we can just tuck it into a

tiny little corner and it's done.
It will now look like this.
Yeah.
I wholeheartedly agree with this choice. I think it's great. Okay, and now we're going to fight an elite.
Ooh.
All right. Astral lock. This enemy has locked your cards in place. Until this enemy is defeated, all cards you started the combat with cannot be rotated. This is a totem. You do not need to kill this enemy in order to win this combat. The lost star binder is attacking for 10.
And by rotate it means we cannot change the direction it's of its facing.
I'm pressing Q and D and cannot rotate this card.
Okay.
So. Also, this is the region for defending against star binder and this is the region for lost star binder. Okay, like it's not

They're not identical. It doesn't have to be symmetrical. Different size enemies can have different size uh regions of influence, right? Can you uh Loki asked, "Can you remove the triangle of a single triangle card with that?" No. Everything must have at least one tile on the board, otherwise it doesn't work. Um Okay, well, I think we start with blocking.
Mhm. We only have uh we do have two blocks, excuse me.
We have three. We have starfall and fortify as well.
Oh, that's right. Starfall had So
I kind of think we dissipate this though.
Let's see, you could put the other shield or one shield or Okay, yeah.
Like we do this.
Mhm.
And we're going to double tap
going for Which one do we Are we going to burn down?
I think this one will die coincidentally

from all of our incidental AoE damage.
Right, but if we, for example, did the eight to it first, it probably goes away one turn sooner and we'd be we'd start being able to rotate.
Yes. I'm okay. Okay. We're going to dissipate. Yes.
Shield. Shield. Okay, so siphon and exploration.
We put this here. And this And we can't play Echoing Blast because it can't be rotated.
Mhm.

Okay. This one is charging up and doing nothing else. We can play this Echoing Blast.
Yep.
Also worth noting, it doesn't actually matter, but we could we can actually rotate Seek because we didn't start the combat with it. It only curses the cards in your deck. Let's put it in there.
Oh, interesting. Okay. So we could
Look, I'm going to
Yeah.
draw here.
[snorts]
Now it's how many bolts can we play?
Well, right. Yeah, cuz we got a Oh, I goofed. I shouldn't have put Seek there. Huh, I'm silly. I'm so used to being able to rotate. Yep. All right, cool. That's fine. This one is getting one focus from the um I'm going to dissipate. Okay. So, now we go here.
If we kill that guy, do we immediately gain our ability to rotate?

Yes.
Okay. There we go.
Uh we need to draw.
Mhm.
I'm going to be smart about the I'm going to draw here.
Um is there anything where we could before we put that second shield
Mhm.
dissipate? I don't think there's room to dissipate it.
Yeah, there there is. [clears throat] I I I briefly looked at that. I am um doing a lot of silent optimization trying to get us uh to a timely conclusion cuz I think the boss fight really demonstrates what this game is about uh and we are almost there. I'm also very willing to take some damage cuz I think we're at the threshold where I'm probably going to have us heal anyway.

Okay.
Uh got to recover twice.
Yeah. Because it's a known quantity, it doesn't super matter.
Mhm.
Um
Let's see. Starve. Uh we don't have the removal one.
Correct. I do have a nine-damage echoing blast I'd like to get into play.
Mhm.
And this deals 14, which seems silly to not
Pretty good. Mhm. Now that actually we could still get one more echoing blast.
Right. And if we wanted to cover this for some reason, we could. Um there are effects on some other characters that depend on you covering the entire field, for instance.
Damn it.
Right. Uh and then he's dead.

Lightning bolt. Lightning bolt. Lightning bolt. All right. Deal seven damage. If this sigil has focus, deal seven additional damage.
Yeah, we have the card that adds focus to anything in our hand.
But it's short of huge. Right. It It's do 14, but it's huge. Um Evan asked, "Does the rune get dissipated as well?" Runes also trigger on play unless they say otherwise. So, we put a rune down in the appropriate area, it plays immediately. Right. So, when we dissipate it, the rune does get dissipated, but it's already done its thing. In this particular case, there are other cases where it does things at end of turn, but it will say like when.
Yeah, that one's a pretty beefy card, but or chunky card, but it also can be played anywhere.

And looks like it's going to just start sledgehammering.
Yep. [clears throat] I kind of think we take this. Like at worst, we just don't play it.
Mhm. Well, especially with seek, we're always going to have more cards than we can play now than we can play.
We've received our our actual gem. Yep. Hey.
Oh, and there's the marker. I was curious where it was going to show up.
Yep, right up there. Uh we're going to heal to full.
Oh, we need the 25 health?
I I'd rather be safe. Like I might be able to get away with it, but I've only fought this boss This will be my fifth time. Um and I I want to be sure that we don't like absolutely get brutally murdered right away cuz at a minimum, I'd like to talk about this mechanic.
Okay.
All right.
Astral Titan. Is this always the same boss here or is it a set?
It's the same boss here. All right. So, we have a set up.
A lot of hit points.
A lot of hit points. This enemy is planning to do something to the moon.
That is rude.

Right? A touch, doesn't it? Doesn't it just seem rude? Uh I'm going to put this down.
he going to be I'm just curious, will does that mean we're going to start having our board uh diminished?
You'll see.
Okay.
I'm totally not spoiling this one. You just are going to have to see.
So, actually, are Do you want to put it there or do you want to put it out of shield space?
I want to put it here.
Okay.
Uh and then we're going to put this over here cuz we don't need to block and we'll draw two cards. Um and then we'll hold.
Star ball.
And we don't need to do anything else cuz we don't need to block. All right. Now, the enemy's going to do something to the moon. Summoned moon. This summoned moon is controlled by the enemy. Kill it to claim it as your own. The moon of ire has the ire sigil, which says turn start, apply one stack of

strength to the boss. When this moon dies, deal 20 damage to the boss. Apply three stacks of strength to the boss at the start of each turn. When this moon dies, deal 30 damage to the boss.
Okay. Our AoE is going to be really strong here, too. They're currently not attacking and boss is
Correct. We also currently are not blocking at all, which is why I wanted to rest.
There we go. Optimize our
Yeah. That gets everything in play. Does all the stuff. I think we're going to focus down the moon of wrath first cuz it's doing three times the amount,

right? For less than three times the health.
Yeah.
Dang, the enemy did something to the moon. Correct. Yeah, wrath is also very starfall shape. Correct. Beautiful. All right. The enemy is planning to play place six hostile sigils on our board. And that's it.
I'm curious to see exactly what that means. Yep. We'll continue our echoing blast of blastiness.
Also worth noting by the way that the echoing blast retains its focus.
Yeah. Actually, do we need uh how much echoing

blast do we have going?
Enough. There's 8 16 uh 25. So, both of these are dead. So, we can just
Yeah, both of those are dead, so we can hit the big boss.
And I don't want to draw anything, so I'm not going to play 45. Also very worth noting that those six things, right? Okay. That he doesn't have room to play all of them, so they're blocked, which is kind of nice.
Yeah. Okay.
So, we just did a huge amount of damage to the boss.
Correct.
And those other guys So, AOE's was really good for this.
Correct.
Ooh, what are these little moon heart things?
Moon's heart. Play, exhaust this card, turn start, draw a card. So, we have ways to um play more cards.
Let's see. Do we have anything we can play

Oh, wait, you can play over those? Hold on.
They're ghostly. These are hostile ghost moonquakes.
Ah.
Turn end, take four damage if the sigil has not been covered.
Oh, okay. Um is it worth dissipating anything?
Well,
Cuz we'd love to block Actually, I guess The other one is we say Oh, well, after the fight
Mhm.
Oh, wait, you can play in there?
Uh-huh.
realized that.
Uh-huh. When you kill the moons, you now get to play in the moon space, which is one of the things that I think is so cool about this, right? Because it is taking opportunities to do weird stuff with the visual space. There is no equivalent to this in another game. Like, what you get one additional energy at the start of each turn is not equivalent to Well, you get one moon that looks like this, you can play a couple of cards, right? And you can get one moon that looks like this, you can play some cards. But, they're not equivalent, right? It is a completely different paradigm of

player power to do something like this, and that's one of the reason Like, this was the moment this fight was the moment where I was like What? Great.
Yeah.
Right? This is so refreshingly different, and I love the way it's blending um visual thinking, like spatial thinking, with the traditional roguelike deck builder mechanic, right? Um so, my thought was I was going to play Starfall here to block for four, right? So, we only take uh 22 instead of the flipping 30. Um and then I was going to start playing Moonhearts and blasting.
You could also dissipate that air uh that one too, then get more block cards in there.
We don't Well, I'll have to seek for those. Maybe we'll seek first. Let's seek in this place right here. Okay, I do have two wards. So, we can play this,
Mhm.
dissipate it.

Yep.
We can't play both of these, unfortunately, but we can play one of them.
That still is eight more health saved.
Correct, because it's
Actually, I just I don't know how much you heal after each final one, like
The it's it's a zero. It's to full. Um
Okay, in that case, knowing that, I'd be saying that let's play damage, but uh
Hey, I'm going to play this Moonheart over here. And I'm going to play this Focus Strike and do 18, right? Enjoy that. Uh end to go.
We'll take our 14 damage.
The only downside is the boards are not correct connected. Yes. So, you have to think about it weirdly, right? Like again, it's all very weird.
So, I'm guessing we can end the fight here.
Uh yeah.
With Focus Strike?
Oop. All right. And now, these are rares.

Cool.
And this is why they're so weird, why I was like, "Rares, right?" All right, so Clarity, on play, we exhaust it. While this is on the board, the first sigil you play each turn is immediately removed.
Ooh.
So, I just have to have an empty place, but unless there's like a ghost thing going on, cuz if if the enemy is doing a ghost thing, right? Like that enemy that had the giant ghost sigil that was a one strength for each time we played in it, right? We could put down Starfall and clear enough room for one or maybe two additional sigils that don't suffer from that because we put down the Starfall, it removes the ghost, and then clarity immediately removes it. As an example.
Yeah.
Right? Innervate, on play exhaust this card, turn start, apply two stacks of exposed to the enemy with the most remaining health, and exposed is an outgoing debuff that we get instead of strength. That says this enemy takes one more damage from direct attacks per stack last the entire encounter.

Mhm, okay.
Okay. And then we have uh Winnie, which transforms into Weedy, which transforms into Wiki, which says deal 50 damage to all enemies and draw three cards, and it's only two titles wide. So.
Alpha, beta, tell a friend.
Right. Ju- giant very difficult to get it there, but once you get it there, whoa boy, howdy, do you just win the fight, right?
[clears throat]
Uh and don't make the mistake of playing an eternal card first with clarity in play. Yes, play order matters. Yeah. So, all like if we were continuing play, I would probably suggest either clarity or Innervate.
Yeah, both of those seem like especially because we have a um from Innervate, we have a lot of attacks that hit once each turn or hit multiple times.
Yes.
So, it's an extra damage multiplier.
Exactly so. So, we we for the sake of

our our discussion, we'll take Innervate, and then we get to see artifact.
Ooh.
So. Darkstone Daggers, your attacks deal two more deal two damage more as long as you're fighting multiple enemies.
Okay.
Moonlight Spyglass, each combat reward will have one additional card option.
Mhm.
Or Frozen Timepiece, whenever you play two or less cards in your turn and fuse all cards in your hand with resonate one. Which is play it again. Resonate one is replay.
Yeah.
Do it again.
the next time you draw it.
Correct. Yes. But we're also going to definitely have turns where we won't play anything cuz we could just play two block cards and let all of our stuff hit for us and then pass, right? So I think
it's it's also a clock that's an homage to Slay the Spire for us uh stopwatch, is it?
Uh this is kind of like a weird combination of like pocket watch and tiara, but yes.

Pocket there we go.
Um So yeah, uh And then of course uh we get the next zone.
Mhm.
Uh which has a different aesthetic, different enemies, different everything. And then we go all the way to a final boss who is being just like difficult and we don't have time to get there, but um it is it's a really great Oh, uh I wanted to see. There isn't one here. There is a thing where you can um increase the number of times a card can be upgraded, by the way. Forbidden artifacts. One of the things is you can spend an astral gem to go a different direction. That's an option. All kinds of stuff. And of course, it passes my bar for what makes a good turn-based roguelite or any roguelite. I can save and quit and continue from the main menu. Um I think this game is fascinating. Like I genuinely have not been Like this gives

me the good brain chemical in a very different way than Spire does. I love Spire. Spire is great. I've played a ton of Spire, too. Don't get me wrong, but the excitement I feel for something like this where it's like, "Hey, you know those things that like everyone assumes are just like the fundamental building blocks of of a card get get yeet. Don't need you. Get out. We're doing something different. We're doing tangrams now, right? Like that I feel is really cool. And I like I like the the mechanics that they're doing and I like all of the different ways they're presenting it. I think it's really neat. Um and I'm glad I got to share it with you and the audience, Jeff. What do you What do you What are your thoughts?
So, A, I think they're doing so much right. Like I like the quality of life stuff. I like that it's innovative and new. I have a worry.
Mhm.
Actually, there's two sides to me. Designer Jeff thinks it's great.
Yeah.
And will enjoy playing lots of this.

Um studio director Jeff is a little worried that this will never be a breakout. Because
you both have to like it's reductive instead of additive.
Yes.
Um you both have to like roguelikes and you have to like all this I'll call it for the moment spatial puzzlers
Mhm.
to fully enjoy this game, which means that your audience, if this is everybody who plays video games, here's everybody that plays roguelikes or rogues of some sort. So, you know, billions of people, millions of people, and then overlap of that with people who enjoy spatial puzzlers, and your Venn diagram of the people in the middle is your addressable market.
Yes.
This may pull in people who would not individually be interested in rogues or spatial puzzlers, but like the idea of the concept together.
Yes.
But, um

Can I
Because you're introducing a whole new thing. Like Monster Train, I think actually had this with the good version of it, which is there were enough people that like tower defense on its own that they saw Monster Train and went, "Oh, it's it's roughly a tower defense with this extra thing I haven't played before."
Mhm.
What I'm curious is, can this game pass over the threshold of people who like the spatial puzzlers and like, "Oh, I like them enough that I'll try this new rogue thing."
Yeah.
And that's the thing I don't know.
And there is an additional complication which we haven't talked about, which is that the game is fiendishly difficult.
Mhm.
The game on uh as you go is incredibly difficult. So, I have some I have some Steam achievement numbers.
Okay.
Of all players who own the game for whom Steam achievements are recorded, 78.3% have lost a run, and it is the most common achievement. Okay.

72% have defeated the first boss.
Okay.
47% have defeated the second boss. And only 35% have com- uh defeated the third boss and completed a run successfully. And then
what those numbers are for Slay the Spire.
That's a great question. I can look them up momentarily. And then, importantly, only 9% of players have begun a run in Eclipse mode, which is the Ascension system. Uh and it's worth noting
wonder the same for both on Slay the Spire.
Yeah. Uh well, Slay the Spire 2 doesn't So, Slay the Spire 2 does not have uh achievement support yet because it's still in early access. So, um let's see. Um
56% of players have beat the game with the iron clad.

50% have beat the game with silent. 44% have beat the game with defect and 26% have beat the game with watcher.
And so that would be the equivalent of ascension is zero.
Correct. And then 13% of all players have completed the true ending of spire with iron clad silent and defect. But the most common true ending win is on iron clad with 17%. So hard to say 49% have beaten time eater. Right? 55% have beaten awakened one and there's a separate achievement for donu and deca.
And it's tricky too because spire has sold more copies which means there's more people who might have got especially because the way they put it in bundles and other things. Might have gotten it tried it once or twice and left where anybody trying this one is more yeah. So it's tricky things.

Yeah, correct. It is it is quite difficult to to find the balance. That being said, if you think this game is for you, it probably is. Right? And like that that like there's there's this great overlap here where we can talk about like hey, this is probably not a mass market game but boy is it for people who are in this specific overlap and I'm in that
Well, the thing too is I'm guessing actually Will, when you were chatting with the dev, how big is the dev team? Do we know?
Small.
Is small? Five people? 30 people?
Uh small can be a lot. Single digit number I believe.
Okay. So in that case, this doesn't have to be a mass market game.
Right.
Like even if there's 10 people, if they sell a million copies, they're probably doing okay.
Yeah. Uh they're currently they have uh 162 user reviews and it's very positive. Um, and Steam DB estimates that this has Sorry, I should have had this up ahead of time for talking stats, but I didn't

and that's on me. Um, it estimates that there are It doesn't have an estimate for number of total copies yet.
Yeah, it's
are 179 people playing right now. Like which for a for a tiny game, cool.
Oh, looks like we have dev here.
Yeah, uh uh Development team is two people plus contractors. Great. Yeah, okay. I was right. I was like, the way you were talking was like single digit number, right?
Okay. So, in that case, studio director Jeff said it's like, fine. Like, this is exactly the kind of game that you can be as niche or as broad as you want because
Yeah, you get to
that is always going to be a reasonable development budget.
Right, yeah. If If your If your team is that small, you get to make weird games for weird people and be weird about it and that's great.
Oh, and that's one of the joys of small team development, you know, if you're making Grand Theft Auto and your budget is a billion dollars, a billion with a B,

and then you spend another billion on marketing, that means you need to make at least two billion dollars to break even.
Yeah.
You know, if you have a team of four people and you work two years on it, my guess is your budget is well south of a million dollars with an M, which means that, you know, if you end up getting $10 per copy, 100,000 units, and you are fully paid for and everything after that is studio people being happy.
Yeah. Like, yeah.
Like, the scale and the orders of magnitude have a lot to do with things. Having worked on small and large teams.
Yeah, and I also that one of the things that this game has going for it and again, I will I will say this as a very important piece of when we talk about games is the game is cleanly presented.
Yeah.
Right, it's beautiful.
It is very easy to have a game punch above its weight class if it has a

specific unique art style. I'm going to point at Balatro, right? Balatro looks exactly the way Balatro should look. It has a unique art style that it absolutely nails, no questions, it's exactly that, and it punches so far above its weight class both in terms of dev time and budget, right? Like just because it it looks good, right? So like keeping your game looking good is a um is a great way to do it. Yes, UI, gameplay for this game are both incredibly crisp. So, yeah. Uh that has been our exploration of Moonstone Island. I hope you all have enjoyed this. Um I I did I did scope this down a bit from a run to the first act trying to like make sure that we had time to talk about all these systems and the differences and to explain things. So I hope that that was um of interest to all of you. If that was something that helped you uh engage with this a little more, um us having a more limited scope, please let me know in the comments

below. Uh a note, we are not here next week. We are the studio is on break. Um there may
We're having a dark week because we do that twice a year for the studio to try and give everybody a little rest, and something important is happening that we also need a dark week for. So.
Yeah. Um so we may or may not be back on Tuesday the 16th with the design club. We will also be changing the schedule when we come back. Um Tuesday the 16th is a little up in the air cuz of some travel plans. Don't worry about it. If we're here, we're here. If we're not, we're not. But there will be a break
that will absolutely be dark because I will be traveling, but following that, we'll be good for a while.
Uh and the next breakfast, if you are also a devotee of Games for Breakfast, will be on Friday, June 19th. Please join us for that. It'll be our first Friday breakfast. Uh we're going to make a bunch of noise. It's going to be great. Please join us for that. So, uh until then, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, uh and Jeff, say bye to the people.

Bye to the people. Have a great week, everybody.
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