As of Feb. 12, SpellRogue has transitioned from an open beta to an early access, which is now available on steam for $15.99. It has been a long wait for the Dicey Dungeons–Slay the Spire hybrid roguelike. Published by Ghostship Publishing, the company behind the ever popular Deep Rock Galactic, and developed by Guide Light Games, SpellRogue’s anticipated release is backed by lots of experienced and caring developers.
In SpellRogue, the main gameplay consists of rolling dice that can be used in spells that in turn have effects during each combat. During a run, the player can obtain different spells through shops, events or by completing combats. The player wins a run by defeating the final boss at the end of the third stage.
With the early access release of the game, there are two entirely new wizards available to play with their own full sets of spells. The first new character unlocked is Hazel who controls the element of earth and has a focus on defense and scaling. Hazel uses Blessing to increase her die value, Deplete to create value from using her spells, Potency to create more dice and finally Thorns to deal damage when she gets hit.
The other new wizard, Azar, controls the element of fire. Azar has a focus on damage over time and risky pay offs. Azar uses Banefire to deal damage each turn to the front enemy, similar to Slay the Spire’s poison mechanic, Destroy to get rid of his dice and gain value from it, Incendiary to deal large amounts of delayed damage, Pyrohide to deal damage similar to how Thorns deals damage but only for one turn and Radiant to build up a huge payoff over many turns.
In addition to these new wizards, there is an entirely new stage called the void with completely new enemies and a brand new final boss named Arkanax. The new void stage serves as a true test to each run’s build with enemies that are particularly good at countering certain builds; Wrath Voidling, for example, uses Frenzy which gives more attack to the enemy when the wizard casts a spell, punishing casting too many spells each turn.
The new stage isn’t the only thing that increases the difficulty of the game, there are now more mutation levels that make the game much more diverse and difficult, effectively adding lots more content to the game. This along with the various challenges needed to be completed to unlock spells and artifacts create many different ways to play the game and make each individual run more interesting.
Overall the early access release of SpellRogue has added loads of content and further enhanced the experience of the game in many different ways. It is absolutely worth the money to check this game out and it’ll be interesting to see how further development will improve the game.
