bite sized: slay the spire mea culpa

Hey loggers, welcome back to another bite sized episode of the Backlog Breakdown where you get a two for one this evening or morning or afternoon, whenever you're listening to this. But it's not just me. I'm, I'm your regular, I don't know, one of your hosts, Josh. And your other host is here too. Nate. How you doing, man?

It's a me, Nate.

It's a me. Yes, exactly.

I actually.

Oh, okay.

No, I hate that. I don't feel bad. It's terrible.

It's a me. Louie. Josh. Oh no. Anyways, that's enough of that.

No, I, I had, I actually, well, I had to turn down the volume on my, my headset there because that.

I was just waiting.

The intro music was very loud, like for whatever reason. I don't know. Yeah, it's, it's me. And we have, we have, we have business to attend to.

That's right.

Reparations must be made. I don't know if reparations. But anyways, the short version is that we did slay the spire the other week.

We did? Yep.

And friend of the show reached out to me and said, hey, you know, I was, I was listening to it. He was like, he said it was, it was a pretty good episode. He's like, but he's like something kind of didn't sit right with me. And he's like, the, the fact is like, you guys, you have like this mission statement that like you're here to sort of help the church think about video games, you know, and engage them wisely. And he's like, and he's like, you know, like your technical conversation about slay the spire was pretty good. He's like, but there's like, you kind of hand waved a lot of the set dressing and everything away. And he's like, there's actually some stuff there that's kind of interesting and it would actually be probably be beneficial for you guys to chop up. And so I, I, I reached out to you and I said, hey, I think we actually should talk about this a little bit because like, yeah, that is one that like, we exist to help the church, to equip our brothers and sisters, to engage them the medium of video games wisely and. Well, right. Is kind of like the thing. And now to be fair to us, and maybe it's a bit of a sort of a, you know, I'm kind of like just a limp risk kind of excuse where I'm just trying to hand wave it away a little bit. The fact is that we Were we had originally planned last week to do something else. The, the, the show that the ne. The next episode, full episode that airs. We were going to talk about Astral Chain, but that kind of got bumped because we were just, we weren't quite ready for it. And so we were like, hey, we both played Slay the Spire. We both like Slay the Spire. It's on our list. We can talk about it. And so there wasn't a ton of prep work. We didn't really dig into the lore. And, and, and part of it is like the lore to a certain extent is kind of, it's just set dressing. It doesn't, it's not very prominent. It's not even sort of coherent in the way that like a soulslike game like Dark Souls or Demon Souls or Elden Ring, like there's lore in those games and you, you really have to dig to uncover it. But it's there a lot of the lore and Slay the Spire tends to be just sort of more inferred and a lot of stuff is kind like there are some things that are explained, but for the most part it just, it's, there's not a lot. So we kind of glossed over that.

Right.

But there are things there that probably deserve to be talked about. And so in an effort to kind of fix that, we decided, hey, let's just take a couple minutes, we're going to do, we'll do a bite size. So we'll take 15, 20 minutes, we'll talk about this sort of maybe hash a few things out for everybody. And yeah, because yeah, we do want like we are sort of leaning into the more explicitly, you know, sort of beneficial for the church kind of angle and there, there is some meat on this bone. So anyways, that is the context for this bite size. That's why it's, it's both of us and because we, we both, we both borked it.

Yeah, yeah, like you said, we kind of hand waved it away. And also like you said, it's mainly, I would say mainly in my, in my case it's mainly because you don't necessarily need any of the lore in order to, in order to play and enjoy the game. However, yes, if we are to engage the medium well and wisely, then we ought to at least talk about what's there. And frankly, in this case I would say also caution any players. So, you know, being a mid-30s, approaching late-30s year old man with kids, I often think that the listener would be in my similar situation. And so some Things that perhaps don't raise too many red flags for me, may for some other people. So if. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't. I would not recommend this game to say, a 12 year old unless you understand kind of what you're getting into. Because the set dressing can get pretty dark when you actually start to look into it. And like you said, we did mention it just a little bit. First character that you get, the Ironclad character in Slay the Spire. Excuse me. One of the cards that I liked a lot that's very powerful is your demon form. So that means your character can turn into a demon, right? Yes. Now, again, if you think of it purely just as a mechanical thing in terms of set dressing, you're gaining, you know, extra strength, then cool, that's fine. But we also do have to acknowledge, hey, that's not kosher, you know, in your general kind of. The game is a very dark fantasy. And that's something I don't think we really grappled with, where both of us enjoy dark fantasy.

Yeah, I was gonna say. I think that's part of the. The other issue is that we do. You and I both sort of tend to. I wouldn't say rebel in that, but like, we both sort of like, you know, I make no bones about the fact that I like grim dark. I spend, you know, a lot of the. When I read fiction, I like, you know, like one of my favorite series is the Black Company, which is a. It is the Proto grimdark series. Like, you know, so it's like, it is kind of like we like that, you know, we're fans of like the Souls Games, Elden Ring. And there's a sort of a grittiness and sort of a griminess to that that we're just kind of like. It doesn't. And maybe that's to our detriment, but like, we're not. We're just not as sensitive to that. But even some of the ideas that like these characters, like, like, so the Ironclad, like, there's. There's a little bit of backstory and it's. And again, it's not sort of readily. It's not made like readily available. But the Ironclad, in order to gain his power, he makes a pact with this demon, right? And he kills. He killed his village to secure that bargain, right? So he killed all the people he grew up with to secure this power. And so there's like, you know, that's. That's again, to borrow the phrase that you use that's not kosher. And so there's. There's stuff in there that it's. And again, like, I would say it's kind of one of those things where it's. It's more set dressing than anything, but it is. There's a general tone to the game that I think you and I were. Again, we're not. We're not as sensitive, like, sensitive to that, but it is kind of like. It's almost like. You remember when we were really big into Christian and I used to just be like, the Christian saga. It's like. It's villains the whole way down. Like, everybody kind of sucks, Right? Slay the Spire is kind of like that.

Yeah.

Like, the characters you play, especially. I mean, I think there could be an argument made for the Defect and the Watcher.

Okay.

But with the Silent and the Ironclad, at the very least, like, these are not really good people. At best, you might typify them as anti heroes. But then there's also the issue of, like, that. That whale spirit thing, Neow, that you sort of bargain with, and the way that that character, like, constantly is constantly resurrecting people to sort of attempt the. The spire climb again. And it's. There's just kind of. So it's like, there's sort of an underlying tone there that I just don't think. Yeah, you know, it's like, it's. It's not appropriate for younger audiences. Like, I would say, like. I would say, like, I would even maybe caution, like, a. A teenager. Like a parent. Like, if a teenager wanted to play this game, at the very least, I would caution parents to say, like, hey, be aware that thematically, it's. It's kind of dark. Like, mechanically, it's a. It's a really great game. Thematically, it's probably not appropriate. You know, it's not quite on the level of, like, some of the monsters, some of the monsters from Persona, you know, some of the levels of, you know, just gratuity.

Yeah, but. Yeah, right. Yeah, like you said, villains all the way down. This. This whale creature apparently wipes the memory of anyone. That's why you don't carry over any progress is because it wipes your memory every time. Because it wants you to slay the spire. It wants you to actually kill it. The whole spire that you're in. I didn't. I didn't realize this, but if you pay attention to the types of enemies that you fight in each not level. The level is not the right word because they use level, I'd say battle. Yeah, yeah. The, it, it actually has some world building elements in there. So I think it's the second biome where you're fighting primarily cultists. And you see like one of the final bosses is a cultist who's like turning into its bird deity thing. And it actually has a ritual knife sticking out of its side. And so it's performed some sort of cultic ritual in order to, you know, either allow its deity to inhabit it because they serve this bird. And you can see that in the different types of cultists, there are some that just have like twigs that look like, like really stupid trying to be a bird. But then you see one, a hooded person that actually has a bit of a wing underneath its hood. But finally you see this thing that. It's on all fours, this boss character. But you can see it's, it has a beak. It's turning into this, this kind of bird deity. So again, that's pretty dark that like cultists have taken over this, this thing and they're, and they're, they're, they have some sort of practice where they're flaying themselves in order to become more like their, their God. I mean, again, villains all the way down because they're also like basically the only humanoid creatures that you fight are, are bandits that are coming, you know, to kill you, take your stuff and run away. So nope, there's no good guys here. It's just, it's just trying to make your way through. And so, and so it seems as though the spire itself. Yeah, okay, you have a reason to kill it, right? To get rid of the, you know, whatever's going on here, but you don't.

Know, cycle of corruption or whatever. Sort of like. Yeah, but it's also kind of like. Yeah, it's kind of like the means don't always justify the end.

Right.

Even in the case of the Ironclad, like you make a pact with, there's, you know, with a demon.

Right.

Or some sort of demonic entity. You know, the Silent Poisoner is kind of, you know, maybe, maybe the silent. You can make the argument is kind of like a trapper. But it's like again, it's like lots of poison. Like even the deck that it uses, it's lots of like poison effects and things like that where it's kind of like. Yeah, so it's, it's one of those things where like we, we sort of neglected this because frankly we didn't really think about it. It like it doesn't Affect us, you know, for. And you know, you might say that's. That's not ideal either. But, you know, whatever. We're grown men.

Well, and. And we were pretty upfront that like, it's more. The thing that we like about the game was the mechanics.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so it's not. Yeah, it just. I didn't feel that the story was very pertinent. Although the things that we could. Yeah, we should have given it more time to at least mention. Yeah, this is pretty dark. Like this is. And I think all the more I'm really glad that, you know, that we had your friend reach out to us and that we're doing this because we're on the cusp of slay the Spire 2 coming out and apparently the devs have said that it has more of a story to it. So we may find out in the ensuing months that it's even darker than we suspected. In which case. And we really have, you know, egg on our face. So I think this is a good exercise to at least just. Hey, there's. There is a caution. Even though we would still highly recommend the game, we do need to put that caution there if we're going to be mindful consumers and take the worldview of the game into account. The worldview for this game is not very good. Yeah, it is. It is like you. And justify the means in terms of the storytelling worldview.

It's kind of. It's very brutal. It's very sort of like, you know, there's again, it's sort of one of those things where like, you know the phrase villains all the way down, but it's. It's just kind of again, and this is. This is kind of actually pretty typical of Grimdark type like stories where it's just like there really aren't good guys. There are people who are just like less bad, you know, and.

Or perhaps their goal has some goodness. They're seeking to achieve a better outcome.

Yeah, their goal or their ambitions might sort of like smack of righteousness, but sort of every. Like all their tools and all their methodologies sort of do lean into just, you know, frankly, not great. You know, I hesitate to say wicked, but a lot of times it's kind of like they're just not very nice but, you know, sort of segueing here. We do have, you know, and this is something that we've been kind of inconsistent in doing, but we figured this would probably be a great opportunity to sort of drag this out. We do have a form that we try to Sort of whenever we talk about a game we try to drag this form out and sort of ask some questions about the game. So I'm just gonna pull that out and.

Okay.

You know, I think we, we probably tackled some of this. So we asked the question who made it? I don't have that information in front of me.

I believe it's Megacrit, right? Yeah, Mega Crit is the name of the developer.

Okay, so Megacrit made the game. Who should play it? Again, we would just caution this, this is probably a.

More.

Should be oriented towards a more mature audience. Probably wouldn't recommend this for, you know, I mean maybe if you have a pretty discerning teenager. But even there, you know, I just think the sort of. I just think of myself as a teenager and that there is that sort of like that. The edgy kind of thing, you know, teenage boys just kind of, you know, like oh cool. You know, that's. I don't know if that's. That's great. What is it? It's a, it's a card based sort of RPG roguelike thing. But what should you keep in mind while playing it? And again this is sort of. We, we've kind of hashed this out repeatedly but that it is really to dark thematically. There's a lot of stuff that just is, you know, again it's, it's not. I don't think it's like it would, I don't think it would be inappropriate for every Christian to play this game. You know what I'm saying? Like, I think that a lot of people can probably enjoy this play with a fairly clean conscience. However, there are things to be aware of. There are things to be maybe a little cautious about sort of even looking at the world like you know, asking the question what is the worldview behind this game? It's again it's set in that sort of that, that grim dark type environment which tends to be sort of very. I'm using the term brutal again but it's sort of very. It's very humanist a lot of the times in the sense that, you know, it's. Well, I wouldn't use humanist in this. That you know, a lot of grim dark can be. But there's also like a lot of like cosmic entities. But it's, it's kind of like that cosmic horror thing where like H.P. lovecraft would like with the cosmic core stuff. It was like part of the, the big thematic thing is like when you were dealing with these sort of, these greater entities, right. They were either indifferent or sort of just malevolent like they, it's like they might use you, but more often than not you're, you're about as significant as a bug, you know, to them in that sort, in that scope. And so it's kind of one of those things where that's some of like the set dressing that sits underneath this. Like those are the, the ideas that this game that doesn't even play with. But again this is like the setting of the game.

Right? You know, yeah, it's, it may kind of veer into the more mythological I guess, if you want to think it that way. But I think it is pretty apparently pagan in that you have cultists, you have these deities throughout the game. Whether it's the, whether it's the, the whale, Niao or the watchers apparently are some sort of angelic beings, they're watching over things. Right. Something along those lines. I wasn't too certain.

Yeah, I'm not really like, I was doing some. And there's like for anybody who wants to sort of go down the rabbit hole there, there are Reddit threads dedicated to the lore of Slay the Spire.

That have not been confirmed by the developers. So it's kind of a shot in the dark.

This is the thing is that the developers in regards to the lore of this game have been pretty close lipped. So a lot of it is like, there's a lot of stuff that can be inferred, there's a lot of stuff that can sort of be like, can be pulled out of. But a lot of the, the, a lot of the deep dives into the lore of the game are, are speculative. It's their fan theories at best. So you know, sort of some of the other questions like why does it matter? Well, we, it matters because it's probably one of the best stinking card games available like outside. I, maybe Balatro is better.

Okay.

But I don't know, I tend to, I also like the, the format where it's like it's kind of a card game but there's also the, the sort of moving through the different sort of sequences and you know. Yeah, I, I, I prefer this just because like it does sort of mix it up. It's, it's got sort of like a little bit of a role playing kind of thing where there's different scenarios that you can sort of address either through combat or sometimes not. You just, you make decisions and things happen. So I kind of, I kind of like that as well.

Yeah. Yeah. The core gameplay loop of the, the roguelite you know, way that it's set up along with the random cards and relics and things that you get is just so satisfying. The, the mechanics of the card game is solid. You add in. All of it is very cohesive so that you start learning how to play better. You learn what you want to and it's dynamic also with all the different random elements to them. So it's, it's really, it's really special the way that it all comes together. So I think that's why it matters is because it's just a masterfully made game that's very satisfying to play.

I mean it is on our top 100. It's, it's. I again, I can't remember the exact placement but it's, it's sort of towards the bottom. And the reason it's on there is because I wanted a card based, I wanted a deck building game that wasn't Marvel Snap. And so that was, that was why it got put on there. But I would say like, I think it has kind of earned its place. It's a game that I really like. I would strongly recommend it but with some really heavy caveats like if, if any of that, that content sounds like it would offend your conscience, don't play it by no means like, you know, like, but if you can play it in good conscience. And I think of, you know, I think some people probably can. I think a lot of people probably can, you know. But yeah, so that's just, that's kind of, that's where I land as far as that goes, I guess. What, what are your thoughts on it? Just real quick before we move on to the final question of the the Too long didn't listen.

Thoughts on, on why it's in the.

Top 100 or it just, you know, I guess like it. Well out of all those questions like is there anything else that we, we should hit before we kind of move on and tell people where they can find that game. Find Slay the Spire.

And I can't think of anything outside of that that I didn't say on the main episode. I, I do think it's a really well done game. I think it's really fun to play. I'll probably, I was gonna say I'll go, I'll go back to it, but I have such a huge backlog. I don't know that I can promise anything, but I do, I do really enjoy it. And so it does come highly recommended if it's the type of game, you know, if that piques your interest at all. However, I do think, yeah, that's kind of the point of this, of this bite sized episode is that it does come with a caveat of just noticing because there are also other dark games. One that comes to mind is maybe something like Hollow Knight that is dark in tone, that's more melancholy. It's not dark because you play antihero, you know, or, or you know, everything is super malicious in the game. No, that's not like Hollow Knight does not feel that way. It just feels somber, it feels melancholy. You know, there, there's, there's a blight that's there. There's some weird, you know, possibly cosmic elements going on as well. But it doesn't ever feel like you're playing a bad guy where this game. Yeah, definitely. Certainly at times you are playing a bad guy.

Like.

Yeah, careful with that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So, you know, like I said, there's some stuff in there where it's like, you know, pretty low hanging fruit, you know, again, like that. In the case of the Ironclad, we don't make deals with demons. Our king, you know, he put his, his boots firmly on their necks. So. Yeah, wouldn't recommend doing that.

No.

Just.

No, probably not.

0 out of 10 would not recommend no stars.

No.

But if, if you are at all interested in Slay the Spire, you can pretty much get it anywhere. It's available on phones. It's on every console.

You don't have a phone.

You don't have a phone. Do people don't have phones? It's on steam, it's on all the consoles. It's pretty much everywhere.

Yeah. So, yeah, readily available.

So with all of that sort of, all of the sort of context sort of laid out there, again, be wise if any of this sounds like material that might offend your conscience or, or is not appropriate, maybe like avoid it because it's not necessary. But it is pretty cool. And if it's not going to like, you know, sear you, then yeah, play and enjoy it because it's pretty stinking good. So.

Yeah, I agree.

Anyways, that's, that's all I got. I don't, you know, you got anything else or should we just.

We did what we came here to do. So guys, keep beating down your backlogs and we'll keep breaking down the benefits. Sam.