Slay the Spire 2 dev says an early idea was to actually reduce the card pool, but players hated it: 'We need new stuff!'

Casey Yano, co-creator of Slay the Spire and co-founder of studio Mega Crit Games, has given a new interview to Edge magazine about designing the sequel to a roguelike deckbuilder that, honestly, pretty much got it right first time. With some games it's obvious what a sequel could build on or improve, but when your starting point is so finely tuned that it's scooping PCG's Best Design award… well, where do you even start?

Dark Souls obviously. Yano says that elements of FromSoftware's series were one of the major starting points for where they wanted to take the sequel. The specific inspiration being how, across the Dark Souls games, players can essentially build the same character. But the difference is in what that specific build will be facing. Then the idea ran smack-bang into playtesters.

"We did mess around with, like, what percentage of the card pool should be different for returning characters," Read Entire Article