# Slay the Spire

14 Hacker News commenters recommended Slay the Spire and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Well-regarded strategy roguelite that started a wave of similar games and runs well on Mac and while traveling. Critics note bugs reported in the original game.

## Why people recommend it

- Favorite game for several reviewers (2 comments): "I put solid time into Graveyard Keeper and Slay the Spire." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47105916)) "STS1 and STS2 are my favorite games" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556417))
- Genre-starting strategy roguelite (3 comments): "Slay the Spire kicked off a wave of strategy roguelites." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46819048)) "Original, phenomenal games covering damm near every genre" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46817864)) "you can succeed spectacularly with genuinely good games like Balatro or Slay the Spire" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138735))
- Runs smoothly, good for travel (3 comments): "I use it during travel to play indie games like Hades II or Slay the Spire, and it works really well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47350845)) "very popular indie games like Slay the Spire run natively on Mac" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50191373)) "Those games run with no difficulties." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113500))

## What people warn about

- Bugs reported in the original game (1 comments): "They did not address it in StS1, exactly the same bugs were reported there." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556006))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Balatro](https://hackerapproved.com/p/balatro.md): 31 recommend
- [Slay the Spire 2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/slay-the-spire-2.md): 9 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Slay the Spire", https://hackerapproved.com/p/slay-the-spire/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).