Card games tend to be nerdy, complex beasts on the Xbox, so it’s refreshing to come across one that’s aiming to be accessible. Rise of the Slime is a deckbuilder where you play a slime that’s been drawn onto a lollipop stick, and it has an easy charm that is hard to resist. Rise of the Slime is out now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch.
If you’ve played Slay the Spire, you will have a good, familiar understanding of what Slay the Slime is doing. You start by picking from one of four decks – basic, fire, poison and random – and then you’re moving from battle to battle, taking down enemies and getting spoils in the form of additional cards for your deck. Occasionally, your journey will be interrupted by shops for buying and upgrading cards, fountains to replenish your health, and random events like a wheel of fortune.
But Rise of the Slime takes a couple of left turns. For one, it’s presented as a side-scroller. You move the slime yourself, rather than choosing options from a menu, which is unusual for the subgenre. Occasionally, you’ll come across trap-laden rooms, and you’re dodging spike traps and falling boulders as if you’d turned into a gelatinous Nathan Drake. Get hit, and you’ll be taking that damage into battles.
The battles themselves have a twist. It’s not just about playing the right cards at the right time: you also have to position yourself. You get movement cards in your hand each turn, and they allow you to flip over enemies to perform backstabbing attacks for more damage, or you can swap places with opponents to push them into a fire, or just plain run away. Positional play is not common in deckbuilders, and it’s a nice deviation.
Rise of the Slime is rogue-like, in the sense that things escalate in difficulty pretty darn quickly, and your main aim is to get further than you did before, as you will likely die at some point. Gain enough gold and you can carry it on to your next journey, equipping you with better upgrades and – the real clincher – pets, which offer passive benefits that won’t cost you mana.
Features include:
- Play it your way: Create an amazingly powerful deck from more than 100 cards!
- A constantly shifting path brings good luck and bad turns: Evade falling rocks and spike pits, visit shops to bolster your deck, and discover secret doors to treasure rooms!
- Battle puzzling and formidable foes, from crafty little devils to gargantuan horrors that will push your deckcraft and tactics to their limits!
- Explore a beautiful, enchanted world of marshy swamplands, bubbling lakes of fire and mystical gardens!
- With numerous gameplay mutators, shifting routes and countless deck variations, no playthrough is ever the same!
Our review of Rise of the Slime is coming very soon. Keep an eye out for it, but in the meantime, if you wish to know more, give our exclusive interview with the brain behind the slime a read.
Edit: Our full review of Rise of Slime on Xbox Series X|S is now live.
Rise of the Slime is out now on Xbox One and optimised for Xbox Series X|S and starts at £12.99 from the Xbox Store. It’s also out on PS4, PS5, Switch and PC.
Game Description:
You are the hero that no one saw coming. Help Slime defy the odds by playing insanely powerful cards in this charming and strategic deckbuilding adventure.
