Slay the Spire dev says his "Chicken Soup" roguelike design is more Stardew Valley coziness than new mechanics or fancy graphics: "I don't care about any of that"
Apr. 17, 2024“I’m most at peace when quietly playing the same game for a long time”
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A Slay the Spire 2 developer says that he doesn’t care about keeping up with industry trends - which is pretty much all I need to hear to get me fully locked in for his new roguelike.
In a recentblog post, Yano described their concept of ‘Chicken Noodle Soup’ games. Whereas games like Helldivers 2 are “challenging, stressful, [and] visually impressive,” Chicken Noodle Soup are games you play when “you want to tune out. You want to fill a void of time. But you don’t want to be bored and sad with all those feelings you have bottled up inside.” These games aren’t always cute, cuddly, or even easy, but they’re the kind of game where you eventually build up a flow-state-esque relationship with their themes and mechanics. Yano name-drops the likes of Valheim, Factorio, Stardew Valley, and fellow roguelikes Vampire Survivors, The Binding of Isaac, and Spelunky as examples of Chicken Soup Games.
Yano goes on to discuss the value of these kinds of games and the process of creating them, but what jumps out at me is his discussion about how they fit within the industry’s ever-changing shape. “In the world of game development,” he says, “there tends to be an emphasis on fresh mechanics, unique or beautiful visuals, heartwarming stories, guerilla marketing, novel ways of interaction socially, and the newest technology.”
“However, I don’t care about any of that because I’m most at peace when quietly playing the same game for a long time.”
That last line does seem pretty accurate to everything that I’ve experienced in all the time I’ve spent with Slay the Spire. Never a game worried about social elements, intense visuals, or complex narrative, it thrived instead off an incredibly tight balance, word of mouth, and the convenient feat of helping kickstart a new micro-genre. But it’s also great news for the sequel - even with its new engine, it doesn’t look as though Slay the Spire 2 is trying to reinvent the wheel, and Yano’s comments make it sound as though he’s hoping players will slip back straight in. As someone with hundreds of hours in Slay the Spire across three different platforms, that’s all I need to hear.
After 300 hours in Slay the Spire, the sequel’s 1,000-year gap is exactly what the game needed to pull us back in for more.
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I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
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