The card-based RPG Slay the Spire got a free fan expansion called Downfall:

Downfall

Downfall is a full-featured Expansion for Slay the Spire, including a 5th Character, an alternate campaign with SEVEN new characters to play, each with unique cards, relics, potions, and more.

Join the official Downfall Discord community server for all the latest updates, beta builds, and centralized place to post feedback and bugs.

The Hermit - The 5th Hero Character
What expansion would be complete without a new character? The Hermit is a complete, fully fleshed out character, including everything you would expect from a Slay the Spire playable hero. Completely original character & card art, simple but elegant card design, a couple of new mechanics, unlocks, class-specific relics and potions - the full suite.

As the Hermit, the positioning of cards in your hand matters - Dead On cards gain bonus effects while they are in the middle of your hand, so play or exhaust other cards first in order to get them into the center for maximum effect. Embrace the darker side of the Spire and be less afraid of curses, as they can be beneficial to you with the right loadout.

Slay the Slayers - New Downfall Game Mode
Instead of engaging in a Normal Run, you may now play in the alternate Downfall Mode, as one of seven Villain characters (with more to come!), and protect the spire from those who would harm it. Despite there being a large number of them, these Villain characters have just as large of card pools, relics, potions, and everything else you'd expect from a complete character. Villains host slightly more complex designs and fresh mechanics than the Standard run characters, making way for all new strategies in deck drafting and builds.

Downfall Mode is separate game mode from the Standard run, traveling down the Spire's levels instead of up it. Encounter familiar events with theme-appropriate twists, collect and shatter the colored keys to protect the Heart's chamber, and harvest and feed Souls to the Heart to grow in power.

The Slime Boss
Command a squadron of Slime Minions to do your bidding as the dapper Slime Boss! Bash enemies head-first with powerful Tackle cards, which damage yourself as well as your foe. Coat your enemies in horrendous Goop and Consume it for bonus damage and healing, quickly restoring any Tackle damage that went unblocked.

The Guardian
As the Guardian, waylay your enemies with powerful multi-hit attacks as you build up your Strength. Brace yourself, and shrug off the blows to enter Defensive Mode, easily deflecting damage and protecting your health while biting back with Thorns. Using the all-new Gem system exclusive to Guardian, collect Gem cards and socket them into other cards, effectively customizing your cards with bonus effects.

The Hexaghost
Use the right types of cards at the right times to ignite the six fires that surround the Hexaghost for quick additional damage and other bonuses, using the all-new Ghostflame system exclusive to Hexaghost. Incinerate your enemies with Soulburn, and utilize Ethereal cards like never before with Afterlife, a new keyword that causes Ethereal cards to trigger their effects when exhausted.

And Many More...
Discover the other characters Downfall has to offer, each with their own new mechanics, some with even more unique and exclusive systems - and keep an eye out for future updates, because we're not done yet.

“Expansion” content additions to Standard Mode
Like all of the base game characters, the Villains each add a few Relics and Potions to the base game pool.

A new suite of 'Boss' type cards have been added, themed around the Bosses of the Spire. These are generally high-cost, potent cards, and can be purchased at the Merchant, sometimes replacing Colorless cards.

Additionally, a large collection of Events, Curses, Daily Run Modifiers, and Custom run modifiers are also a part of Downfall. The Daily Run system will randomly decide a character among all Heroes and Villains, and randomly choose if the run will be a Downfall run or a Standard run, for maximum chaos.

All Villain characters can be enabled via the Config Menu to be playable in Standard Mode. You will still fight their normal counterparts as bosses. 

Polygon has reviewed the turn-based deck-building rogue-like Slay the Spire:

Slay the Spire is my favorite game to lose

When all else fails, inspect your deck

Overcoming the odds and learning from constant failure are at the heart of roguelite games. Victories are few and far between, and the fun is found in the struggle to adapt to an ever-changing game. When I started playing Slay the Spire, a deck-building roguelite now available on Windows PC, I assumed the game would follow the same sort of progression. However, after 10 hours, I learned that mastering Slay the Spire doesn’t come through learning the game’s systems, but rather by dismantling my assumptions about how it all works.

In Slay the Spire, I play as one of three unique characters, in order to fight my way through a randomly generated map filled with battles, treasure chests, and RPG-like encounters. Combat is similar to that of a turn-based RPG, but instead of selecting attacks and spells from a menu, I draw cards from each character’s specific pool of cards. These cards allow me to attack, defend, cast spells, or use special abilities. Each character has their own set of cards, making their play styles radically different.
[...]
Roguelites teach their lessons in often devastating ways, and Slay the Spire is no different. Each new run can feel punishing and, at times, unfair. It wasn’t until I learned how to trim the fat and come up with counterintuitive deck ideas that I really started falling in love with the game. Now that I have a few tricks up my sleeve, I can’t wait to experiment with them further until I get that perfect run

PC Gamer has reviewed Slay the Spire:

Slay the Spire review

One of the most elegantly designed games in recent memory.

The joy of a singleplayer card game like Slay the Spire is that it puts absolutely broken combos within your grasp. It feels good to deal 50 poison damage to something. But it feels even better when you drop a series of cards that sextuples that amount of poison, kills an enemy, and triggers a corpse explosion that cascades splash damage to all of the other things that are trying to kill you.

Slay the Spire is zeroed-in on this feeling of linking cards together to produce avalanches of damage, defense, or utility. Plenty of games put this domino-effect sensation at the center of their gameplay loop, like when you collect enough Diablo gear to unlock some obscene damage multiplier, or when you Call enough Duty to temporarily become a helicopter. Slay the Spire's achievement is the way it makes this feeling of power simultaneously so potent and elusive.

[...]

Card fu

A little remarkably, there are moments when Slay the Spire feels like a turn-based fighting game. The audio does most of this work, serving up expressive sounds that convey motion and impact in addition to training your brain on fine details like status effect triggers. The glacial crunch when my Defect drops multiple frost orbs is ear candy. Ditto the quintuple-tap thud of the Silent's Flechettes against a lifebar, or the toxic clink of Bouncing Flask as it spills poison over random enemies.

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One deck type for The Silent became one of my favorites because of the sound it made. This 'death by a thousand cuts' build is all about playing as many 0-cost attack cards as possible in order to accumulate absurd strength and defense bonuses through relics. Over four or five combat rounds, your pinpricks transform into gouging, 40-damage swings. When this deck is in full motion, it's a chorus of stacking steel as a dozen shivs leave your hand as quickly as they enter.

Score: 92/100

Thanks henriquejr!

Slay the Spire has reached version 1.0 on Steam.

Slay the Spire 1.0: Farewell Early Access

Hey everyone,

Slay the Spire is out of Early Access now. Look! A new trailer!

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Weekly Updates

With the full release of the game, we'll be taking a break from weekly updates and spend some time to re-prioritize our efforts and coordinate releases onto other platforms. Rest assured, Slay the Spire will be available to as many people as possible!

Future Content

Yep, more content is coming to Slay the Spire! There are a few more PC-specific features we couldn't squeeze in but that will come as an update later on. Also, more "content" will be coming... No spoilers today.

What's changed since Early Access?

Slay the Spire was released into Early Access on November 14, 2017. We compiled a list of highlights from all of our weekly patches. It's been a productive year!

• A Third Character
• The Final Act
• Ascensions
• Daily Climb
• Custom Mode
• Seeded Runs
• Beta Card Portraits
• Twitch Voting Integration
• Upgradeable Colorless Cards
• Fast Mode
• Save Slots
• Boss Map Icons
• Steam Leaderboards
• Steam Workshop Support
• Steam Trading Cards
• Run History
• Card Library Tabs
• Rich Presence Support
• Controller Support
• 32-bit Builds
• Official Soundtrack

An art update that was done on the Red Masked Bandits

Content added during Early Access

Lots of little things were changed to ensure that each run felt fair, each card has its purpose, and there was the right amount of variety to force interesting decisions. We read through more than 17,000 suggestions, bugs, and ideas during development!

• 0 -> 15 Additional Languages (Community translated!)
• 189 -> 283 Cards
• 109 -> 161 Relics
• 40 -> 52 Events
• 10 -> 28 Potions
• 54 -> 64 Enemies
• 1,300+ issues were fixed
• 500+ gameplay balance and tweaks were made
• 500+ UI or VFX were created, modified, or overhauled
• 50+ SFX were added or modified

 

A Big Thank You

This journey in Early Access has been tremendously gratifying for us and we would like to thank everyone who helped us in getting Slay the Spire where it is today.

Slay the Spire was developed a little over 3 years. The first 2 years through a tiny and private internal test group and of course publicly on Steam in the last year. The constant support in both private and public testing fueled us to work hard and we hope that anyone who plays the game before and after the release can see all the work that we and various contributors poured into the game.

For all of the people who have written reviews, found issues diligently, sent us e-mails of support, retweeted or liked us, modded before and after it was officially supported, made top notch memes, praised and/or criticized us in articles, graced us with beautiful beta art, streamed, created YouTube content, and helped us make connections with various people I say "Thank You" and apologize if anybody was missed.

[...]

@Gamingbolt Slay the Spire now has Steam Workshop support.

Rogue-lite card battler Slay the Spire just keeps getting better. Mega Crit Games has announced Steam Workshop support in its most recent update. This means that enthusiastic modders can add new cards, events, relics and even their own playable characters into the base game. Though mods have been available for a while, this update will make the process much easier for both users and modders.

[...]

PCGamesN reports that Slay the Spire has sold a million in Early Access.

Deck-building roguelike Slay the Spire has sold a million copies since its Early Access launch in November. Developer Mega Crit games announced the milestone along with one of Slay the Spire’s regular updates Thursday, along with the usual list of tweaks, fixes, and additions to the game.

“Just a few days ago, we reached 1,000,000 players for Slay the Spire,” Mega Crit wrote in the Steam post accompanying Weekly Update 31, which adds a Custom game mode. “It’s been a wild ride as the two of (and a great number of collaborators!) started work on this game almost 3 years ago.”

[...]

The roguelike cardgame Slay the Spire got an update:

Hey world,

This week adds the long anticipated third character into the game!

The Third Character

It's finally here! Those of you who tested out the character in beta, we sincerely thank you for your feedback and gameplay data. The first two characters took about a year of balancing and reworking, it really helps us work faster to get all of your input.

Edit: To unlock the new character, play a run as the Silent (win or lose).

Content:

• A new character with unique mechanics, keywords, and art.
• 75 Cards.
• 9 Relics.
• 3 Achievements.
• Additional lore in the Sensory Stone event.

Controller Support

Still trying a few things here and there while fixing up critical issues and usability quirks. We aim to get this ready for main branch in a few weeks, but it's been quite challenging! We're learning a lot about controllers.

Patch Notes

Content

• New colorless card: Magnetism.

Bug Fixes

• Boot relic now triggers on 4 or less rather than 5, this caused it to flash when it did nothing.
• Closing discard or draw pile view screen can no longer reopen in some cases.
• Egg relics now show pre-upgraded cards for Sensory Stone event's choices.
• Empty save files now treated as corrupted (some files were getting deleted, sorry).
• End of turn Relics and Orbs now trigger after all cards are fully played.
• Fix for Bottled cards showing up in Wheel of Change event's Purge result.
• Fixed an instance of players losing progress due to slow storage write speeds.
• Fixed bug where Elite BGM plays if you load into a reward screen (post-combat).
• Fixed issue where Common Sense achievement was not triggering correctly.
• Fixed issue where loading saves would modify source relics rather than copies.
• Fixed issue where playing cost X cards quickly after energy gain cards failed. Offering -> Whirlwind
• Fixed issue where relics looked tiny in Run History screen.
• Fixed issue where the game could crash when arriving at a boss under certain circumstances.
• Game data now loads attempts to load a backup if the main save is corrupt.
• You can no longer select/click things while the game is fading out during Save & Quit.

UI and Effects

• Increased size of 'Take All' button asset for localization and Button UI purposes.
• Confirm -> Confirm Card for Input Settings.
• Drop Card -> Release Card for Input Settings.
• Master Deck -> View Deck for Input Settings.
• Updated description on Bronze Scales to match Liquid Bronze and other similar relics.
• PNG compression for large size card portraits. Reduces disk space usage.
• Removing 5 unused assets (buttons and misc UI). Reduces disk space usage.

Localization

• Added shop assets for RUS.
• Updates for DEU, FRA, ITA, JPN, KOR, RUS, SRB, SRP, UKR, ZHS, and ZHT.

An official soundtrack is coming soon!

The roguelike card game Slay the Spire got another patch:

Weekly Patch 25: Building Blocks

Hey everyone,

It's nice and sunny here in Seattle.
This week's work was focused on balance, reworks, and bug fixes. Too many random issues were beginning to rack up.

Third Character

We now have about 60/75 card art completed and we're putting on the final balance touches. Keep in mind that balance and changes will still occur after the character is released into the main branch.

Controller Support

Work has begun to add controller support. Slay the Spire from a couch! Those who play 12 hours a day can also give your wrists a break (Tip: Remember to take a break every now and then). Our aim is to make it as intuitive and customizable as we can!

Patch Notes

Hotfix

• Fixed SRP crash.
• Fixed potential issues with game not loading if language was set to SRP or SRB.
• Might as well add in some DEU/SRP/SRB loc updates.

Content

• New common relic Potion Belt.
• New common relic The Boot.

Balance

• Prayer Wheel relic reworked and is now rare.
• Regen potion gets an overhaul. It now acts like Poison, but heals.
• Fruit Juice can now be used outside of combat.
• Fruit Juice will no longer spawn from Alchemize.
• Entropic Brew can no longer spawn Fruit Juice.
• Entropic Brew now spawns potions similarly to Alchemize now (considers rarity).

Bug Fixes

• Awakened One no longer incorrectly regenerates to 10 HP if killed by thorn type effects.
• Bronze Automaton combat now has enemies correctly attacking from left to right.
• Card picks in Run History screen now show card names rather than ID.
• Correctly show skipped cards in Run History screen
• Entropic Brew now always gives you potions equal to your potion slot count.
• Eviscerate card now has correct cost when returned from Stasis power.
• Fixed issue where Save & Exit could re-roll certain events at ? rooms.
• Fixed issue where White Beast relic would still spawn on Brewmaster Daily.
• Game now saves after receiving cards from Pandora's Box and Astrolabe via Neow so your cards don't vanish.
• Mysterious Sphere event enemies now attack in the correct order
• Smoke Potion can no longer be incorrectly used outside of combat. (Can still be discarded)
• Snecko Oil wording fix for high ascension levels.

UI and Effects

• Gambler's Brew (Potion) gets an updated color/shape.
• Dexterity Potion shape updated to match Strength Potion.
• Tiny House relic wording improved.
• Black Star relic wording update to be more consistent with other relics.
• Cauldron and Old Coin wording improved to match other relics.
• HP-gain relics (Fruit & Waffle) now have consistent pickup wording.

Localization

• Renaming SRB-CYR to SRP and SRB-LAT to SRB as it was causing crashes.
• Updates for DEU, ITA, JPN, POL, RUS, SRB, SRP, UKR, ZHS, ZHT.

The card based RPG Slay the Spire is very successful on Steam right now:

Slay the Spire

We fused card games and roguelikes together to make the best single player deckbuilder we could. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!

Features:

• Two core characters that each have their own unique set of cards. (With more planned)
• 200+ fully implemented cards.
• 50+ unique combat encounters.
• 100+ different items to be found.
• Procedurally generated levels.
• Tons of unlockables.

Dynamic Deck Building
Choose your cards wisely! Discover hundreds of cards to add to your deck with each attempt at climbing the Spire. Select cards that work together to efficiently dispatch foes and reach the top.

An Everchanging Spire
Whenever you embark on a journey up the Spire, the layout differs each time. Choose a risky or safe path, face different enemies, choose different cards, discover different relics, and even fight different bosses!

Powerful Relics to Discover
Powerful items known as relics can be found throughout the Spire. The effects of these relics can greatly enhance your deck through powerful interactions. But beware, obtaining a relic may cost you more than just gold...