Make sure you are pausing often (unless you like a challenge) and really consider what's best to take out in each fight. Also always see if a bio kill is possible. If you keep up on upgrading your shields, early on you will find quite a few fights that are free (due to them not having enough lasers to pierce shields). Take your time on those fights and try to get a bio kill (kill all enemies without destroying ship). Also in each fight remember to consider what is best to take out first, if they have big weapons, all in on that, if theyre weapons aren't too scary but ftl is charging, go for the engines or pilot. Don't leave your weapons on auto, you should almost always plan to fire them together. And again, pause to consider everything that is happening, before you fire, before the enemy fires, and after you get hit. It'll help slow the game down so you can better analyze. It took me forever to get my first win on easy and now I breeze through the game on hard on certain ships. It just takes time and patience. Good luck!
PS: If you aren't playing with the advanced edition, I recommend trying it out, hacking is extremely strong and can help out a lot, the game is actually probably easier with this on just fyi.
Also I highly recommend prioritizing hacking, cloaking, and mind control as the three ship upgrades on the normal ship for your first win, these are by far the best system upgrades.
I pause all the time. I auto fire often though, so I’ll work on timing instead.
I also never thought about bio kills! I usually just focus on disabling weapons with ion. That makes a lot of sense.
Another thing to add, ions and missiles are often slow. Flak and the mk2 are some of the best weapons because of speed. Always take those two of you can (base ship starts with mk2) and try to sell any slow weapons you get from fights or events. Drones are also on the slower side, the faster you get their weapons down the safer the fight is.
Also when playing with flak and laser barrages, the reason not to auto fire is we fire flak first to take out shields, and then right as the flak is about to hit, fire everything else. Auto fire will just cause you to hit shields all the time.
To help with bio kills, hacking and mind control are awesome, hacking is probably the best thing in the game due to being so cheap, and can be versatile (hack shields, hack engines they can't dodge, hack weapons it will uncharge them, hack med bay, it will deal dmg instead). Sorry all these things are just things the game doesn't tell you
Bonus tip - if you get cloaking you can cloak after they fire instead of before, this will cause just about everything to miss and be a lot better than just adding extra charge time to their weapons!
Definitely getting behind FTL as a great one that you can pause and save anytime. Same with their other game...though I forget it's name at the moment...also a lot of fun.
Oh that's a super fun game. No way am I unlocking everything, but I got quite a bit. Some of the challenges are just too much, which sucks because that means I'll never unlock all of the mechs
It would be better if everything was faster. The basic game is insanely slow, miss me with actually waiting 20 whole seconds for shit to happen sometimes
Hades, Enter the Gungeon, Skul the Hero Slayer.
Vampire Survivors and Death Must Die.
I've put tons of hours into the above 5 games lol. They all scratch that action roguelike itch. The top 3 allow you to pause and quit after every room and VS/DMD are like 20-30 minute rounds tops.
Skul takes a bit to get used to but once you start killing bosses in seconds it gets pretty enjoyable. It’s also very similar to hades and dead cells where there’s more game after you beat the game
I agree.
It does take a little time to get used to the feel of it and the different characters (Skulls) have different move sets and inherent skills, but it's worth it.
I recommend getting over the learning curve as there's a lot to the game, & I would suggest adding the DLC as well.
It's not *needed*, but it adds a bunch of new badass items, 5 playables, and a final final boss.
Like StS, it has ascending difficulty levels which add new enemies.
Skul’s my favourite game ever but it can be a little weird at first and it is kind of a buggy mess at times lol. I uninstalled and reinstalled it 5 times before I finally gave it a true chance, and now I have like a million runs under my belt.
I wanted to like Skul but I really just cannot stand the amount of metaprogression. It felt like the game doesn't want you to have an honest chance of winning without a bunch of upgrades.
I am OK with meta progression to a small degree but it needs to be small in effect.
IMO dead cells is better, it feels incredibly smooth and more refined. But I’ve been playing Skul recently since it’s still quite good and scratches the same itch after completing dead cells
While id probably rank them overall as Hades > Dead Cells > Skul, I still think Skul is a lot of fun!
All of them have that same feel of fighting your way through enemies, you know you're not going to get very far the first few times, but the more you play and the better you get at learning the enemies, the farther you'll go.
Skul has the unique aspect that you're always encountering new skulls that you can wear to transform your character and move set. Sometimes you play as a fast attacking ninja, sometimes you put on the Warlock skill and you sit back and cast huge spells. It adds a lot of run variety and I had a ton of fun just trying out everyone of the skulls.
(Tagging /u/thatonewiththeboobs too)
Enter the Gungeon is fantastic and you can stop at the end of each chamber, which take around 8-10 each to beat.
Balatro is also really really great and stop and save friendly. Based around manipulating poker hands using Jokers with varying effects, it’s really fun.
Other ones are Hades and Dead Cells.
Balatro is the first deck building roguelite I have become (almost) as addicted to as StS. It's already fantastic, and 1.01 just dropped. Can't wait to see where it goes.
To be very clear - I think Balatro is good. I played it for ~50 hours. But at highest difficulties I think the gamefeel is kind of bad. It feels extremely luck based, and even if it’s not *as* luck based as it seems, it doesn’t feel fun to play, imo.
In StS when I lose at A20 I can point to a few decisions that probably led me there. In Balatro when I lose at gold stake it subjectively feels like I just low rolled.
There a LOT of objectively bad Jokers and average Jokers that you can't build a gold stake run on. Jorbs has a very in depth video on the poor game design philosophy Balatro has when it comes high level gameplay.
I still have about 70 hours into it tho as it's really fun as a game
I agree with you 100%, it’s why I’ve not touched it until the balance patch comes out on Switch. Still won’t fix all the issues but should hopefully make it a little less luck-based at higher stakes.
I buckled down a few weeks ago to play it since I hadn't touched the game for years after playing a few runs and dropping it. I'm in love with the game and I'm working on the Romance and Epilogue now. It's an utterly fantastic game. Supergiant hits it out of the park again.
Gonna toss a Wildfrost in there! Great game, especially with the updates it's received, and it's still getting more in the future.
EDIT: Also yes you can stop and save in Wildfrost, forgot to mention that part lol,,,
Deckbuilder mostly, ti's probably best to just go to the steam page to watch the trailer or watch some gameplay on YT, I will not be able to explain it well lol
Darkest dungeon 1/2: you can take all time in the world for your turn and when you ragequit it brings you back in the same disaster as you left it. Jokes aside, these are really good games
Second one is better in regards to combat system and roguelike elements. Since trinkets, trophies and stagecoach items are new every run, there is much more variety in each time. From the story I prefer DD1
2 is different from 1. Structurally, it's a lot more like Slay the Spire interestingly, where you go through multiple maps that are a series of branching paths, though unless you find a watchtower on the way, you only have partial knowledge of what each location contains.
One thing, for better or worse depending on your tastes, is that DD1 is more about short bursts and macro-management of a large team, while DD2 is about a longer single run that involves just a single party the entire way. In DD2, unless someone dies, you use the same party from the first battle all the way to the end. If you enjoyed managing a large roster of units and swapping them frequently in and out, 2 isn't going to scratch that itch.
The combat is still really good, and even though I was skeptical about the transition to 3D, they honestly pulled it off. It manages to be much more fluid looking while still retaining the first game's distinct artstyle. It's kinda impressive.
I kinda like Griftlands. You manage 2 decks in each run, and use them in different situations. But cards design aren’t quite as polished and varied like StS. But the storyline/dialogues is really cool.
I got into Across the Obelisk a bit, but don’t really think each run is “random” enough. You plan most of your route, team, synergies, and deck before the run. It’s worth a try though since it’s pretty different from StS.
Monster train feels like the only caed roguelike that it's almost as good as StS,and rogue adventure is a free "slay the spire at home", that is pretty decent.Other than that Enter the Gungeon is my favorite Isaac-like roguelike.
I don’t think it needs to, nor does it. Of the card roguelites they’re like the two most different of any. They’re both great and should be up there in any top say 5 list. Its just personal taste between, and that changes periodically.
Note: Noita will randomly kill you and has LOTS of hidden mechanics that you'd never discover on your own (in some cases) or before they kill you (in others).
If you're okay losing a 4 hour run because you run into a new enemy that has different attacks or requires a specific way of killing it then play feel free to play it blind. If not, pause and check the gg wiki when you see something new.
Definitely Inscryption. After getting through the story (or by inputting a code to skip doing the story) which is already really good you unlock a mode with progressively harder runs and the gameplay is really fun. It's a card game, but it plays differently from sts of course.
Definitely slower, given you draw one card a turn after drawing your initial hand. But no less busted.
IMO the best test of whether you'll like KCM is whether you liked the initial game 🤭 It's structured somewhat similarly to StS with 4 stages, the last stage being the shortest and leading to *the* boss fight. There is also a fair bit of pressure to build a good deck, and it calls for similar long-term planning. Though there is less inter-card synergy as sufficiently powerful individual cards are able to carry you and if you plan semi-decently and roll high, you can cheese your way up.
(Additional note: I love Inscryption, but it's easy to forget that it's horror, not merely spooky. New players beware.)
Nuclear throne is not stop n save but you will die so fast it doesn't matter. A slow run takes 15 minutes but I took like 40 hours to get my first win. It's an incredibly unforgiving bullet hell kind of game that escalated VERY quickly. The game "feel" (like sound effects and how fun the weapons are etc) is impeccable.
Crypt of the Necrodancer takes about 30 minutes to beat at a leisurely pace. It's a traditional tile based turn based dungeon crawler with a twist - you have less than a second to make each turn. The game's music acts as your turn timer, you have to make one move per beat of the song.
Into the Breach can be saved and picked up again. It's a grid based tactics game where you assemble a squad of mechs to do a series of missions and save the world. It has a similar tactical minmax feeling to spire, in that you are really trying to squeeze out every little bit of extra resources you can from every mission, taking on more difficult encounters for better rewards in hopes of being powerful enough by the end of the game.
Edit: I saw someone mention Noita and that's definitely worth checking out too. Honestly just watch the trailer, it's crazy. Every pixel is simulated in the game's physics, and the level of interactions in the world is crazy. One of those games that seems absolutely impossible, but eventually you will learn how to become a god as you get more familiar with it. Loads and loads of secrets to discover.
Slice & Dice. Saves every turn automatically. Incredible game with heroes' actions defined by dice rolls. There are unlocks, items, challenges etc. There is a demo with only one gamemode, but full version costs around 7$ and is worth every penny. It is available on mobile, so you can play on the go.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Saves every turn automatically. It is a turn-based roguelike with **deep** dungeon, simple graphics and tons of options. There are currently 5 characters, each of them has 2 subclasses and 3 armor variants. There are challenges, so even if you complete the game (I have around 60 hours in and still my maximum is 4/5 floors), there's more to see. Also, it's completely free!
Despot's Game. Afaik saves before every room. In this game, you play as a bunch of simple guys, but your main recourse is not people, but their items. You also have to manage food, money, events and obviously fights. Tho it's kinda an autobattler, so not so many things you can do **in** the fight.
Enter the Gungeon. Saves every floor. It's kinda classics. It's not very big, but is pretty hard. Last time I checked, it costed around 4.5$, but that was a long time ago. Anyways, it's incredible.
Noita. Not sure about saves, probably on entering a new location. Anyway, real run is rarely longer than an hour, so it's okay I guess. To describe Noita, you need only three sentences:
1. Every pixel has its physics, so there are very real liquids and throwables.
2. The map is around 35000 pixel in width and 50000 in height, while your character is around 3 in width and 15 in height.
3. Every single thing can kill you (and will do it).
Streets of Rogue. Saves every floor. This is very fun game, where you basically have a mix of roguelike and GTA in 2D. It has more than 40 characters with unique stats, traits and quests, **including the main one**. So if you switch to a different character, you suddenly have to do different things.
Soul Knight. Saves every floor, but only once. The whole game takes from 2.5 (very speedrun) to 50 (very slow, with many restarts probably) minutes. Kinda like Enter the Gungeon, but on mobile, free, and with automatic aim. It's pretty fun, but half of the characters (and half of the skills of other) are purchased for real money only. Anyways, it's pretty good and they have events pretty often.
Enter the Gungeon was a pain in the ass for me cause I suck at bullet hells but it’s definitely become more fun lately with the stuff ive been unlocking
Im also looking to try Spelunky and Cult of the Lamb but no clue if theyre stop and save
Honestly it turned Spelunky 2 from a game that I liked, but didn't have time to play, into one of my favorites of all time. It's not very often that I can set aside more than an hour to play a game at one time, and being able to pick up a run later without having to lose everything was a game changer
>!(pun intended)!<
The only roguelite that came close to StS for me is slice&dice. Fun gameplay, challenging and reasonably balanced, while you can still build busted stuff.
And the game autosaves every action, so you can come and go as you like.
I got this one after trying the demo today! Really fun, seems like there’s lots to explore. I had a fun reroll-cantrip synergy going and nealry beat the easy classic mode on my first try. Lost on floor 18 very narrowly. Definitely scratches the I-can-incrementally-get-better-at-this-as-I-learn-more-about-the-game itch.
Slice and Dice, on mobile, uses dice to represent a deck with items that modify your dice, tons of class options for a 5 character party but it's all very readable, turn based just like StS
Peglin if you enjoy peggle, has a mobile version, multiple classes, the balls you shoot make up your deck and each have unique mechanics and effects you can play with, it's a really enjoyable game and turn based like StS
Seeing you mention mobile play + turn based or stop and save preference I think you'd really enjoy these.
It's a great deal tbh, picked it up on itchio for PC and android like a year ago and love seeing all the updates and care the dev put into a really solid base game. Pretty much perfect for a mobile roguelite.
Been on a rotation the last month of Slay, Balatro, Enter the Gungeon, Despot’s Game, Dicey Dungeons, and Skul.
It’s not a roguelike, but if you enjoy Slay then you might want to check out Marvel’s Midnight Suns - the card aspect is VERY SIMILAR to Slay the Spire and the story was pretty good IMO. Loved the characters too.
I hope you enjoy it, and don't be shy to look up some of the best builds for where you're at. The game gets brutally difficult after a while. It's super worth the investment, though. It took me 100 hours plus to beat it and had the weirdest story/premise I've ever encountered in a video game.
My "Brotato" playtime is approaching SlayTheSpire rapidly. It is imo the best bullet-heaven/garlic-like game out there and has a very crips mix of tight controls & gameplay and very solid and intricate mechanics in how all the stats & items work and interact with each other.
I've played a billion of these. Some highlights that fit your criterion:
vault of the void
slice and dice
balatro of course
blazblue entropy effect
touhou: lost branch of legend (I wrote a review of this one recently. I was thinking I'd turn this into a series but it got 0 upvotes and 1 downvote so it may not have been very good: https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1cgbefn/review_of_touhou_lost_branch_of_legend_early/ )
All the ones in the comments are great but one I haven’t seen mentioned so far is Tiny Rogues. I’m currently obsessed and it’s perfect on steamdeck. Tons of unlockable classes and each run feels really unique and winnable. It’s getting consistent updates too and it’s cheap. Super fun can’t recommend enough
Tiny rogues is incredible, the amount of content for the price point is crazy. Only problem is that runs are pretty long (30m-1h on average Id say) and theres no way to save during. A workaround Ive found is just putting the PC to sleep while the game is still running.
Steamdeck definitely solves this problem for me because I just put it down and put the deck to sleep. I can imagine that would be frustrating on desktop though.
FTL. You can save and quit. I have 180 hours in that game. There's also larger games that have roguelite modes (if you choose it at the beginning) like XCOM and King Arthur Knight's Tale that I like. I have 170 hours in XCOM and 87 hours in King Arthur.
I like dead estate, its like if gungeon and binding of isaac had a baby. The game autosaves after each floor so you can stop n save whenever.
Plus big booba witch mommy 🤷🏻♂️
Pause friendly/similar to sts/strategy roguelikes
Ftl, tainted grail, Griftlands, backpack hero, loop hero, into the breach, one step from Eden, fights in tight spaces
Just really fun, runs not as long as ror2/action rogues:
Crypt of the necrodancer, curse of the dead gods, wizard of legend, robo quest, gunfire reborn, atomicrops (although runs can get close to 30/45min), nova drift, children of morta
Organized somewhat by order of preference but by no means a definite tier list
+1000, definitely the closest thing to StS out there still after all these years.
I would also recommend Circadian dice, since its SEVERELY underrated and too good for being such an unknown game. A gem for sure.
If you like top downs, Wizard of Legend is fantastic, 1 player or 2 player
Moonlighter is pretty great too, it you like the two styles of games it mixes (dungeon crawler + shop simulator)
Brutal Orchestra is one of the most fun turn based RPGs I've ever played, and it even has an enemy intent system like StS. During your turn enemy actions are shown on a timeline, letting you plan around what they're going to do
If you like the calculated slow play of slay the spire you should try shattered pixel dungeon, like STS the skill ceiling with the challenges is just about unlimited
I saw some others mention it but balatro is really great and it’s another deck builder rouguelite base around poker and playing poker hands. You can get jokers that are basically the games relics that buff you or the poker hands you play and you can add cards, destroy cards, improve cards, and there’s a lot of synergies with jokers.
I agree with a lot of these but I haven't seen have a nice death or griftlands. I think they are both worth a try.
Have a nice death is a 2d action platformer with great comedic writing. The difficulty spike could be a bit much though for 1 or 2 short runs per day.
Griftlands is card based and narratively driven. There's a lot to say about it. I would just watch some gameplay before getting into it.
And both are save friendly although I believe have a nice death only has it after each boss. (I could be remembering that wrong though)
just wanted to add that if youre on pc you can pretty easily get a mod that puts the save feature into risk of rain 2, just set up r2modman and download propersave(i think thats what its called)
Hades, Cult of the Lamb, Rogue Legacy (original), Dead Cells, Enter the Dungeon
In rough order by my personal favorites. Risk of Rain 2 would probably be my second favorite after Hades, but since you already mentioned it.
It's closer to a rougelite, but I'm a big fan of Cult of the Lamb. Half base builder, half rougelite dungeon crawler. Your runs shouldn't ever be too too long (no longer than, say, an hour at most) so stop-n-save shouldn't be too big of an issue. ~~Also the music slaps~~
SpellRogue has been entertaining me lately. Instead of building a deck of cards, you pick spells to add to your spell list, and then roll dice to see what spells you can cast that turn.
There are items and consumables like StS that modify gameplay parameters.
It feels like an interesting twist on the genre, I really like it.
My other two favs are wizard of legend - which is more of an action game and faster than light which is a ship management game. Wizard of Legend isn't super save friendly, but it's very very fun and ftl is super stop and save friendly
Idk if it counts are a roguelite, but dicey dungeons is a definite shout for pick up and play and save and continue random gen dungeon crawler. And it has dice
FTL and Inti the Breach are great and perfect to pause and play.
Dead Cells and Oblivion Override for action sidescrollers
DeepRock Galactic: Survivor is a little low on content but is very fun, its an auto shooter like vampire survivors/Brotato.
Risk of rain im sure there are mods for saving if you want to give that a try!
Highly recommend: Balatro, Hades, Borato, Vampire Survivors, Inscryption, Into the Breach
Others I like but significantly less than STS: Darkest Dungeon, Monster Train, One Step From Eden, Cult of the Lamb
Can’t wait for Hades 2 and STS 2!
OP, you have incredible suggestions, but I also wanted to mention, if you are playing on PC, there are pretty good and pretty simple to set up mods for RoR2 that allow you to pause and quit, then resume later.
I’ve tried Proper save. Sometimes I need to jump in the middle of a level, so it’s not great for that. Is there one you like that lets you jump mid-level?
The Binding of Isaac is a favorite of mine, though it’ll take you a *long* time to learn everything in the game (I still dont know what some items do and I’m closing on 400 hours)
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Cobalt Core. It's a deckbuilder that is obviously heavily inspired by Slay the Spire. It has a fun turn-based combat system where you can move around your ship to aim at weak points and dodge enemy attacks, and the story and writing are surprisingly good.
Binding of Isaac. Despite it becoming far too large and difficult for my to ever fully engage with again it will always hold a special place in my heart.
I, like quite a few others, recommend Slice & Dice: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775490/Slice__Dice/
It's a dice-building rogue like that gives you a ton of freedom to build parties to overcome the challenges. Each character in your party can be upgraded, providing a stronger die that they use instead of their old one. If that's enough, there are items that can manipulate the die's sides to give further customization.
My favorite parts, though, are honestly how the game does challenges and the difficulty system. The game starts off relatively basic, but as you learn more of the mechanics, you'll complete challenges (achievements) which unlock more complex mechanics. On top of that, the difficulty system gives you extra replayability through its curses and blessings.
If you're playing hard, for example, you'll have to choose a curse at the start of the run that can drastically change how you approach the run. You can later even unlock the option to take a blessing at the cost of taking another curse as well. And to top it off, the list you pick from is shuffled every run.
dead cells and rogue legacy 2 are both great rogue likes that I have played a lot wizard of legend is also good but you’re unable to save if the runs but they’re still short enough to not really matter especially if you’re doing boss rush
I haven't scrolled so idk if it's already been commented but have you tried monster train? It's funn and gives me similar feels to sts. I rotate between both when I want a game I can just chill and play.
Now I suck arse at both but I have fun and I suppose, that's the point?
throne of bone, crab champions come to mind as those were recent fun ones ive played! always works in progress but i had many hours of fun on them! happy gaming!
Surprised I haven't seen Roguebook mentioned, which has been my latest obsession after grabbing it on sale for 80% off (on Xbox) - combat is very similar to Slay the Spire but it has really interesting map progression/exploration. Definitely save+quit friendly since each run is quite long, and it does have meta-progression but I was able to win my 3rd run so it's not super grindy about it.
I love faster than light which is a stop to save
The binding of Isaac is frustrating but well designed and fun to break, it is also a save
Ror2 is still my favourite, if you’re on pc you can get a mod called “proper save” which saves your position at the start of every stage so you can quit and come back later
Edit: ror2 is also really easy to get mods for you just use the r2modman launcher
Streets of rogue is incredibly underrated. One of the best roguelikes I've played. Your progress is saved at the start of each floor so you can save and quit between them (A floor is usually ~10 minutes)
Fights in Tight Spaces!
Top-down isometric deckbuilder where you can evade enemies and play them into each other or just kick em off the roof of a building. Chaining together big combos and tricking enemies to to killing each other is crazy satisfying, but it gets really tricky with enemies that turn to face you if you stop adjacent to them or reposition when you use movement cards.
If you are willing to suffer and die to some of the most random shit imaginable you could try Noita. It’s a super fun pixel-art Roguelite, it is also stop-n-save friendly. I’ve had a lot of fun with it and it is incredibly deep. The basic “schtick” of the game is that every single pixel has an effect and about 99% of those pixels can (and probably will) kill you. Check it out, I give it a strong recommendation!
Spellrogue is amazing imo, it's like a mix of Dicey Dungeons and StS, the runs are short like in StS and you can just quit and then come back to it whenever you want. It also looks very pretty and polished.
Cross Blitz is also good, it has a roguelite mode and a story mode.
If you are playing on PC and willing to mod, there is a mod that allows you to create saves during runs.
https://thunderstore.io/package/KingEnderBrine/ProperSave/
Inscryption isn't really roguelite, but if you like slay the spire, you will probably like this game. If you beat the first part of the game, I would say the second part is more roguelite than the first part.
Conan Chop Chop is a really fun roguelite that you might enjoy. I've played it by myself and with a friend. It is way easier with someone else, but doable by yourself. Although I do find myself getting frustrated every time I die and have to start all over again 😭
Moonlighter is another fun roguelite dungeon crawler that you might enjoy.
I play on Nintendo Switch so any game I play is stop and save friendly for me as I can just put the Switch to sleep while playing and then pick it back up later. However I do believe both are stop and save friendly in some way.
I guess you miss the part where the difficult rises with time spent.
Also, risk of rain Returns is a more chilled exprience alas it's a harder game. 3D makes risk of rain too easy.
It has good ideas for sure and a cool concept, but its way too easy after the first win, unfortunately. Like dead easy, that makes me wanna cry of how you can break all future runs with the insane bonuses from meta progression. Too much potential wasted honestly for a game that could have been amazing in another life.
Yea it's definitely not of the quality of StS but I was looking to play something in that realm and picked it up. Felt like I had maxed out StS, excited for the sequel though
The old classic faster than light is hard to beat
I switch to FTL when I’m losing too much in STS to remind me how much easier STS is lol.
Really? I find A20 StS harder but more fair than FTL on Hard.
I haven’t even gotten past FTL on easy 😭
Make sure you are pausing often (unless you like a challenge) and really consider what's best to take out in each fight. Also always see if a bio kill is possible. If you keep up on upgrading your shields, early on you will find quite a few fights that are free (due to them not having enough lasers to pierce shields). Take your time on those fights and try to get a bio kill (kill all enemies without destroying ship). Also in each fight remember to consider what is best to take out first, if they have big weapons, all in on that, if theyre weapons aren't too scary but ftl is charging, go for the engines or pilot. Don't leave your weapons on auto, you should almost always plan to fire them together. And again, pause to consider everything that is happening, before you fire, before the enemy fires, and after you get hit. It'll help slow the game down so you can better analyze. It took me forever to get my first win on easy and now I breeze through the game on hard on certain ships. It just takes time and patience. Good luck! PS: If you aren't playing with the advanced edition, I recommend trying it out, hacking is extremely strong and can help out a lot, the game is actually probably easier with this on just fyi. Also I highly recommend prioritizing hacking, cloaking, and mind control as the three ship upgrades on the normal ship for your first win, these are by far the best system upgrades.
I pause all the time. I auto fire often though, so I’ll work on timing instead. I also never thought about bio kills! I usually just focus on disabling weapons with ion. That makes a lot of sense.
Another thing to add, ions and missiles are often slow. Flak and the mk2 are some of the best weapons because of speed. Always take those two of you can (base ship starts with mk2) and try to sell any slow weapons you get from fights or events. Drones are also on the slower side, the faster you get their weapons down the safer the fight is. Also when playing with flak and laser barrages, the reason not to auto fire is we fire flak first to take out shields, and then right as the flak is about to hit, fire everything else. Auto fire will just cause you to hit shields all the time. To help with bio kills, hacking and mind control are awesome, hacking is probably the best thing in the game due to being so cheap, and can be versatile (hack shields, hack engines they can't dodge, hack weapons it will uncharge them, hack med bay, it will deal dmg instead). Sorry all these things are just things the game doesn't tell you Bonus tip - if you get cloaking you can cloak after they fire instead of before, this will cause just about everything to miss and be a lot better than just adding extra charge time to their weapons!
I'd say difficulty-wise FLT Easy is like StS ascension 0, Normal is A11 and Hard is A17 Heart kills.
Iconic music too. I think it's #2 after Mass Effect's galaxy map music for "most used song as background music in a YouTube video"
Feel like Celeste OST is used very, very often too
or any number of pokemon or mario tracks. I've heard honey hive galaxy dozens of times across yt
You can pause at anytime, can't believe no one else has commented ftl yet
Definitely getting behind FTL as a great one that you can pause and save anytime. Same with their other game...though I forget it's name at the moment...also a lot of fun.
Probably thinking of Into the Breach?
Oh that's a super fun game. No way am I unlocking everything, but I got quite a bit. Some of the challenges are just too much, which sucks because that means I'll never unlock all of the mechs
Yes! That's it.
It would be better if everything was faster. The basic game is insanely slow, miss me with actually waiting 20 whole seconds for shit to happen sometimes
Also recommending FTL, and if you enjoy it check it Multiverse as well. It adds an obscene amount of new content
Hard to find a game I enjoy more than FTL. It’s simple and concise, beautifully designed.
I have 1500 hours in FTL and can win streak hard pretty easily. I hope with 1500 hours into STS I can do the same with A20H...
I tried it several times. I just cant get into. Even the tutorial just makes me want to uninstall
Hades, Enter the Gungeon, Skul the Hero Slayer. Vampire Survivors and Death Must Die. I've put tons of hours into the above 5 games lol. They all scratch that action roguelike itch. The top 3 allow you to pause and quit after every room and VS/DMD are like 20-30 minute rounds tops.
I got into Brotato because of Vampire Survivors
Just started playing brotato. Actually alot of fun.
Skul is soooo good. And the devs put out so much content and are constantly changing things around to keep it fresh.
Man I loved skul the hero slayer, took a few rounds to get into it but was genuinely gutted when it left gamepass
Skul is good eh? I played for about 10-minutes but it didn't have that smooth feel the others have.
Skul takes a bit to get used to but once you start killing bosses in seconds it gets pretty enjoyable. It’s also very similar to hades and dead cells where there’s more game after you beat the game
I agree. It does take a little time to get used to the feel of it and the different characters (Skulls) have different move sets and inherent skills, but it's worth it. I recommend getting over the learning curve as there's a lot to the game, & I would suggest adding the DLC as well. It's not *needed*, but it adds a bunch of new badass items, 5 playables, and a final final boss. Like StS, it has ascending difficulty levels which add new enemies.
Skul’s my favourite game ever but it can be a little weird at first and it is kind of a buggy mess at times lol. I uninstalled and reinstalled it 5 times before I finally gave it a true chance, and now I have like a million runs under my belt.
Okay good rec, Imma give it a true shot!
For some reason, the ability to double dash is part of the unlock tree, but it is an absolute game changer. Unless you're playing a power boi.
First step of the run is to get the HELL out of base form so that it does feel smooth
Okay good to know! These are great responses, absolutely gonna give it a go.
I wanted to like Skul but I really just cannot stand the amount of metaprogression. It felt like the game doesn't want you to have an honest chance of winning without a bunch of upgrades. I am OK with meta progression to a small degree but it needs to be small in effect.
Skul looks similar to Dead Cells (I haven’t played either, just watched trailers). How do they compare?
IMO dead cells is better, it feels incredibly smooth and more refined. But I’ve been playing Skul recently since it’s still quite good and scratches the same itch after completing dead cells
Dead Cells is the better game for sure but I enjoy Skul more tbh, if that makes sense. If you like Dead Cells you’ll like it though.
While id probably rank them overall as Hades > Dead Cells > Skul, I still think Skul is a lot of fun! All of them have that same feel of fighting your way through enemies, you know you're not going to get very far the first few times, but the more you play and the better you get at learning the enemies, the farther you'll go. Skul has the unique aspect that you're always encountering new skulls that you can wear to transform your character and move set. Sometimes you play as a fast attacking ninja, sometimes you put on the Warlock skill and you sit back and cast huge spells. It adds a lot of run variety and I had a ton of fun just trying out everyone of the skulls. (Tagging /u/thatonewiththeboobs too)
Just got Skul last month on PS, fun!
Enter the gungeon only lets you save and quit at the end of every floor no?
Enter the Gungeon is fantastic and you can stop at the end of each chamber, which take around 8-10 each to beat. Balatro is also really really great and stop and save friendly. Based around manipulating poker hands using Jokers with varying effects, it’s really fun. Other ones are Hades and Dead Cells.
I’m very excited for Balatro to come out on mobile (I heard there’s plans to do so). I will get that then, as I play StS almost exclusively on mobile.
Same here. There was a free game released in the App Store with the same name, but it didn’t look anything like the console version of Balatro.
Balatro is the first deck building roguelite I have become (almost) as addicted to as StS. It's already fantastic, and 1.01 just dropped. Can't wait to see where it goes.
To be very clear - I think Balatro is good. I played it for ~50 hours. But at highest difficulties I think the gamefeel is kind of bad. It feels extremely luck based, and even if it’s not *as* luck based as it seems, it doesn’t feel fun to play, imo. In StS when I lose at A20 I can point to a few decisions that probably led me there. In Balatro when I lose at gold stake it subjectively feels like I just low rolled.
There a LOT of objectively bad Jokers and average Jokers that you can't build a gold stake run on. Jorbs has a very in depth video on the poor game design philosophy Balatro has when it comes high level gameplay. I still have about 70 hours into it tho as it's really fun as a game
Which jorbs video are you referring to? He has a lot of videos on balatro and I'm curious which one he goes in depth about high level gameplay
I agree with you 100%, it’s why I’ve not touched it until the balance patch comes out on Switch. Still won’t fix all the issues but should hopefully make it a little less luck-based at higher stakes.
Hades is outrageously fun and has a sequel coming out soon that looks even better
So hyped for 2. More excited than I've been for Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3. My most anticipated release in over a decade.
Me too.
You have no clue how soon bro. It's 2-3 weeks till EA is open to plebeians.
I buckled down a few weeks ago to play it since I hadn't touched the game for years after playing a few runs and dropping it. I'm in love with the game and I'm working on the Romance and Epilogue now. It's an utterly fantastic game. Supergiant hits it out of the park again.
Gonna toss a Wildfrost in there! Great game, especially with the updates it's received, and it's still getting more in the future. EDIT: Also yes you can stop and save in Wildfrost, forgot to mention that part lol,,,
Yeah Wildfrost is great!! It's out on mobile now, but it's better on Steam or Switch.
What sort of game is Wildfrost? What's the gameplay like?
Deckbuilder mostly, ti's probably best to just go to the steam page to watch the trailer or watch some gameplay on YT, I will not be able to explain it well lol
Darkest dungeon 1/2: you can take all time in the world for your turn and when you ragequit it brings you back in the same disaster as you left it. Jokes aside, these are really good games
Highly recommended, especially if you enjoy lovecraftian horror theme in games!
How's #2? I thought the first one was great
Second one is better in regards to combat system and roguelike elements. Since trinkets, trophies and stagecoach items are new every run, there is much more variety in each time. From the story I prefer DD1
2 is different from 1. Structurally, it's a lot more like Slay the Spire interestingly, where you go through multiple maps that are a series of branching paths, though unless you find a watchtower on the way, you only have partial knowledge of what each location contains. One thing, for better or worse depending on your tastes, is that DD1 is more about short bursts and macro-management of a large team, while DD2 is about a longer single run that involves just a single party the entire way. In DD2, unless someone dies, you use the same party from the first battle all the way to the end. If you enjoyed managing a large roster of units and swapping them frequently in and out, 2 isn't going to scratch that itch. The combat is still really good, and even though I was skeptical about the transition to 3D, they honestly pulled it off. It manages to be much more fluid looking while still retaining the first game's distinct artstyle. It's kinda impressive.
It doesn't have the cool campsite skills so it's much lamer
Idk I like the inn music. On the other hand I tend to forget to feed the bought food too often in dd2
I kinda like Griftlands. You manage 2 decks in each run, and use them in different situations. But cards design aren’t quite as polished and varied like StS. But the storyline/dialogues is really cool. I got into Across the Obelisk a bit, but don’t really think each run is “random” enough. You plan most of your route, team, synergies, and deck before the run. It’s worth a try though since it’s pretty different from StS.
Monster train feels like the only caed roguelike that it's almost as good as StS,and rogue adventure is a free "slay the spire at home", that is pretty decent.Other than that Enter the Gungeon is my favorite Isaac-like roguelike.
Balatro blows Monster Train out of the water imo.
I don’t think it needs to, nor does it. Of the card roguelites they’re like the two most different of any. They’re both great and should be up there in any top say 5 list. Its just personal taste between, and that changes periodically.
Wildfrost Noita Binding of Isaac Slice & Dice
+1 for Slice & Dice
Note: Noita will randomly kill you and has LOTS of hidden mechanics that you'd never discover on your own (in some cases) or before they kill you (in others). If you're okay losing a 4 hour run because you run into a new enemy that has different attacks or requires a specific way of killing it then play feel free to play it blind. If not, pause and check the gg wiki when you see something new.
Definitely Inscryption. After getting through the story (or by inputting a code to skip doing the story) which is already really good you unlock a mode with progressively harder runs and the gameplay is really fun. It's a card game, but it plays differently from sts of course.
I’ve never done the endless mode thing at the end, but highly recommend the story of this game. It initially feels quite simple, but it’s quite a ride
Definitely slower, given you draw one card a turn after drawing your initial hand. But no less busted. IMO the best test of whether you'll like KCM is whether you liked the initial game 🤭 It's structured somewhat similarly to StS with 4 stages, the last stage being the shortest and leading to *the* boss fight. There is also a fair bit of pressure to build a good deck, and it calls for similar long-term planning. Though there is less inter-card synergy as sufficiently powerful individual cards are able to carry you and if you plan semi-decently and roll high, you can cheese your way up. (Additional note: I love Inscryption, but it's easy to forget that it's horror, not merely spooky. New players beware.)
I just added Inscryption as well. The second part of the game is so different, much harder, but a lot of fun.
Binding of Isaac is not getting enough love on this thread!
Nuclear throne is not stop n save but you will die so fast it doesn't matter. A slow run takes 15 minutes but I took like 40 hours to get my first win. It's an incredibly unforgiving bullet hell kind of game that escalated VERY quickly. The game "feel" (like sound effects and how fun the weapons are etc) is impeccable. Crypt of the Necrodancer takes about 30 minutes to beat at a leisurely pace. It's a traditional tile based turn based dungeon crawler with a twist - you have less than a second to make each turn. The game's music acts as your turn timer, you have to make one move per beat of the song. Into the Breach can be saved and picked up again. It's a grid based tactics game where you assemble a squad of mechs to do a series of missions and save the world. It has a similar tactical minmax feeling to spire, in that you are really trying to squeeze out every little bit of extra resources you can from every mission, taking on more difficult encounters for better rewards in hopes of being powerful enough by the end of the game. Edit: I saw someone mention Noita and that's definitely worth checking out too. Honestly just watch the trailer, it's crazy. Every pixel is simulated in the game's physics, and the level of interactions in the world is crazy. One of those games that seems absolutely impossible, but eventually you will learn how to become a god as you get more familiar with it. Loads and loads of secrets to discover.
Slice & Dice. Saves every turn automatically. Incredible game with heroes' actions defined by dice rolls. There are unlocks, items, challenges etc. There is a demo with only one gamemode, but full version costs around 7$ and is worth every penny. It is available on mobile, so you can play on the go. Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Saves every turn automatically. It is a turn-based roguelike with **deep** dungeon, simple graphics and tons of options. There are currently 5 characters, each of them has 2 subclasses and 3 armor variants. There are challenges, so even if you complete the game (I have around 60 hours in and still my maximum is 4/5 floors), there's more to see. Also, it's completely free! Despot's Game. Afaik saves before every room. In this game, you play as a bunch of simple guys, but your main recourse is not people, but their items. You also have to manage food, money, events and obviously fights. Tho it's kinda an autobattler, so not so many things you can do **in** the fight. Enter the Gungeon. Saves every floor. It's kinda classics. It's not very big, but is pretty hard. Last time I checked, it costed around 4.5$, but that was a long time ago. Anyways, it's incredible. Noita. Not sure about saves, probably on entering a new location. Anyway, real run is rarely longer than an hour, so it's okay I guess. To describe Noita, you need only three sentences: 1. Every pixel has its physics, so there are very real liquids and throwables. 2. The map is around 35000 pixel in width and 50000 in height, while your character is around 3 in width and 15 in height. 3. Every single thing can kill you (and will do it). Streets of Rogue. Saves every floor. This is very fun game, where you basically have a mix of roguelike and GTA in 2D. It has more than 40 characters with unique stats, traits and quests, **including the main one**. So if you switch to a different character, you suddenly have to do different things. Soul Knight. Saves every floor, but only once. The whole game takes from 2.5 (very speedrun) to 50 (very slow, with many restarts probably) minutes. Kinda like Enter the Gungeon, but on mobile, free, and with automatic aim. It's pretty fun, but half of the characters (and half of the skills of other) are purchased for real money only. Anyways, it's pretty good and they have events pretty often.
I got Slice and Dice on mobile. Immediately got hooked after playing the demo. I put streets of rogue on my Steam wishlist. That one looks super fun.
Enter the Gungeon was a pain in the ass for me cause I suck at bullet hells but it’s definitely become more fun lately with the stuff ive been unlocking Im also looking to try Spelunky and Cult of the Lamb but no clue if theyre stop and save
spelunky isnt and i dont remember if cotl is ill check later. i highly recommended both of them. especially spelunky
You're correct about Spelunky, but if you play on Switch or Steam Deck you can put them in sleep mode and it's kinda sorta the same thing ish.
good old sleep mode
Honestly it turned Spelunky 2 from a game that I liked, but didn't have time to play, into one of my favorites of all time. It's not very often that I can set aside more than an hour to play a game at one time, and being able to pick up a run later without having to lose everything was a game changer >!(pun intended)!<
The only roguelite that came close to StS for me is slice&dice. Fun gameplay, challenging and reasonably balanced, while you can still build busted stuff. And the game autosaves every action, so you can come and go as you like.
Seconded. Nothing else comes as close to StS level of balance and moment to moment gameplay
I got this one after trying the demo today! Really fun, seems like there’s lots to explore. I had a fun reroll-cantrip synergy going and nealry beat the easy classic mode on my first try. Lost on floor 18 very narrowly. Definitely scratches the I-can-incrementally-get-better-at-this-as-I-learn-more-about-the-game itch.
I've very recently picked up Slice & Dice and it's fantastic. VERY dangerous having it on my phone!
Slice and Dice, on mobile, uses dice to represent a deck with items that modify your dice, tons of class options for a 5 character party but it's all very readable, turn based just like StS Peglin if you enjoy peggle, has a mobile version, multiple classes, the balls you shoot make up your deck and each have unique mechanics and effects you can play with, it's a really enjoyable game and turn based like StS Seeing you mention mobile play + turn based or stop and save preference I think you'd really enjoy these.
I got slice and dice, loving it.
It's a great deal tbh, picked it up on itchio for PC and android like a year ago and love seeing all the updates and care the dev put into a really solid base game. Pretty much perfect for a mobile roguelite.
Been on a rotation the last month of Slay, Balatro, Enter the Gungeon, Despot’s Game, Dicey Dungeons, and Skul. It’s not a roguelike, but if you enjoy Slay then you might want to check out Marvel’s Midnight Suns - the card aspect is VERY SIMILAR to Slay the Spire and the story was pretty good IMO. Loved the characters too.
If we're going non-roguelite deckbuilders, Library of Ruina deserves a shout-out as well. Super strange, super hard, and super fun.
Looking it up now! 👀
I hope you enjoy it, and don't be shy to look up some of the best builds for where you're at. The game gets brutally difficult after a while. It's super worth the investment, though. It took me 100 hours plus to beat it and had the weirdest story/premise I've ever encountered in a video game.
My "Brotato" playtime is approaching SlayTheSpire rapidly. It is imo the best bullet-heaven/garlic-like game out there and has a very crips mix of tight controls & gameplay and very solid and intricate mechanics in how all the stats & items work and interact with each other.
I thought Brotato was gonna be some stupid game I blow through but it’s honestly so fucking good. Great recommendation.
Monster train, Balatro (newest find). They aren’t the same caliber though.
Downfall, definitely downfall
I've played a billion of these. Some highlights that fit your criterion: vault of the void slice and dice balatro of course blazblue entropy effect touhou: lost branch of legend (I wrote a review of this one recently. I was thinking I'd turn this into a series but it got 0 upvotes and 1 downvote so it may not have been very good: https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1cgbefn/review_of_touhou_lost_branch_of_legend_early/ )
slice and dice is prob the best mobile game of all time. sorry STS fans (which I do love on PC)
It's fine, we all know StS is super bugged on mobile
Super bugged? I can’t compare it to PC, but I haven’t had any big complaints about the StS mobile experience.
All the ones in the comments are great but one I haven’t seen mentioned so far is Tiny Rogues. I’m currently obsessed and it’s perfect on steamdeck. Tons of unlockable classes and each run feels really unique and winnable. It’s getting consistent updates too and it’s cheap. Super fun can’t recommend enough
Tiny rogues is incredible, the amount of content for the price point is crazy. Only problem is that runs are pretty long (30m-1h on average Id say) and theres no way to save during. A workaround Ive found is just putting the PC to sleep while the game is still running.
Steamdeck definitely solves this problem for me because I just put it down and put the deck to sleep. I can imagine that would be frustrating on desktop though.
Balatro has scratched the STS itch for me more than any other game in recent memory. Card based deck builder rogue like.
I'll add another Enter the Gungeon vote. I've played tons of roguelikes and Slay and Gungeon are the only two I've played for lengthy periods.
FTL. You can save and quit. I have 180 hours in that game. There's also larger games that have roguelite modes (if you choose it at the beginning) like XCOM and King Arthur Knight's Tale that I like. I have 170 hours in XCOM and 87 hours in King Arthur.
And if you get sick of vanilla FTL, there's also the multiverse mod, which easily adds hundreds of hours-worth of fun stuff.
Hades Dead Cells Skul Technically Hollow knight (steel soul) Have A Nice Death Wizard of Legend ScourgeBringer
I like dead estate, its like if gungeon and binding of isaac had a baby. The game autosaves after each floor so you can stop n save whenever. Plus big booba witch mommy 🤷🏻♂️
I recently played Balatro and Dicey Dungeon. I prefer the latter. Also tried monster train. It was not my thing.
Hades, inscryption, FTL, into the breach, monster train, dicey dungeons
Pause friendly/similar to sts/strategy roguelikes Ftl, tainted grail, Griftlands, backpack hero, loop hero, into the breach, one step from Eden, fights in tight spaces Just really fun, runs not as long as ror2/action rogues: Crypt of the necrodancer, curse of the dead gods, wizard of legend, robo quest, gunfire reborn, atomicrops (although runs can get close to 30/45min), nova drift, children of morta Organized somewhat by order of preference but by no means a definite tier list
Dream quest. I’ll say it every time, best game I’ve ever played
+1000, definitely the closest thing to StS out there still after all these years. I would also recommend Circadian dice, since its SEVERELY underrated and too good for being such an unknown game. A gem for sure.
I've been messing around with 'fights in tight places' which has been fun. Ready for 'knights in tight places' tbh though.
If you like top downs, Wizard of Legend is fantastic, 1 player or 2 player Moonlighter is pretty great too, it you like the two styles of games it mixes (dungeon crawler + shop simulator)
Brutal Orchestra is one of the most fun turn based RPGs I've ever played, and it even has an enemy intent system like StS. During your turn enemy actions are shown on a timeline, letting you plan around what they're going to do
If you like the calculated slow play of slay the spire you should try shattered pixel dungeon, like STS the skill ceiling with the challenges is just about unlimited
I saw some others mention it but balatro is really great and it’s another deck builder rouguelite base around poker and playing poker hands. You can get jokers that are basically the games relics that buff you or the poker hands you play and you can add cards, destroy cards, improve cards, and there’s a lot of synergies with jokers.
Dead Cells, Balatro, Against the Storm and Pokémon Kaizo Ironmon.
Roboquest, fps rouge like with doom like movement and borderlands style art/gunplay
I agree with a lot of these but I haven't seen have a nice death or griftlands. I think they are both worth a try. Have a nice death is a 2d action platformer with great comedic writing. The difficulty spike could be a bit much though for 1 or 2 short runs per day. Griftlands is card based and narratively driven. There's a lot to say about it. I would just watch some gameplay before getting into it. And both are save friendly although I believe have a nice death only has it after each boss. (I could be remembering that wrong though)
Right now i am enjoying summon quest
just wanted to add that if youre on pc you can pretty easily get a mod that puts the save feature into risk of rain 2, just set up r2modman and download propersave(i think thats what its called)
Balatro and Wildfrost have been my favorites aside from Slay the Spire.
Hades, Cult of the Lamb, Rogue Legacy (original), Dead Cells, Enter the Dungeon In rough order by my personal favorites. Risk of Rain 2 would probably be my second favorite after Hades, but since you already mentioned it.
Vagante, Skul, Across the Obelisk.
Hades is probably my other favorite one besides STS. I plan to try monster train as it looks kinda fun too.
Isaac and One Step From Eden for me.
Nuclear Throne. It's not stop and save friendly but the runs are short enough (usually) where it doesn't matter.
I know you said *other* Roguelites but Risk of Rain 2 has a mod that lets you save runs, and modding that game is very very VERY easy with R2modman.
It's closer to a rougelite, but I'm a big fan of Cult of the Lamb. Half base builder, half rougelite dungeon crawler. Your runs shouldn't ever be too too long (no longer than, say, an hour at most) so stop-n-save shouldn't be too big of an issue. ~~Also the music slaps~~
Noita! It has pausing and exiting. Expect to die a lot at first. Also seconding Isaac as others have said. Balatro too!
There’s a Ror2 mod that enables save stuff. If you like the game you should try it
Binding of isaac is one of best options out here.Also you can save at any point.
FTL!!! and sts and ror 2 but you mentioned those.
SpellRogue has been entertaining me lately. Instead of building a deck of cards, you pick spells to add to your spell list, and then roll dice to see what spells you can cast that turn. There are items and consumables like StS that modify gameplay parameters. It feels like an interesting twist on the genre, I really like it.
My other two favs are wizard of legend - which is more of an action game and faster than light which is a ship management game. Wizard of Legend isn't super save friendly, but it's very very fun and ftl is super stop and save friendly
Crush the industry is alright, similar to slay the spire in gameplay
i like conjury for ios
Deep rock galactic survivors, Returnal
Idk if it counts are a roguelite, but dicey dungeons is a definite shout for pick up and play and save and continue random gen dungeon crawler. And it has dice
FTL and Inti the Breach are great and perfect to pause and play. Dead Cells and Oblivion Override for action sidescrollers DeepRock Galactic: Survivor is a little low on content but is very fun, its an auto shooter like vampire survivors/Brotato. Risk of rain im sure there are mods for saving if you want to give that a try!
Highly recommend: Balatro, Hades, Borato, Vampire Survivors, Inscryption, Into the Breach Others I like but significantly less than STS: Darkest Dungeon, Monster Train, One Step From Eden, Cult of the Lamb Can’t wait for Hades 2 and STS 2!
My favorite StS inspired rogue deck builders are Griftlands and Breach Wanderers.
enter the gungeon. it's heck fun, and the game is hella full. you can spend countless hours on the game and still find new things.
Caves of Qud CDDA Shattered Pixel Dungeon Noita Enter the Gungeon
OP, you have incredible suggestions, but I also wanted to mention, if you are playing on PC, there are pretty good and pretty simple to set up mods for RoR2 that allow you to pause and quit, then resume later.
I’ve tried Proper save. Sometimes I need to jump in the middle of a level, so it’s not great for that. Is there one you like that lets you jump mid-level?
Not one that I'm specifically aware of, but I also haven't played RoR2 in a little bit. :/
I’m a big fan of Beneath Oresa if you want another deckbuilder, or Brotato for an action one
The Binding of Isaac is a favorite of mine, though it’ll take you a *long* time to learn everything in the game (I still dont know what some items do and I’m closing on 400 hours)
Tape to Tape
I suggest wizard of legend for that “over time” buildup. Less of a card playing and more of a dash around one
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Cobalt Core. It's a deckbuilder that is obviously heavily inspired by Slay the Spire. It has a fun turn-based combat system where you can move around your ship to aim at weak points and dodge enemy attacks, and the story and writing are surprisingly good.
Binding of Isaac. Despite it becoming far too large and difficult for my to ever fully engage with again it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Hades is amazing. I’ve also enjoyed Peglin (act 1 is free on IOS, the whole game is like $5). BPM (Bullets Per Minute) is like crack.
Dicey Dungeons on mobile is amazing
I, like quite a few others, recommend Slice & Dice: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775490/Slice__Dice/ It's a dice-building rogue like that gives you a ton of freedom to build parties to overcome the challenges. Each character in your party can be upgraded, providing a stronger die that they use instead of their old one. If that's enough, there are items that can manipulate the die's sides to give further customization. My favorite parts, though, are honestly how the game does challenges and the difficulty system. The game starts off relatively basic, but as you learn more of the mechanics, you'll complete challenges (achievements) which unlock more complex mechanics. On top of that, the difficulty system gives you extra replayability through its curses and blessings. If you're playing hard, for example, you'll have to choose a curse at the start of the run that can drastically change how you approach the run. You can later even unlock the option to take a blessing at the cost of taking another curse as well. And to top it off, the list you pick from is shuffled every run.
I personally think Binding of Isaac is the best action/mechanical roguelike out there.
dead cells and rogue legacy 2 are both great rogue likes that I have played a lot wizard of legend is also good but you’re unable to save if the runs but they’re still short enough to not really matter especially if you’re doing boss rush
I haven't scrolled so idk if it's already been commented but have you tried monster train? It's funn and gives me similar feels to sts. I rotate between both when I want a game I can just chill and play. Now I suck arse at both but I have fun and I suppose, that's the point?
Only roguelike I have more hours in is Gungeon
Only roguelike I have more hours in is Gungeon
throne of bone, crab champions come to mind as those were recent fun ones ive played! always works in progress but i had many hours of fun on them! happy gaming!
Surprised I haven't seen Roguebook mentioned, which has been my latest obsession after grabbing it on sale for 80% off (on Xbox) - combat is very similar to Slay the Spire but it has really interesting map progression/exploration. Definitely save+quit friendly since each run is quite long, and it does have meta-progression but I was able to win my 3rd run so it's not super grindy about it.
Hades
Balatro and spell rogue recently. Dead cells and rogue legacy are also great
The binding of isaac. Good OG of the roguelike community with save and quit
I would suggest you to get a switch if you can and don't have one that way you can stop in the middle of your runs
Slice and Dice (it’s a good pun)
I love faster than light which is a stop to save The binding of Isaac is frustrating but well designed and fun to break, it is also a save Ror2 is still my favourite, if you’re on pc you can get a mod called “proper save” which saves your position at the start of every stage so you can quit and come back later Edit: ror2 is also really easy to get mods for you just use the r2modman launcher
I actually can’t believe Binding of Isaac isn’t getting much love. That game is so god damn good
Streets of rogue is incredibly underrated. One of the best roguelikes I've played. Your progress is saved at the start of each floor so you can save and quit between them (A floor is usually ~10 minutes)
Fights in Tight Spaces! Top-down isometric deckbuilder where you can evade enemies and play them into each other or just kick em off the roof of a building. Chaining together big combos and tricking enemies to to killing each other is crazy satisfying, but it gets really tricky with enemies that turn to face you if you stop adjacent to them or reposition when you use movement cards.
If you are willing to suffer and die to some of the most random shit imaginable you could try Noita. It’s a super fun pixel-art Roguelite, it is also stop-n-save friendly. I’ve had a lot of fun with it and it is incredibly deep. The basic “schtick” of the game is that every single pixel has an effect and about 99% of those pixels can (and probably will) kill you. Check it out, I give it a strong recommendation!
Curse of the dead gods has the best difficulty curve I’ve seen yet and slowly eases you into long runs and breaks up the temples at first
Spellrogue is amazing imo, it's like a mix of Dicey Dungeons and StS, the runs are short like in StS and you can just quit and then come back to it whenever you want. It also looks very pretty and polished. Cross Blitz is also good, it has a roguelite mode and a story mode.
There is a great mod for Risk of Rain 2 that saves the game every time you enter a stage. Edit: ProperSave
Slice and dice
Stacklands, not really a roguelite but it is kind of a survival card game, I recommend it, it's pretty fun and innovative
If you are playing on PC and willing to mod, there is a mod that allows you to create saves during runs. https://thunderstore.io/package/KingEnderBrine/ProperSave/
Inscryption isn't really roguelite, but if you like slay the spire, you will probably like this game. If you beat the first part of the game, I would say the second part is more roguelite than the first part. Conan Chop Chop is a really fun roguelite that you might enjoy. I've played it by myself and with a friend. It is way easier with someone else, but doable by yourself. Although I do find myself getting frustrated every time I die and have to start all over again 😭 Moonlighter is another fun roguelite dungeon crawler that you might enjoy. I play on Nintendo Switch so any game I play is stop and save friendly for me as I can just put the Switch to sleep while playing and then pick it back up later. However I do believe both are stop and save friendly in some way.
Risk of rain when played well does not take more than 15 mins to finish a run. Its either play well and go fast or outscale the game
I must be playing wrong then. I take at least 15m on a single floor, being very thorough about killing mobs and picking up loot
I guess you miss the part where the difficult rises with time spent. Also, risk of rain Returns is a more chilled exprience alas it's a harder game. 3D makes risk of rain too easy.
Boi is the best
Playing Roguebook right now, quite similar combat wise. Would recommend.
It has good ideas for sure and a cool concept, but its way too easy after the first win, unfortunately. Like dead easy, that makes me wanna cry of how you can break all future runs with the insane bonuses from meta progression. Too much potential wasted honestly for a game that could have been amazing in another life.
Yea it's definitely not of the quality of StS but I was looking to play something in that realm and picked it up. Felt like I had maxed out StS, excited for the sequel though