Build Your Deck of Cards and Crush Your Enemies in Monster Slayers, Available Now on Xbox One

I’m Sim Yih Chun, also known as Nerdook. I spent eight years making web-based games on weekends while working as an electrical engineer, then transitioned into full-time game development. Monster Slayers is my latest game and it combines two of my favorite genres: dungeon crawls and deck-building card games.

Unlike card games such as Magic: The Gathering, where selecting the cards that go into your deck happen before the game even begins, deck-building card games usually start you off with a simple starting deck, and as you play, you add more powerful cards to your deck, upgrade your existing cards, or even delete weaker cards to make your deck thinner and increase the odds of drawing a good card.

Choose Your Class

Similarly, in Monster Slayers your first choice before each dungeon run is to choose a class. Each class has its own basic starting deck and unique strength and weakness, encouraging a different kind of playstyle.

For example, Rogues are tricky but fast and have access to many low-cost cards draws, but their cards do not deal much damage without a combo. In contrast, Wizards can unload a ton of damage with a single card, but they need to build enough mana to play those cards. There are many other classes in the game and I believe players will enjoy discovering the various combos that each class is capable of!

Nobody to Nightmare, One of Many

You start each run as a simple monster slayer wannabe, freshly recruited into the Monster Slayers guild. Your task: defeat two increasingly dangerous bosses, before taking on the Harbinger to cement your reputation as the ultimate monster slayer.

The main dangers faced on each dungeon run are the AI-controlled monsters populating each dungeon, each with their own unique deck of cards and their own twist on things. During a battle, the player and monster take turns to play cards from their hand. Each card has its own effect, including dealing damage, drawing additional cards, gaining mana, healing damage taken, and more. The objective is to reduce the enemy’s HP to zero before they do the same to you, and this is much more difficult than it sounds.

In the unfortunate event that your hero meets an early end, any loot found will be carried over to be used by future heroes. Loot is randomly generated, and grants a bonus to certain cards or adds new cards to your deck. Your hero will also gain Fame points, which are used to unlock upgrades that grant advantages to future heroes.

On each run, you will rise from a nobody to a nightmare as your deck grows progressively stronger, but if you should fail a dungeon run, you become one of many adventurers that assist future heroes to rise and do better.

I hope players will enjoy exploring the nuances of each class and building different decks that play off their different strengths and weaknesses, with each battle feeling both like a satisfying puzzle to solve and an epic, action-packed struggle against different enemies.