I have been obsessed with a game for the past three weeks or so. It’s called The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games), and there’s a demo on Steam. Full disclosure: My good friend, Ian, is on the marketing team, which is how I heard of it. It’s a roguelike/lite deck-building ’90s teen-starring game that has ghosts and monsters in it, and it’s lots of fun.
I tried the demo, and I vibed with it immediately. I really dig the nineties aesthetics with the saturated colors. I also like that the teens are very diverse as far as race and ethnicity. Yes, some of them border on stereotypes as characters (the hunky jock that is obsessed about his next meal rather than any big issues; the goth girl who is miserable all the time; the nerdy photographer who is always snapping pics, but I’m fine with that.
The demo hooked me, and I bought it immedaitely. I played run after run as it had that ‘just one more run’ feel to it. Now, three weeks later, I almost have the plat. I just need to find two pieces of evidence, which is frustrating the hell out of me. I’ll get to that in a minute.
The launch trailer, which I have included below, has an appropriate grainy/scratchy VHS feel to it, which is not really what I felt playing the game itself. That’s not a slam on the game, by the way. If anything, it’s a testament to how absorbed I get when I’m playing that I don’t really pay attention to the graphics. Which are great!
Here’s the basic premise. The class of whatever year it is are paryting at the Vexington Hotel their senior year. Three of them stumble into the elevator and go floor by floor, fighting monsters along the way. Then, of course, they meet the big boss up in the penthouse, and that’s the end of the run. One run, if it goes the distance, is about forty-five minutes.
It’s funny. I would say that I’m not a turn-based kind of person. And yet, I played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) and this game. As I said to Ian, I had more fun with this game than with CO:E33. I drive people crazy when I say that one game is more fun than another while also saying that it doesn’t necessarily mean the former is a better game than the latter. Which, I admit, is jerk behavior on my part–but I have to have my fun somehow.
So. You’re a party of three facing off a party of one-five, depending. Oh, and it’s not like each of your party members go separately–your turn is an aggregate of points that you can spend. I will admit that I’m not the smartest when it comes to deck building, and it wasn’t until I played Balatro (LocalThunk) that I could see the appeal of a card game.
There’s something about a roguelike/lite that is just like catnip to me. It’s so dangerous because I will keep playing well past the point of reasonable. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (Edmund McMillen) is the game I have the most hours in–still–and it’s not even close. Elden Ring (FromSoft), my second most-played game has just a hair less than half the hours I’ve poured into BOI:R.
I had to peel myself away from Balatro because I could not stop trying to go for the gold stakes on the goddamn Plasma deck. This is the meta deck that everyone seems to love, but I just could not wrap my brain around it.
Once I realized that I was not having fun any longer as I played hand after hand trying to get that damn gold stakes, I quit cold-turkey. I have not been back since, even though there have been updates and DLC.
In this game, there is plenty of variety to keep me interested. Here is one negative: The runs are too long. There are too many floors in the hotel, and I think the devs could have tightened it up considenably. I get why they wanted a run to be as long as it is, thematically, but the last few floors start to feel like they’re a chore rather than fun.
That’s part of the repetitive nature of the game, too. I’m at the point where I’m just cleaning up a few of the achievements (well, one achievement, but I need to find two specific things in the game), and this is when I start hating a game. Or rather, hating myself for not just walking away.
I like the eight different party members–some more than others when it comes to the game. There are four different classes and two members in each class. You start with three (I think) characters unlocked and get the rest through different game conditions. One of the achievements is winning a run with each of the sixty-four different combos, and let me tell you, some were way easier than others. Most of the characters have their strengths and weaknesses, but there are a few that I only use when I absolutely have to.
Story-wise, there isn’t much there. I’m fine with that because that’s not the point of the game. In fact, most of the roguelike/lites that I’ve played don’t have that much of a story. In this case, it’s even less than some of the others. Yes, you learn a bit more about each character, but they’re still not really people to me. Most of them, anyway. There are a few that stood out story-wise, but I don’t want to get into that or give anything away. Suffice to say that it’s only after several dozen hours that I found out that I could learn more about the characters in a specific way.
I think that’s one of the negatives about the game, by the way. The fact that it’s not always easy to discern what you need to do to get specific achievements. I know that’s the case in games in general these days, but in this case, it’s even harder because there are no guides for me to follow. Once I got down to the last three or four achievements, I really struggled to get them. I had to go to the Steam community to see if anyone had addressed the problematic achievements there.
Another thing is that there really isn’t an ending to the game. There are a certain amount of bosses and then–that’s it. Nothing more. I know I just spent several paragraphs saying the story didn’t matter, but it feels abrupt to me to not have any ending. Also, the way I found each new boss was kind of awkward, too, and there doesn’t seem to be an explicit way to find them.
In the end, this is a very fun game. I will have more to say tomorrow, but I need to sleep now.