Just dance, Slay the Spire devs release Dancing Duelists after abandoning Unity for Godot

Following their announcement to switch away from the Unity engine, the team behind "Slay the Spire" unveiled a fresh game demo titled "Dancing Duelist" during a game jam. It's now available for free download, and they suggest that if players truly want to show their support, they can consider donating to the open-source game engine, Godot.

The gameplay of the game is incredibly simple. Players select their "dancers" and two skill cards before entering the dance floor. In the dance floor, you need to participate in seven rounds of competition. To win, you must either reduce your opponent's HP to zero, have your HP reach 50, or make your opponent exhaust all of their cards, proving that you are the ultimate dancer.

Once you're on the dance floor, the game initiates automatic combat. The combat style remains consistent with Slay the Spire, but it's simplified. Players have the option to pause or speed up the combat, while the rest of the battle proceeds automatically. Each battle doesn't take long, and combined with the energetic music, it's truly engaging.

"Daning Duellist" was created in just three weeks, so it isn't an incredibly deep or long-lasting game. Casey Yano, a member of the development team, explained the game's creation process and design approach in detail on Medium. He concluded by saying, "Alright, I'm going to call it for this write-up. I'm by no means a Godot expert but the tools to make a real 2D video game seem to be there."

It appears that even after abandoning the Unity engine, the team found new tools to unleash their creativity.