Deck-building can prove intimidating. Trying to determine synergies and strategies when starting out is a tall task, and pairing that with a roguelike--where failure in battle will send you back to the start of another randomized dungeon--might seem downright overwhelming. Yet thanks to a setup that encourages experimentation and is rewarding to play even when you're failing, Slay the Spire marries roguelikes and deckbuilders beautifully--and it's easy to see why it's helped to popularize this burgeoning mix of genres.

Slay the Spire sees you take part in a series of battles, amassing a collection of cards that dictate your every action in combat: There are cards that launch attacks, allow you to defend yourself, buff you, or nerf enemies. Most cards in and of themselves are relatively simple, consisting of a straightforward action and an associated cost. Battles see you ascend the titular spire and acquire new cards, relics, and single-use potions, and you'll need to weigh the various routes as you go, opting in or out of mini-bosses that promise great rewards but threaten to bring your run to a halt. Whether you make it to the end or not, you'll then start all over again, only to face another randomized set of encounters with a fresh loadout.

The structure is familiar, and it's easy to assume that your early runs (which can last up to two hours or so) show you all that Slay the Spire has to offer. Making progress permanently unlocks additional, more complex cards that you can encounter and integrate into your deck during future runs, which expands your range of choices, but it's in the relics system that the game reveals its true depth.

Deck-building can prove intimidating. Trying to determine synergies and strategies when starting out is a tall task, and pairing that with a roguelike--where failure in battle will send you back to the start of another randomized dungeon--might seem downright overwhelming. Yet thanks to a setup that encourages experimentation and is rewarding to play even when you're failing, Slay the Spire marries roguelikes and deckbuilders beautifully--and it's easy to see why it's helped to popularize this burgeoning mix of genres.

Slay the Spire sees you take part in a series of battles, amassing a collection of cards that dictate your every action in combat: There are cards that launch attacks, allow you to defend yourself, buff you, or nerf enemies. Most cards in and of themselves are relatively simple, consisting of a straightforward action and an associated cost. Battles see you ascend the titular spire and acquire new cards, relics, and single-use potions, and you'll need to weigh the various routes as you go, opting in or out of mini-bosses that promise great rewards but threaten to bring your run to a halt. Whether you make it to the end or not, you'll then start all over again, only to face another randomized set of encounters with a fresh loadout.

The structure is familiar, and it's easy to assume that your early runs (which can last up to two hours or so) show you all that Slay the Spire has to offer. Making progress permanently unlocks additional, more complex cards that you can encounter and integrate into your deck during future runs, which expands your range of choices, but it's in the relics system that the game reveals its true depth.

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• Half-Life 3: Created in the Source 2 engine and drawing some gameplay inspiration from Left 4 Dead, the project known as Half-Life 3 would have used procedural generation between hand-crafted story moments to create a more replayable game. For instance, the game would generate a building and an objective (such as rescuing a prisoner), then create a route through it and fill the building with enemies, meaning that section would always play out differently. The team went as far as scanning Frank Sheldon, the actor whose likeness was used for the series' G-Man. However the Source 2 engine was unfinished, and the project "didn't get very far" before it was dropped. It was in development for around a year between 2013 and 2014.
• Left 4 Dead 3: An open world game set in Morocco and potentially featuring featuring hundreds of zombies at a time, this was also deemed unworkable because of the unfinished Source 2.
• RPG: This RPG project was simply codenamed 'RPG', drawing inspiration from the likes of The Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls and Monster Hunter, and was envisaged as being released in small chunks, but "never really left the conceptual stage". After RPG was abandoned, experiments went into turning it into a single-player RPG based on DOTA character Axe, which were also shelved.
• A.R.T.I.: A light-hearted, voxel-based game that allowed for open-ended destruction and creation in the vein of Minecraft. One version included Half-Life 2 and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw voicing a character called King Kevin, who had to be broken out of prison using the game's tools. A.R.T.I. was later resurrected as a VR game, but was shelved as Half-Life: Alyx grew.
• SimTrek: A VR game develoepd by members of the Kerbal Space Prgram team that was also shelved during Alyx's development.
• Shooter: A Half-Life themed VR shooter that would have been a part of The Lab, Valve's VR showcase. Using only Half-Life 2 assets, it would have had players take part in short gunfights, and was designed more like a Half-Life theme park ride than an continuation of its story. However, it was deemed not to be ready in time for The Lab's release.
• Borealis: A Half-Life VR project, led by writer Marc Laidlaw, that would have been set on the time-travelling ship mentioned in Half-Life 2. Skipping between the Half-Life series' Seven Hour War, and a time period shortly after Half-Life 2: Episode 2, no gameplay details were revealed, aside from that it included a fishing minigame.
• Hot Dog - Another new take on Left 4 Dead, purposely codenamed so that people on the Internet wouldn't know it was a Left 4 Dead game. No details were revealed.
• Vader - Valve's first internal attempt to create a VR headset. Vader was designed without compromise, but was scrapped when it became clear that it was too ambitious. The team estimates it would have cost $5,000 per unit if released. Half-Life: Alyx was initially conceived to launch alongside Vader.

• Half-Life 3: Created in the Source 2 engine and drawing some gameplay inspiration from Left 4 Dead, the project known as Half-Life 3 would have used procedural generation between hand-crafted story moments to create a more replayable game. For instance, the game would generate a building and an objective (such as rescuing a prisoner), then create a route through it and fill the building with enemies, meaning that section would always play out differently. The team went as far as scanning Frank Sheldon, the actor whose likeness was used for the series' G-Man. However the Source 2 engine was unfinished, and the project "didn't get very far" before it was dropped. It was in development for around a year between 2013 and 2014.
• Left 4 Dead 3: An open world game set in Morocco and potentially featuring featuring hundreds of zombies at a time, this was also deemed unworkable because of the unfinished Source 2.
• RPG: This RPG project was simply codenamed 'RPG', drawing inspiration from the likes of The Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls and Monster Hunter, and was envisaged as being released in small chunks, but "never really left the conceptual stage". After RPG was abandoned, experiments went into turning it into a single-player RPG based on DOTA character Axe, which were also shelved.
• A.R.T.I.: A light-hearted, voxel-based game that allowed for open-ended destruction and creation in the vein of Minecraft. One version included Half-Life 2 and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw voicing a character called King Kevin, who had to be broken out of prison using the game's tools. A.R.T.I. was later resurrected as a VR game, but was shelved as Half-Life: Alyx grew.
• SimTrek: A VR game develoepd by members of the Kerbal Space Prgram team that was also shelved during Alyx's development.
• Shooter: A Half-Life themed VR shooter that would have been a part of The Lab, Valve's VR showcase. Using only Half-Life 2 assets, it would have had players take part in short gunfights, and was designed more like a Half-Life theme park ride than an continuation of its story. However, it was deemed not to be ready in time for The Lab's release.
• Borealis: A Half-Life VR project, led by writer Marc Laidlaw, that would have been set on the time-travelling ship mentioned in Half-Life 2. Skipping between the Half-Life series' Seven Hour War, and a time period shortly after Half-Life 2: Episode 2, no gameplay details were revealed, aside from that it included a fishing minigame.
• Hot Dog - Another new take on Left 4 Dead, purposely codenamed so that people on the Internet wouldn't know it was a Left 4 Dead game. No details were revealed.
• Vader - Valve's first internal attempt to create a VR headset. Vader was designed without compromise, but was scrapped when it became clear that it was too ambitious. The team estimates it would have cost $5,000 per unit if released. Half-Life: Alyx was initially conceived to launch alongside Vader.