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Monster Train is a strategic roguelike deck building game with a twist. Set on a train to hell, you’ll use tactical decision making to defend multiple vertical battlegrounds. With real time competitive multiplayer and endless replayability, Monster Train is always on time.
The Story
Hell has frozen over. Only you can protect the final burning pyre from the forces of heaven and restore the inferno. Monster Train brings a new strategic layer to roguelike deck building, with three vertical play fields to defend. Utilize more than 200 cards and build your own custom deck of spells and minions to protect the different levels of your train from invaders. Mix and match from five different monster clans, choose your route through hell and battle challenging foes to reclaim your infernal home.
No playthrough is ever the same
Monster Train is a roguelike deck building game with over 200 cards, 88 artifacts and a swathe of upgrades for any card in your deck. This makes each run and strategy truly unique. Take on challenging enemies as you level up your monster clans and covenant - you’ll never play the same deck twice.
Strategize to fit your playstyle
With five monster clans to choose from, each has its own unique and surprising gameplay. Pick your primary and supporting monster clan to gain access to all cards from both. During your run you will be able to improve cards by mixing and matching upgrades to open up new roads to victory. You can even duplicate your favourite card at special map nodes before facing off against the final boss.
Visit powerful locations
To take back hell, you’ll need to power up. Choose your route carefully, different locations give different benefits; upgrade your champion, recruit powerful units, upgrade cards, gain passive bonuses or duplicate any card in your deck.
Multiplayer: Hell Rush
In the Hell Rush multiplayer mode, eight players compete in a frantic real time contest. Each player has the same resources as opponents to create a level playing field. With the clock ticking it’s a test of who can make the best decisions under pressure. Only a true speed demon can remain undefeated.
Daily Challenge
Take on a new challenge every day with a hugely modified run due to gameplay mutators. Compete globally and against friends, and climb the leaderboards with a skill-focused scoring system.
Custom Challenge
Design your own unique challenge and share it with friends. Each custom challenge has its own leaderboard so you can send your friends straight to hell.
Source: The Game Website.
- Engaging gameplay loop that keeps the player wanting more.
- Unique 'train' mechanic with vertical levels adds strategic depth.
- Satisfying deck building and card play similar to Slay the Spire.
- Interesting factions and units.
- Runs can be long, potentially over an hour.
- The order of some choices (e.g., picking units before upgrades) can feel strategically forced rather than organic.
- Defending a train from enemies.
- A train
- Slay the Spire
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Card Driven Game — The core gameplay revolves around playing cards.
- Combat — Players engage in turn-based combat using cards and units.
- Deck Building — Players build and upgrade their decks throughout the game.
- Faction system — Players choose primary and allied clans (factions) with unique units and cards.
- Roguelike — The game is a 'rogue light game' where players level up between runs, keeping some progress.
- tower defense — The game involves defending a 'forge' at the top of a train from advancing enemies.
- Unit Placement — Units are placed on different levels of the train to fight enemies.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- If you don't know what Monster Train is, fret not, you'll see it in one moment, and I'll kind of talk you through what's going on, but it's basically a a rogue light game, card driven game, and which is going to play very similarly to Slay the Spire, if you know that game.
- The only time I've played is with this in it. So just be aware of that. If you are a veteran of the game, you'll know. Um, I'm sure you might spot differences.
- I'm still not sure I understand the difference between a rogue like and a rogue light.
- The twist is whatever. And I think Hell Train, what's it called? monster train here is has a pretty good twist with the um the levels thing. I think that's a that's enough to feel like, oh, this is its own thing.
- I hate that this card here, this restoration detonation, deals the damage to a to a unit in the front. That sucks.
- The challenge is slay the spire for me in how much I like it. It's it's it's up there for sure.
- My point being you see like 80% of any gaming that happens at work for me. You see that the rest of it happens after hours.
- This game does have kind of long runs. That's my one kind of issue with it. I don't know if I want to run to be like an hour and a half, two hours. I'm okay with like 40 minutes.
- Hell train. Oh, baby.