Before I knew anything about The Spirit Lift beyond its title, I was planning to open this review with a pun about an elevator that’s only usable by ghosts. As it turns out, that’s (almost) exactly what The Spirit Lift is about. Good heavens, perhaps my love of puns has granted me clairvoyance. Anyway, The Spirit Lift is a horror-themed Rogue-like deckbuilder game coming to us from developer and publisher prettysmart games. In The Spirit Lift, you play as your choice of three of a group of teenagers who are trying to escape a haunted hotel.

To do that, you must ascend to the hotel’s top floor (the thirteenth floor, of course) and defeat one of a selection of bosses who reside in the hotel’s penthouse suite. As you might have guessed, you use the titular Spirit Lift as a means of reaching higher floors of the Vexington Hotel. You play as a group of graduating high school seniors whose graduation party is being held at the Vexington Hotel in a town called Lucid Falls. The Spirit Lift isn’t big on subtlety, but I really enjoy the humor that replaces any attempts at said subtlety.

You were all forewarned to stay in the hotel lobby, but your rebellious teenage instincts got the better of you, and you insisted on leaving the group to investigate the hotel’s dark secrets. As a “reward” for your defiance, now you have to fight your way up to the penthouse suite without being slain by the evil spirits who haunt the Vexington Hotel. Fail in your endeavors, and you’re doomed to join the ranks of hostile ghosts. You may think you’re finished learning because you graduated high school, so this ought to teach you whippersnappers a lesson you won’t soon forget!

There are no “character classes” in The Spirit Lift, per se, but there are broad categories into which all the playable characters are grouped. These include (but are not limited to) “Physical,” “Spiritual,” “Gifted,” and “Tactical.” These categories reference cliques that are common among high school students – jocks, tech geeks, wannabe fashion designers, stereotypical “weird kids,” and the like. Whichever three available characters you pick for each run determines which cards will be in your starting deck. You can find additional cards by exploring the hotel’s floors during each run. Which cards you find this way are determined by the categories of your current characters.

Each floor of the hotel is procedurally generated, as you might expect. You can only leave a floor once you’ve explored a certain amount of its contents and you’ve found the Spirit Lift. Failing to do so means you won’t be able to ascend to the next floor. You have a minimap that shows you where you have and haven’t been yet. Anywhere a question mark appears on the minimap, there’s a chance a random encounter (combat or otherwise) will begin when you go there.

Combat encounters are usually triggered when you open doors, but not always. You’ll often find encounters I call “games of chance” because they offer you opportunities to take potentially big risks in exchange for different rewards. You might be given the option to leave such encounters rather than interacting with them, or you might be forced to choose one of the actions presented to you, depending on the situation. The outcomes of these encounters are equally as likely to turn around a run that seemed doomed to fail as they are to instantly destroy a run that was previously going well.

When you’re in combat, you use the cards in your deck as ways to attack enemies and defend yourselves. Obviously, the goal is always to defeat all enemies, though there are status effects thrown into the mix to help keep things interesting. Combat is turn-based; you have a limited amount of energy you can spend to play cards during your turn. One major potential catch is that you’re, shall we say, “strongly encouraged” to win each battle within thirteen turns; otherwise (I presume) unpleasant things will happen. The concept of “unlucky number thirteen” is a recurring theme in The Spirit Lift.

Enemies and certain non-combat random encounters can add “trauma cards” to your deck. These cards usually have negative effects you’ll have to either put up with or counteract somehow. However, certain trauma cards have no effects other than potentially being drawn instead of cards that would actually be useful at the start of any given turn. When any trauma cards are added to your deck, they’re usually either removed at the end of the current battle or remain in your deck until you play them a certain number of times. This mechanic adds a tactical element to combat that I quite like.

I’m also impressed with how all the various “risk vs. reward” scenarios are implemented within The Spirit Lift. I’m risk-averse and prefer to be prepared for any eventuality at all times, so the fact that The Spirit Lift allows me to be prepared for some things – but definitely not everything – at all times helps make the core gameplay loop exciting for me. Since The Spirit Lift is a Rogue-like, it’s obligated to include permanent upgrades you can acquire by completing runs, regardless of how many times you succeed or fail. These unlockable upgrades are purchased from the so-called “Spirit Shop.”

After each run you complete (again, regardless of its outcome), you earn an amount of “Spirit Points” based on what you did and how well you performed during that run. How many combat encounters you won, how many times your group leveled up, how many successful risks you took, and how thoroughly you explored each floor before ascending to the next one are just a few of the factors that dictate your Spirit Point rewards. The more Spirit Points you accumulate over time, the more categories of permanent upgrades you can choose from, and the more powerful those upgrades become.

The list of things I like about The Spirit Lift far outweighs the list of my dislikes about it. The intentional humor isn’t exactly high-brow, but that’s precisely why I like so much of it. There are also things I find really funny that probably weren’t intended to be, like the fact that I can’t read the character Tobias’ name without being reminded of a classic Simpsons reference. I additionally like the atmosphere and the concept of playing as a group of foolhardy teenagers trying to survive a more lighthearted, 1980s-style “slasher” movie without being “slashed” themselves.

That being said, nothing about The Spirit Lift springs to my mind that I would describe as ways it innovates on the standard Rogue-like formula. I’m not sure how much The Spirit Lift can stand out from its increasingly crowded genre, if at all. Even so, The Spirit Lift does really well in terms of what it offers that you’d probably expect from a usual Rogue-like. Games don’t necessarily have to innovate within their genres so long as their content is enjoyable in its own right, and I’d say The Spirit Lift is worth checking out because of that.

A PC review copy of The Spirit Lift was provided by prettysmart games for this review.

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7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Core gameplay is solid and easy to understand.
• Progression mechanics provide an enjoyable “just one more run” feeling.
• Enjoyable atmosphere, premise, and sense of humor.

Cons

• Content might not stand out from similar games in the genre.