Eleven deck-building games worth knowing if you liked Balatro, checked one by one at each game's own official page, plus one dice-based pick of our own. Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Peglin, Inscryption, Dicey Dungeons, Roguebook, Griftlands, and Cobalt Core all keep Balatro's core loop — build and upgrade a deck across a run, get stronger or die trying — using cards. Circadian Dice, Dicefolk, and Dice A Million run the same loop with dice instead of cards. Every one of those eleven requires a download; none is browser-playable at its own official page. Our own GODROLL is the dice-builder exception to that pattern, and we say exactly how it fits below rather than overstate it.
That "requires a download" fact isn't a complaint — most of these games are worth the install. But it's the honest answer to a question none of the existing roundups for this topic actually ask: what does it cost you, in dollars and in steps, to find out if a game is for you? This roundup treats that as a real column, not an afterthought.
How we checked this list
Every game below was independently verified at its own official developer site or its own Steam store page — not inherited from another roundup's claims. Where a page states a concrete number (a price, a demo's existence, a platform list), we quoted that number. Where a fact wasn't confirmable at the official source — Slay the Spire's console ports, for instance — we say so instead of repeating what other sites assume. That standard is also why Cobalt Core's entry below cites Steam rather than its publisher's own site: that site returned an HTTP 403 error when we tried to load it directly, so we used the Steam store page instead.
What "deck-building" actually means, and why this article always spells it out in full
A deck-building game is one where the deck itself is the thing you're building: you start small — a handful of basic cards, or in a few games, basic dice — and add, upgrade, or cut cards as you play, so the deck you have in hand 20 minutes into a run looks nothing like the one you started with. That's the loop Balatro popularized for a new audience, on top of a mechanic that Slay the Spire's own "roguelike deckbuilder" label helped make a recognized video-game genre years earlier.
We're deliberately writing "deck-building games" in full throughout this article, never shortening the genre name to its bare two-word noun form. That's not a style preference — the shortened form, as a search term, collides directly with physical deck-construction contractors; a plain search for it turns up companies that build wooden decks on houses, not games. Keep the "-ing games" and the two categories don't collide.
The 11 games at a glance
| Game | What the deck is made of | The mechanic that sets it apart | What it takes to start playing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slay the Spire | Cards | Climb a procedurally-generated spire, one card-combat encounter at a time | $24.99 on Steam (Windows/macOS/SteamOS+Linux confirmed; other platforms not independently verified) |
| Monster Train | Cards | Defend three vertical battlegrounds simultaneously, not one | $29.99 (Switch price shown, includes base game + "The Last Divinity" DLC) |
| Peglin | Orbs, not cards | Pachinko/peg-popping combat instead of hand-based card play | $19.99 on Steam; no demo mentioned |
| Inscryption | Cards | Horror-tinged card deckbuilder with a story built around the deck itself | $19.99 on Steam; free downloadable demo available |
| Dicey Dungeons | Dice feeding a card-like deckbuilding system | A dice-and-card hybrid — not purely one or the other | $14.99 on Steam; no demo mentioned |
| Roguebook | Cards | Two-hero team, hex-tile map exploration between fights | $24.99 on Steam; from Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering |
| Griftlands | Cards | Combined combat decks and negotiation decks in the same run | $19.99 on Steam; free downloadable demo confirmed |
| Cobalt Core | Cards | Sci-fi ship-crew combat along a single axis | $19.99 on Steam (publisher's own site returned an error; Steam used instead) |
| Circadian Dice | Dice | Upgrade your dice directly, explicitly framed as "inspired by" deckbuilders | $5.99 on Steam; free downloadable demo available |
| Dicefolk | Dice | Monster-taming plus tactical combat, dice instead of a card hand | $14.99 on Steam; free downloadable demo available |
| Dice A Million | Dice | 120+ dice with synergies, roll toward a million points | $12.99 on Steam; separate standalone demo app available |
The 8 card-based picks
Slay the Spire
Slay the Spire is the game most existing roundups treat as the genre's reference point, and its Steam page confirms Windows, macOS, and SteamOS/Linux at $24.99. Console and mobile versions are widely reported on other sites, but we could only verify those three platforms directly at Slay the Spire's own Steam listing, so that's what we're stating here rather than repeating an unverified list.
Monster Train
Monster Train, from developer Shiny Shoe, changes the spatial shape of the core loop: instead of one combat lane, you're defending three vertical floors of a train at once, which turns deckbuilding decisions into a resource-allocation problem across three fronts simultaneously. The Switch price shown on the developer's own site is $29.99, covering the base game plus its "The Last Divinity" DLC — the highest price point among the card-based games we checked.
Peglin
Peglin swaps the hand of cards for a bucket of orbs you fire pachinko-style into a peg board — Steam's own store page frames it as playing "like a combination of Peggle and Slay the Spire," and notably doesn't call itself a deckbuilder outright, even though the orb-collection loop across a run follows the same build-and-upgrade shape. It's $19.99 on Steam for Windows and macOS.
Inscryption
Inscryption wraps its card deckbuilding in a horror framing — cards you sacrifice, cards that bleed, a story that treats the deck as the plot device. The Steam page explicitly states "Demo Available" alongside the $19.99 price, so this is one of the few titles here you can try before you buy, even though trying still means downloading.
Dicey Dungeons
Dicey Dungeons sits in a category of its own on this list: its own Steam description calls it a "dice powered roguelike" with "deckbuilding" elements, meaning dice rolls feed into a card-like system rather than either mechanic standing alone. At $14.99, it's a genuine dice-and-card hybrid — worth naming precisely rather than filing under either pure category.
Roguebook
Roguebook pairs a two-hero team with hex-tile map exploration between fights, and its Steam description credits Richard Garfield — the creator of Magic: The Gathering — as a designer, which is a reasonable pedigree claim to make about a deckbuilder specifically. It's $24.99 on Windows, macOS, and SteamOS/Linux.
Griftlands
Griftlands, from Klei, runs two decks at once inside a single character's run: a combat deck and a separate negotiation deck, so persuasion fights use the same build-and-upgrade logic as sword fights. The developer's own site (klei.com) didn't list a price, but the Steam page confirms $19.99 and a free downloadable demo.
Cobalt Core
Cobalt Core is a sci-fi deckbuilder about managing a ship crew in single-axis combat, at $19.99 for Windows and macOS. We'd normally cite the publisher's own site for a game like this, but braceyourselfgames.com/cobalt-core/ returned an HTTP 403 error when we tried to load it directly — so every fact here comes from the Steam store page instead.
The 3 dice-based picks
Three games swap cards for dice while keeping the same underlying loop — start small, add pieces, get stronger across a run. None of the three leads with "deckbuilder" as its own primary self-description, but the label shows up in ways worth reporting precisely.
Circadian Dice
Circadian Dice is the most explicit about its lineage: its own Steam page describes the game as "inspired by single-player deck-building games," with players upgrading a set of dice instead of a deck. It's $5.99 — the cheapest game on this list — for Windows only, with a downloadable demo available.
Dicefolk
Dicefolk combines monster-taming with tactical dice combat, described on its own store page as a "tactical roguelite" rather than a deckbuilder in its own words. Its Steam community tags, though, include both "Roguelike Deckbuilder" and "Deckbuilding" alongside the roguelite label. It's $14.99 for Windows, with a free demo.
Dice A Million
Dice A Million is the strongest evidence that the genre label stretches to cover dice: its own Steam store page carries the official genre tags "Roguelike Deckbuilder" and "Deckbuilding" — Steam's own classification, not a blogger's opinion — despite the game having no cards at all, only 120+ dice with synergies and 80+ passive-item rings, plus a stated goal of rolling toward a million points. It's $12.99, with a separate standalone demo app on Steam.
Where GODROLL fits — and where it doesn't
GODROLL is our own game, and it belongs in this conversation the same way Circadian Dice and Dicefolk do: as a dice-builder, clearly labeled as one, not presented as a card-game substitute. A run starts with 12 basic dice; each hand draws and rolls 5 of them from your Dice Bag, and between fights you rebuild the bag itself — the same shape of decision the card-based games ask you to make about a deck, applied to dice instead.
Its signature mechanic is PUSH: instead of banking a hand that already scores, you can deliberately take zero for it, refill from the Dice Bag, and chase a bigger combo. Land the bigger hand and your settlement doubles — and that doubling has no cap, so a run can turn into a run of consecutive pushes that keeps compounding as long as you're willing to risk the next roll.
Whether that counts as "deck-building" is a real question, and we're not going to pretend it's settled just because we made the game. The strongest evidence it fits: Steam's own genre tags for Dice A Million include "Deckbuilding," and the page currently ranking #1 organic for this exact topic already features a dice-based game, Circadian Dice, in its own deckbuilding roundup. The honest caveat: none of the dice games we checked — GODROLL included — leads with "deckbuilder" as its primary self-description, and no page we found treats dice-bag building as its own named subgenre the way "roguelike deckbuilder" is a recognized term for cards. So take it as what it is: a genre-adjacent pick, worth trying because the core loop rhymes, not because it's a drop-in Balatro replacement.
What we can say without hedging is what it costs to try: GODROLL runs in the browser with nothing to install, unlike every other game on this page.
What it actually costs to start playing
Line up the numbers and the pattern is stark. Among the ten games here with a stated price, it ranges from $5.99 (Circadian Dice) up to $29.99 (Monster Train's Switch bundle). Five titles — Inscryption, Griftlands, Circadian Dice, Dicefolk, and Dice A Million — offer a free downloadable demo before you commit to a purchase. But "free demo" still means a download; none of the eleven purchase-and-install games on this list is playable at a URL with zero install step, at least not at its own official page. That's not a knock on any of them — Slay the Spire and Balatro both earned their reputations the hard way, one purchase at a time. It's just the honest cost column a roundup like this owes you.
If browser play with nothing to install is actually the deciding factor for you — more important than which mechanic you want — that's a different, narrower question than this article answers, and we built a separate list around exactly that filter: best browser roguelike games, which checks eight titles (GODROLL included) purely on whether they load in a tab with nothing to install.
Balatro itself: what we could and couldn't confirm
Balatro is the reference point for this whole roundup, so it's worth being precise about what its own pages say. playbalatro.com and its Steam store page list Steam, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, Apple Arcade, iOS, and Android as platforms, with the Steam listing specifically confirming Windows and macOS. Neither page mentions a browser version or a free demo, and it's $14.99 on Steam. Third-party domains claiming free browser play for Balatro turned up in search results; we didn't verify or visit them, and they aren't linked here, because the official pages give no indication such a version exists.
If you want to understand the broader genre this all sits inside — the difference between a roguelike and a roguelite, and where deckbuilders land on that spectrum — our roguelike vs. roguelite explainer walks through the distinction with a four-question test you can apply to any game on this list. For the wider map of AI-adjacent games beyond deckbuilders specifically, see our best AI games guide.