Playing Slay the Spire Showed Me That COVID-19 Was the Real Time-Eater
by Roger Whitson, Managing Editor
One of my best runs of Slay the Spire occurred over the days when I was just beginning to recognize how much the pandemic would change our lives. I remember a March 11, 2020 article on CNN.com telling me that “Coronavirus is about to change your life for a while.” The growing sense of dread I’d felt slowly building for the past few weeks suddenly crystalized into a new horrible clarity. This wasn’t something isolated to Wuhan or Seattle but could strike anywhere. I abandoned my daily habit of working at a local coffee shop and isolated myself in my basement apartment with my cat Buddha.
Slay the Spire is a turn-based deck-building game. Players battle through a conical spire of enemies of increasing difficulty. As a rogue-like game Slay the Spire’s enemies and paths change with each game, providing very different experiences. Players can also choose between four characters. I was enthralled with the Defect, an automaton who conjures “orbs” to chain attacks and blocks at the end of their turn. I’d read how difficult the Time Eater would be to defeat. Every 12 turns, he ends your turn and gains more strength, while also limiting the number of cards you can draw. I was particularly anxious about this duel, since the Time Eater is designed to wreck so-called “mill decks”: decks that are designed to draw more and more cards. After a few close calls, his hit points reached zero and I finish the game enthralled. I haven’t defeated him or a run through Slay the Spire since then.
I had my 5k runs, my Zoom conversations with friends, and those few times I felt confident enough to have distanced get togethers in my backyard. But time moved both too slowly and too quickly. Several days saw me staring at my microwave alarm clock, stuck at 2:00pm. Yet I also kept seeing one Saturday after another speed past me. My friends would ask me “how are you doing?” and I’d joke “yunno, another day, like yesterday and like tomorrow.”
The Time Eater was the perfect enemy for me as I entered several months of isolation. I had no focus at all. I couldn’t read a book, binge a Netflix show, or immerse myself in a game. But I had Slay the Spire as a reprieve between bouts of doom scrolling. I also allowed myself to dive deep into the lore of the game. Players have speculated that the Watcher, a monk-like character whose deck relies on blocks and retaining cards, might be related to the Time Eater. A 2018 post on reddit analyzes dialogue uttered by the Time Eater as they confront the Watcher. “Never… / …liked… / …you…” One commenter says: “He’s wearing the same robes as the Watcher (she also has the floral pattern on her robe if you looked closely).” Others respond that these matching patterns must mean that the Watcher and the Time Eater are doppelgangers.
It’s a compelling argument for me, since the patience required to win with the Watcher reminds me of my meditation practice. My meditation practice has struggled during these anxious times. But every time I’m able to slow down and focus on the here and now, I can momentarily let go of the mixture of anticipation and dread stirred up in me whenever I read about new surges or the stupidity of the United States’ response. Like many doppelgangers, the Time Eater represents an understanding of time that is the opposite of the patience of the Watcher. How much time in our days is eaten up when our bosses require us to be more and more efficient in our jobs? How much of our anxiety is being fueled by rapid notifications about a new email that we’re impelled to respond to as quickly as possible, even if we’re trying to relax at home?
My friends encouraged me to view the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink my hectic life. I have more privilege in that scenario than essential workers, disproportionately people of color, who endangered themselves to keep supply chains going. Yet I can’t help but wonder if the anxiety about getting back to normal and the opening of economies too early doesn’t reveal how poisonous our time-eaten lives were in the first place. As Ruth Ozeki observes in A Tale for the Time Being, “[e]verything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.
