A solo print & play roguelike game

Deathly Thrones is a solo Roguelike game using a standard deck of 52 cards for gameplay.

Using the cards as step, health, armor and attack counters, you will dungeon crawl, kill monsters, meet people, and fight the boss to gain his throne. A list of events will guide you, with a randomness will ensure you never walk on the same path twice. With a high level of replay-ability, adventure awaits you in these deathly dungeons.

Characters

To explore a dungeon, you must to choose a character first. Characters have different health and armor starting values. Choose wisely, your choice will effect the game difficulty.

The Hero: 3♡ and 5♤
The Barbarian: 6♡ and 2♤
The Magician: 2♡ and 6♤
The Dwarf: 5♡ and 3♤

Setup

Create 4 stacks of cards from the deck :

Health: Sort the 1-9 ♡ cards in ascending order face up so that the 1 ♡ is on top.
Armor: Sort the 1-9 ♤ cards in ascending order face up so that the 1 ♤ is on top.
Battle: 1 to 9 ♧ and ♢ cards, shuffle them and place them face down.
Step: Create a deck with the rest of the cards.10 to King cards for all colors, shuffle them and place them face down.

Then, based on your character choice above, choose the health ♡ card and armor ♤ card to match the health and armor values of your chosen character.

Now you are ready to play.

How to play

Each quest is a list of 40 events telling a story. For each quest you must to win against the final boss on the 40th step.

The Step’s deck has 16 cards. Each card is the number of steps you do to advance in your quest. You need to complete 16 steps to finish a quest.

Short explanation

The game loop is :

Draw a step card.
Read the event on this Step to advance and play out the event
According to the step’s type, fight if it’s a Ψ, take damage if it’s a Δ, restore your health or armor if it’s a Ω.
Then draw a new step card to continue the game until you reach the 40th step.

Detailed explanation

To start, draw a card from the Step deck. The card number is the number of steps you take to advance your character:

10 has a value of 1.
Jack has a value of 2.
Queen has a value of 3.
King has a value of 4.

Check the Quest Sheet and read the event corresponding to the new step. They are 3 kinds of events:

Ψ: Fight an enemy
Δ: Hurt by something
Ω: Take a rest

This is a role-play game, after each step advance draw, and imagine the situation caused by this new event. The Ξ symbol is a story event between steps. Read it to add color to your adventure.

The event list has 7 columns :

Step: The event number.
Type: The event type.
Name: The event story.
♡: When it’s a fight, the enemy’s health.
♤: When it’s a fight, the enemy’s armor.
Outcome: The outcome after the event.
Result: The bonus or malus gave at the end of this event.

How to fight

♡ count as both health and strength. A loss of 2 strength, means you’ll now do 2 less damage. If ♡ falls to zero, the character dies. It’s game over.

♤ is the armor value. Armor blocks strength damage, but can be reduced by a break attack. By breaking armor you open them up to take more damage in the future.

When you meet an enemy, you will fight. Draw two cards from the Battle deck. The first is your attack number, the second is the enemy’s attack number.

Add the value of your strength to your attack number. This is now your attack power. Add the value of the enemy’s strength to his attack number. This is the enemy’s attack power. The difference between the attack powers between you and the enemy is the hit points that you’ll give or receive. If your score is higher, the enemy takes the hit points. If your score is lower, you take them. If the hit points are equal to 0, it’s a draw, throw the battle cards to the discard pile and draw two new cards to fight again.

Subtract the hit points to the armor score of the target of the damage. These are now the damage points. You can choose which part of the target you will damage. It can be the health or the armor but not both of them. If they have more damage points than the part points, this part will reach 0 and the remaining points will not be used.

If both of the fighters still have health at the end of this attack, throw the battle cards into the discard pile and draw two new cards to fight again. If your health reaches 0, it’s game over. If the enemy’s health reaches 0, he dies and you take the rewards. Then continue your quest by drawing a card on the step counter deck. When all the battles cards have been used, take the discard pile, shuffle it and place them face down to form the new Battle deck.

In summary:

Draw a battle card. Add the number of it to your health, this is your attack power.
Draw another battle card. Add the number of it to the enemy’s health. This is his attack power.
Subtract the smallest number from the biggest number to have the hit points and to know who is receiving the hit. Smallest number gets hit.
Subtract the armor points from the hit points. If the result is above 0, you obtain the damage points.
Choose which one will be reduced; health or armor.
If both of the fighters are alive, continue the fight by drawing a new battle card.

Battle examples

Your character is the Hero with 3♡ and 5♤ values. The enemy is a naked skeleton with 2♡ and 1♤ values.

1- A Perfect Attack You draw two battle cards, the first is 8 and the second is 3. The 8 is your attack number. Adding your character strength of 3♡, your attack power is now 11. The 3 is the enemy’s attack number. Adding his character strength of 2♡, his attack power is now 5. Since the enemy has a smaller attack number he gets hit. Subtract 5 from 11, so the enemy receives 6 hit points. Subtract his armor value of 1♤ from these 6 hit points, so he receive 5 damage points.

A: If you choose to attack his health of 2♡, he’s killed instantly. Draw a card in the step counter deck to continue your quests.
B: If you choose to attack his armor of 1♤, he will loose it instantly but is still alive. Throw the battle cards into the discard pile and draw two new cards to continue the fight.

2- A Good Defense You draw two battle cards, the first is 2 and the second is 6. The 2 is your attack number. Adding your character strength of 3♡, your attack power is now 5. The 6 is the enemy’s attack number. Adding his character strength of 2♡, his attack power is now 8. Subtract 5 from 8, you receive 3 hit points because your number is smaller. Fortunately you have an armor of 5♤, so you receive no damage. Throw the battle cards into the discard pile and draw two new cards to continue the fight.

3- A Weak Defense You draw two battle cards, the first is 1 and the second is 9. The 1 is your attack number. Adding your character strength of 3♡, your attack power is now 4. The 9 is the enemy’s attack number. Adding his character strength of 2♡, his attack power is now 11. Subtract 4 from 11, you receive 7 hit points because your number is smaller. Subtract your armor value of 5♤ from 7, so you receive 2 damage points. Now you can choose to loose 2♡ or 2♤. Lay the cards face down of the chosen damage counter to keep track of damage. Throw the battle cards into the discard pile and draw two new cards to continue the fight.

Calculator tool

In this game you will have to fight a lot. Fight mechanics are based on drawn cards, player abilities and a little bit of math. To help everyone to better understand how to play, I created a calculator tool available on this page. It’s a very helpful tool to easily explore all the quests.

Game loop example

Your character is the Hero with 3♡ and 5♤ values and you are playing “The Iron Throne” quest.

After reading the Ξ introduction, your first action is to draw a step card. You draw a Queen, you advance to the step number 3, it’s a fight against a “Green Slime”. Follow “How to Fight” to resolve the battle. You kill it without damage, but you saw a “Foul-smelling mud” and you continue your journey.

Next, you draw a King form the Step deck. A King has a value of 4 steps. You go to the 7th step. It’s a fight against the “Stone Guardian”. Follow “How to Fight” to resolve the battle. You lose 3♤ in this fight, you now have 3♡ and 2♤, but as a result, you get a “Stone Shield” from the corpse of the “Stone Guardian” and it adds 2♤ to your armor. You have now 3♡ and 4♤. Move your armor cards to keep tack of this.

Next, draw a new card from the Step deck and continue to play until you reach the end, the 40th step.

Good Game!