Cardborne

Cardborne is a roguelite played on a real deck of playing cards. No deckbuilding. Clubs ♣ and spades ♠ are enemies, diamonds ♦ are weapons, hearts ♥ heal. One rule turns every room into a puzzle: your weapon can only kill an enemy of the same or lower value than its last kill.

Fight order

Equip a diamond and its value becomes your weapon's strength and its uses. Every enemy you kill with it stacks up on the weapon. Kill the 9 first and the 6 and the 4 are still in reach. Kill the 4 first and the 9 and the 6 are locked out for that weapon. Swap to a new weapon and the chain starts over.

When the order goes wrong, you can always fight barehanded and take the enemy's full value as damage. Or spend 1 weapon use on a ranged attack to shave 1 off an enemy's value.

Poker hands

The kills stacked on your weapon form real poker hands, from a Pair up to a Straight Flush. Play them when you choose: every hand in the stack pays out, and many also hit the strongest enemy or work on your weapon. Then the whole stack clears, so the higher enemies are back in reach. Play early to save the weapon, or wait for a bigger hand and risk running out of uses. Plan the hand before you swing.

Jokers

Every level-up offers 3 jokers. Take one. Take one you already own and it levels up, all the way to level 3. There are 14 of them. Smith adds strength to your weapon on every poker hand. Grinder adds a weapon use. Iron Will shields you when you fight barehanded. Scarecrow makes the weakest enemy flee to another room.

Rooms grow

Each room is dealt from the deck. The first ones hold 4 cards. As you level up they grow, up to 10. Empty the room and the next one is dealt. More cards means more choices, and more ways to get the order wrong.

Diamonds and hearts

You hold one weapon at a time, so every diamond is a choice. Equip it and start a fresh chain, or discard it to give the weapon you already hold +1 use. Hearts heal you. At full HP, a heart gives +1 XP instead.

Enemy abilities

Some enemies have abilities. You learn them the hard way.

Classes

The Escapist can escape a room 4 times per run. The Gambler can reroll the joker offer when you level up. Win runs to unlock more.

Stages and bosses

Three stages: Spades, Clubs and Diamonds, each in three acts. When an act's deck runs out, the boss phases in with its minions. Each stage has its own boss, and it comes back stronger in the next act. Win a stage to open the next one, and Hard mode for the stage you beat.

Early Access

The full core loop is in. More content comes during Early Access.

Cardborne is a solo project from Lakeborn Studio, made by me, Peter.

But Aces broke the binding law, high and low, a fatal flaw. Yet fate has drawn a hand anew, a chosen one to cut straight through.