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Cards & Catacombs

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Suggested Price $0.99

Cards & Catacombs is a complete dungeon crawling, character leveling, hack and slash loot fest that's built around the usage of a single deck of ordinary playing cards. Keep those jokers in that deck (they're good fun). 

This game is designed to function as a solitaire experience as well as a group-based crawl. C&C is made to accomodate almost any sized group of players you could gather. 

Inside you'll find rules on how to build fantasy characters utilizing six classes and three races. You'll be able to design warriors, archers, mages, spellswords, thieves, and clerics, who come from the mortal races of humans, elves, and dwarves.

The characters grow in power as you explore the depths and build your party into prominence. Magic items abound, and the ability to enhance your powerful items through the concept of infusing them with items of their same kind creates an incentive to keep playing and a series of clear creation goals that will spark your desire for power. 

Using a simple character creation process, you'll build characters and venture forth into the dungeons of the realm, hoping the cards and their numeric variables are your friends. But be prepared to make several characters. The cards can get... nasty.

Cards & Catacombs will bring you endless possibilities through a design that thrusts you right into the action and places you on a course for countless dungeon delving opportunities. 

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Reviews (2)
Discussions (4)
Customer avatar
Harrington M July 01, 2020 9:57 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
I truly appreciate the questions and input, you guys. Every little bit helps. I expect this style of game to be appreciated by some and hated by others, so I'll take all comers. This Synopsis Engine design works well with lots of formats, and isn't limited to simply a deck of cards, but for now I'm keeping the single deck concept front and center in all of the titles I'm producing.

Jackknife Trail was just submitted and awaits availability to the public. So there's already a second game I've designed that uses this same system that will be available soon. Each of these Synopsis Engine games will have eventual expansions and ways to increase the potential of what they offer, but the core rules within each will always keep the games simple and concise and easy to play wherever you are using very few components.
Customer avatar
Jordy A June 23, 2020 4:54 am UTC
PURCHASER
Customer avatar
Jordy A June 23, 2020 4:53 am UTC
PURCHASER
Also there the book have a little issues with some text (some rules appear twice)

It is a wonderful game but i also feel that this game can be expanded a lot more, maybe new mechanics or new game modes.

Good and amazing work.
Reply
Customer avatar
Harrington M July 01, 2020 8:53 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
They do double-up on occasion, yes. I don't mind that happening as long as it's not too repetitive. That kind of thing can help with making the system stick into the mind of the reader, for some, but yeah it can be problematic with some folks too.

Thanks for the input. Cards & Catacombs is the first entry in a series of games I'm designing using what I call the Synopsis Engine. It takes the direct aspects of an adventure and skips all the filler. Granted, I love the filler in standard rpgs too, but this type of design skips over a lot of details and gets right to the point.

I'm about to add Jackknife Trail to the list of games that use this engine. It will be available here as soon as the good folks make it public. I'm uploading it after I type this message, in fact. While some of the game designs I have stray further from the base C&C Synopsis style, Jackknife Trail is virtually the same game just reskinned and rewritten as a western/frontier setup with new options, classes,...See more
Customer avatar
Paul D May 28, 2020 2:11 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Martin,
in the instructions for the Final Room Phase, it indicates that it plays out exactly as a Combat Phase, followed by any surviving characters immediately returning to town. This would seem to indicate that there is no Exceptional Loot check for the final section of the dungeon. Is this the intent?
Thanks!
Reply
Customer avatar
Harrington M May 28, 2020 2:50 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Paul,

Yes, this is the intent. Exceptional Loot checks are limited within the game, but I can see how this ending of dungeons without the greater loot chance feel counterintuitive. There are a few ways Cards & Catacombs takes odd turns with regard to placement. Another is the usage of items that can only be used during rests; which indicates you need to go though an entire section before being able to gain the item's benefit for the rest of the dungeon.

I set them up this way so it strikes an odd balance while also adding a sense of strategy. In the case of the item usage, the player may decide to keep an item if the first section went well, but in the case of not having Exceptional Loot in the final dungeon section it's more the case that the gaining of xp back in town is the real reward after surviving the gauntlet of the two combat phases in the last section.
Reply
Customer avatar
Paul D May 29, 2020 7:45 am UTC
PURCHASER
Great, thank you.
Looking forward to having a few games over the weekend and if all goes to plan, leaving a review.
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File Last Updated:
May 22, 2020
This title was added to our catalog on May 26, 2020.