Card Slay

Card Slay is a poker roguelike where the cards fight back.

Cards were never just for games. They are old magic. A powerful House used them to deal in luck, debt, war and fate, until it built a machine that could deal fate itself, and the deal froze mid-hand. Now the House is a cursed dungeon locked inside one endless turn, and everything trapped in it still does its old job: guards still guard, auditors still collect, saints still bleed.

You are a Card Slayer. Walk in with a ritual deck, form poker hands, and finish the hand the House could not.

Draw eight cards. Spend your Plays and Discards to build the best one-to-five-card poker hand you can. Then let the suits decide what it does. Red suits strike. Black suits shield. A Flush of Hearts is a killing blow; a Full House of Spades is a wall. The Selection Lens shows exactly what a hand will do before you commit, so every turn is a clean, readable decision with a big, loud payoff.

• Red ♦ ♥ become Attack. Black ♠ ♣ become Block. Mix them in one hand and split the payoff.

• Level your hand types with Star Charts: a leveled Two Pair can outscore a lazy Flush.

• If you know a pair beats a high card, you can play. Mastery takes a hundred runs.

This is not a score attack. The monsters of the House play the table against you. A Grave Auditor calls a rank and taxes every hand that does not contain it. A Crystal Grub hides inside a shell that only a Straight or better can crack. A Suit Glutton hungers for one suit and swells when you feed it. Bosses bring whole table rules of their own: the Gate Warden's seals, the Hollow Regent's summoned court, the Aether Core's Five Orders. Every fight is a puzzle about which hand to build, and when.

• 43 enemies across ~69 hand-authored encounters, each with its own lever on your poker table.

• 5 bosses with bespoke mechanics, no damage sponges.

• Enemy intents are on the table every turn. The House cheats, but it does not lie.

Between fights, bend the House's rules in your favor. Runes are permanent passives that rewrite how hands score. Phials are one-shot tricks for when the table turns. Charters and Edicts are signed contracts with the House: power now, a clause that bites later. Forge, infuse and mark the cards in your deck until a humble 7 of Clubs is the most dangerous card you own.

• 15 Runes, 11 Phials, 8 Charters, 10 Edicts, plus card infusions, marks and auras.

• Branching act maps: combats, elites, merchants, rest sites and 15 House events with real consequences.

• Everything you meet is catalogued in the House Collection: enemies, relics, card effects and lore.

Clearing the House with one deck unlocks the next, and every deck is a different game. The Forge Deck burns hot and guards poorly. The Bastion Deck gets a single Play per turn and outlasts everything. The Ledger Deck starts the run in debt to the House. The Reliquary Deck pays for power in blood. The Star Deck plays against veiled intents. The Reactor Deck surges with wild magic every turn. The deck ladder is the difficulty ladder: no numbers quietly tuned up, just new rules to master.

Most runs end at the Aether Core. The best ones do not. Beyond the machine waits a finale act with mechanics that exist nowhere else in the game (the Board, the Showdown, the Cut) and the First Dealer, who has been waiting for you specifically. Three endings. One of them is the truth about why you were dealt into the House at all.

FEATURES

• 3 acts of 10 floors, then a finale act: The Last Deal.

• 43 enemies, 5 bosses, 8 unlockable ritual decks, 3 endings.

• 30 achievements and 30 lore fragments: the story of the House, recovered one run at a time.

• Seeded, deterministic runs: share a seed, compare the outcome.

• Full controller support; plays great on Steam Deck.

• English, Français, Italiano, Deutsch, Español, 简体中文.

Every hand is a weapon. Every suit is a choice. Every run is another attempt to break the House.