Sortilege

Sortilège

A dice duel where beating someone takes their dice.

Sortilège is a duel fought with dice. Each turn both players reach into the same shared pool of boons, commit their rolls, and try to break the other side first. Nobody builds a private hand in advance. You are both reaching into the same bag, and what you leave behind is what your opponent picks up.

Alone, you climb an academy. Its staff are the opposition, and their academic rank tells you exactly how much trouble you are walking into, from a nervous First-Year up to the Elder Geometer waiting at the top.

Beat any one of them and their entire set of dice is yours, in one go. The ladder is a wardrobe you rob on the way up.

Health carries the whole way up, and there is no free patch-up. Healing is bought with the same gold that buys dice, so a sloppy win on the second floor is still with you on the eighth.

The route up is yours to choose. Floors fork and rejoin past elite doors and shops, and you commit to a path rather than walking a line.

You open on three d4 and 20 health. By the boss floor a measured climb is carrying six or seven dice with three d20s among them, and one d20 will not finish the Elder Geometer. Every win pays gold, and every coin is a choice between staying alive and getting stronger.

• A branching solo climb, or an online duel with a friend

• The same rules both ways, so beating the ladder teaches you the duel

• Matches short enough to fit between other things, and a full climb is an evening

• Full controller and mouse-and-keyboard support, and it runs on Steam Deck

A free demo is playable now.