You Cannot Kill Me in a Way That Matters
A downloadable game
Transcendent Roguelike Solitaire
You have perished, but the fungal spores that suffuse your corpse cannot be destroyed so easily. After a timeless time, you return to a body, though you don’t remember if it is yours or not. You are reconstituted, but also transformed.
This game represents a risky, cyclical search for meaning in a vast and hostile mycological landscape. Your personal power is tracked in the playing cards kept in front of you. If you win the battles in the forest, your power will increase. The forest is dealt in front of you, explored, shuffled, and dealt again. Sometimes you will find what you are looking for in the forest before you die. Sometimes not.
Roguelike Solitaire
Fight monsters in the forest! Deal quick card layouts for yourself and the forest, resolve the round, do it again. The more rounds you play, the more you level up your power. When you beat the game, you could stop. Or you could mark down a transcension bonus and go around again, stronger from the start.
Inspirations
This game was inspired in equal parts by Peach Garden Games Apex Predator, the videogame genre of “idle games”, and a meme about mushrooms.
What's in the Box?
- Full color PDF for screen.
- A more sedate PDF for printing at home. The print friendly version has no background texture for pages or blocks of text, and the images have all been faded out so they don't burn out your printer. This might also be the high-contrast version.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Update to v0.6May 22, 2021
- Tiny update to v0.5.1May 16, 2021
Comments
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How do I proceed if my paths are blocked, except for one, but I capture that card? Do I shuffle the cards on the blocked paths to the forest deck?
I've read a few times and I still don't know.
"reset the field of play"
does this mean to remove any face down cards from the forest row except ones that are sideways and re-deal? or remove all forest cards and re-deal?
based on other comments i'm assuming you don't change the character row.
also, at the beginning when you only have one character card (ace of diamond) and you find a card that beats/ties it (say the 3 of spades) what do you do? it says "flip over the top card in that suit" but at this point i don't have a spade card. is it just a death leading to "reset the field of play"? see above for why i am now stuck :P
tbh i really need a video demonstration of an example game
I got this from the Ukraine bundle and I gotta say, its a very cool idea. I feel like the first bit of the game is thematic but could be easily skipped for a better play experience and first impression. (There's even an option on the last page that lets you restart with a bonus of your choice, and one of them is exactly what I'm talking about) I don't think its worth $10 but I got like 2/2.5 hours of playtime out of it and I only went through it the once. The presentation in the PDF is really nice looking though, and the ideas are solid! Overall I enjoyed my time and I'm glad I checked it out, now maybe I'll check out the inspirations as well
Looks like an interesting game! Need some help though.
Page 6: Forest Quick start, Seperate out the Threes, the Twos and the rest of the Aces -> I guess also the Fours?
Page 7: Jack, there is a "If you" at the end of the sentence. Is that a typo? *Already answered, See the comment below
Also is there any reason why we only start with Ace of Diamonds rather than all Aces as it seems to me the character will need to die a lot of times at the start to collect the other 3 aces and therefore stand any chance to move forward, given you at least need a card to have a chance to Seek
i.e. 3/15 chance to get another ace with 11/15 chance of instand death.
question do i have the opportunity to hold a mushroom at gunpoint, screaming at it to tell me what god's name is as tears stream from my eyes
It sounds like in this case YOU are the mushroom
That's not the question :)
I'm loving playing this, but I'm wondering if I'm doing it wrong... when one perishes, and the field of play is reset... do all character cards return to the forest deck as well? I've been resetting back to just the Ace of Diamonds, and it's pretty slow going.
(I'm also wondering if there is more to the loss condition with the Jack, or if that's just a typo :) )
Oh, no, keep your character deck, that’s the level up mechanism. I bet it is super slow going without that!
That is a typo, thank you for letting me know! There is no further description for the Jack, please disregard that “If you”. I’ll get rid of that and upload a revision. I’ll also see if I can clarify the language about resetting the forest but not resetting the character cards.
Glad to hear you’re enjoying it, thank you for letting me know!
Haha wow, I'll start having a faster go of it for sure now! Also just saw that I should be recording the values of captured cards on the Incarnation tracker as well... I kinda like the slow burn, so I might keep only ticking off boxes for deaths :)
EDIT: Unless you can think of a good reason not to, design-wise. Maybe an optional rule?
No, if you’re enjoying the slow burn, go ahead and play that way! So glad you’re enjoying it. :)