HOW TO PLAY

Scoundrel — Dungeon Crawler Solitaire

Scoundrel is a solo tactical card game — part roguelike, part solitaire. It challenges you to survive a dungeon represented by a standard deck of cards. You win by clearing the deck; you lose if your health reaches zero.

🖥️ On-Screen Layout

  • Health Bar: Your current HP is tracked at the top of the screen. Watch it closely — it never regenerates above 20.
  • Weapon Slot: Your equipped Diamond card and the defeated enemies it has slain are displayed below the active room cards.

The Deck & Your Goal

The dungeon is a 44-card deck — a standard deck with the red face cards and red aces removed. You begin with 20 Health. Clear every card without dying to win.

⚔️ Monsters — Spades & Clubs

Enemy strength equals rank (2–10, J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14). Fight them to progress.

🛡️ Weapons — Diamonds

Equip these to reduce combat damage. Only one weapon can be active at a time.

🧪 Potions — Hearts

Heals you up to your 20 HP cap. Only one potion per room grants healing — drinking a second is wasted.

How to Play

1. The Room

Each turn, four cards are dealt face-up — this is your Room. To advance you must interact with at least three of the four cards. Once three are resolved the fourth is carried over and a new room is dealt around it.

2. Combat & Weapon Durability

When you encounter a monster you choose to fight bare-handed or with your equipped weapon.

  • Bare-handed:You take the monster's full value as HP damage.
  • With weapon:You take the difference between the monster's value and your weapon's value (minimum 0).
  • Durability rule: A weapon can only be used against a monster that is strictly weaker than the last enemy it killed. If your last kill with the weapon was an 8, you cannot use it against a 9 or higher — fight bare-handed instead or accept defeat.

3. Equipping Weapons

Tap a Diamond card to equip it. Equipping a new weapon discards the old one along with its monster kill history — the new weapon starts fresh and can fight any monster.

4. Fleeing

If a room looks fatal you may flee: all four cards are shuffled to the bottom of the deck. However, you cannot flee two rooms in a row — the very next room must be faced.

Strategy tipIf you hold a powerful 10-strength weapon, don't waste its durability chain on a weak 2-strength monster early on. Sometimes absorbing a small bare-handed hit preserves your weapon for the bruisers ahead.