Written and designed by Greg Favro, Spire’s End is a solo and cooperative fantasy/horror card game that hearkens back to the gamebooks of the ’80s, with enemy encounters, interactive story-driven scenarios, and high-end art and design. It’s a unique gaming experience without a lot of baggage: a simple set-up, intuitive rules and minimal components. No DM, no bookkeeping or character sheet. Just you, an oversized deck of cards, dice and cube markers.
Spire’s End is the grisly tale of a strange tower that emerges in the heart of a bustling Viking city. The townsfolk have vanished, so it’s up to you to mount a rescue and unravel the mystery. You move through the game like a book. But in this case, it’s a stack of ominous cards. Flip them over, make difficult choices and let the story unfold.
Spire’s End is not a randomly generated gaming experience – the concept here is to experience a specific storyline with multiple chapter branches and endings. Your choices, enemy encounters and items you discover will influence the overall narrative. There are multiple endings to uncover; some more unpleasant than others.
You have an Ally Deck with 6 adventurers (6 chances) to face the countless dangers of the spire. From this Deck you will randomly pick 2 starting Allies. But be warned, your path is paved in blood. If they die – and they will – you’ll randomly select another to take their place.
In combat you perform actions at a cost. That cost is your character’s hit points. Every action is a risk. To execute stronger attacks you will need to spend more hit points, which in turn leaves you weak and vulnerable. This makes for tense, close and ruthless battles. Enemies will fight in a similar fashion, however, they don’t spend Hit Points and their AI-driven actions are determined by the Action Deck.
There are 7 main encounters in Spire’s End – all of them have different hooks and mechanics to make them interesting, with some featuring story branches that trigger in the midst of battle.
Eye-catchingly illustrated by Benjamin Wiesemann, and expertly designed and packaged with an evocative modern/retro style, Spire’s End is a six-chapter adventure, each of which includes a major encounter, loot, choices, dice chucking and more. It will require both skill and luck to succeed. Intended to be the first half of a much larger twelve-chapter story, the second half of the game is outlined and already in the early stages of development.
The Kickstarter has already surpassed its funding goal, unlocking a new Ally, custom ‘Key’ dice, a box upgrade and a new Trash Mob. The campaign concludes on November 17th. Discover more about the game at spiresend.com