When I was a kid I loved the card game war which I’ve grown to understand is terrible so I remade it and now some friends and I are working on turning it into a fully fledged game I’ll just put the basic “play at home” rules here in hopes that some of you can play it and give me feedback on what you like and what could change.

Setup.

Split a deck of playing cards into red cards and black cards, and remove face cards but not aces or jokers. If you don’t have jokers just leave one Jack of each color in their deck. Shuffle both decks.
Next choose who is player one and who is player two. Player one starts with a hand of five and player two starts with a hand of six.

Lastly envision your board. This is not a practical step but is helpful. The game in played on a 5 by 5 grid with no corners (as seen below) and each player has a gate which are the 3 spaces closest to them. I recommend putting a card in each of the spaces with an X on them to more clearly see the shape of the board.

X X O O O X - gate
X O O O O O
X O O O O O
X O O O O O
X X O O O X - gate

Now you’re ready to play.

How to win.
There are two ways to win.

1. If your opponent loses all their cards you win.
2. If you have two of your cards in your opponent’s gate you win.

Your turn.
On your turn you take one action from the following options.
Summon. Place a card from your hand face down in your gate. (No player can look at face down cards at any time)
Move. Move any card 1 orthogonally.
Jump. Reveal a face down card then move it two in any one orthogonal direction. You can jump over other cards.

Battling.
If you would move onto a space that contains another card start a battle. Both cards are revealed and the lower one is removed to a discard pile. Then the player who lost the battle draws a card into their hand to replace the lost one.
NOTE\* the first time player two would draw a card this way they do not since they started with one additional card.

Special cards.
There are many special cards in the full ruleset but the ones that are easily playable with the standard deck of playing cards are as follows.
2s - beat aces.
Jokers - explode. Meaning the joker wins the battle and is then removed from the board along with the lost card.

Additionally if the current rules are feeling too simple the easiest additional rule to add is this

3s, 4s, 5s and 6s can move diagonally either as a jump or once they are revealed.

Enjoy and please give any feedback!

The rules are below. Let me know if you have any feedback!

Card Crawler

A solo, card-based dungeon crawler

What you need:

• 1 deck of standard playing cards
• 1 d20

Setup:

1. First, remove all lettered heart cards, the Ace, Jack, Queen, and King of Hearts. (Please note the game uses both jokers. You also need the ‘non-playing’ card, for example, the poker cheat sheet, the double sided art card included in Bicycle decks, etc. You can also use one of the removed heart cards as a stand-in. )
2. Shuffle the deck (without the removed heart cards) and place it somewhere comfortable. Leave room for a discard pile, and the current floor. Put your d20 below the dungeon, sitting at 20. This is your health. (You have a health cap of 20)
3. Finally, draw four cards and place them face up in a row next to your dungeon. This represents what is on your current floor.

Objective: Survive the dungeon by managing your health, shields, and card order. Clear every card in the dungeon before your health reaches 0.

Gameplay:

Each floor consists of four face-up cards. To move to the next floor, exactly three of those cards must be played, leaving one card behind. (Choose a card and resolve its effect. This is called playing a card.)  Then draw three new cards from the dungeon to replace the played cards, returning the floor to four cards. Play three cards, no more and no less. You strategically find an order to play these cards that will benefit you the most, slowly progressing down the dungeon. If you run out of health, game over. If you play every card, you win. Another action you can take is to skip your current floor, and put all cards at the bottom of the dungeon. You may only skip a floor if you did not skip the previous floor. When the dungeon is empty, continue playing the remaining floor until no cards remain. 

What the cards mean and how to play them.

• Spades and clubs: These are monster cards. What they do is take away your health if you play them. If you choose to play one of these, take away health corresponding to the number on the card. (Jack is 11, Queen is 12, King is 13, and Ace is 14. These numbers apply through the rest of the game.) Once you play this, put it in your discard pile.
• Hearts: Playing these heal you corresponding to the number on the card. (Since the face hearts were removed during setup, don't expect any huge heals!) Once you play this, put it in your discard pile. You have a health cap of 20, and cards that would heal you above 20 can still heal you, but you do not get bonus health. Example: If your health is 17 and you heal with a 6, you do not get healed to 23, you get healed to 20 and the 6 is discarded.
• Diamonds: Shield cards. These block damage for you. Once you play one, you move it down in front of you. You may only have one equipped at once. Playing a new shield card equips it and discards your current shield. If multiple shield cards are on the floor, you may repeatedly equip a different shield. Each newly equipped shield discards the previous one, allowing you to remove multiple shield cards while still ending with one equipped. You cannot discard your shield if you do not equip a new one. The number on the shield card shows how much damage it blocks. Initially, a shield may block any monster. If the number on the monster is higher than the number on the shield, you subtract the shield’s number from the monster’s and take the remainder as damage.  After you block an attack, put it below the shield card. Your shield can no longer block monsters with a value higher than that card. If you block another card, you put that below any previous monsters. You can no longer block anything higher than that card now. In other words, you cannot block any monsters with a number higher than the bottom-most monster card on a shield. Your shield card stays with you in between floors, it only goes away if you replace it. When playing a monster, you may choose whether or not to use your equipped shield. A shield may block any number of monsters until it is replaced.

 

Example:

• Shield 6 blocks a 7. 
• Take 1 damage.
• Place the 7 beneath the shield.
• It can now block monsters valued 7 or less.
• Later it blocks a 3.
• Place the 3 beneath the 7.
• It can now only block monsters valued 3 or less.
• Jokers: If you play a joker, you take every card on the floor, (excluding your shield and the joker), put it into the deck, and shuffle. The joker is discarded. Draw four cards for the next floor. (The dungeon floor should look normal) This is extremely useful if you have previously gotten a really nasty combo of monsters that you had to save for later.
• Non playing card: If this card appears, it discards your shield and itself. You continue to play normally. The non-playing card activates immediately after a floor is refilled to four cards. If you have no shield, the non-playing card discards itself.

Cheat sheet:
Spades: Monster
 Clubs: Monster
 Hearts: Heal
 Diamonds: Shield
Joker: Shuffle floor
Extra card: Discard shield 

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I'd get rid of all the jokers, once I even ripped them apart because fuck joker cards