Deckula! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Summary of Play
• The Game Ends When
• An Important Note for Your First Game
• Components
• Play Area
• Setup
• Turn Sequence
• Activating Card Effects
• Difficulty
• Scoring Categories
• Terminology

Summary of Play

Deckula is a solo card game where you try to survive until the end of the deck with a good score - the more points, the more decadent your existence. Each turn, you will draw a card and decide whether to discard it (and gain valuable energy) or buy it to improve your castle. However, some cards represent meddling Visitors that can cost you points, or even your (un)life if you don't maintain some insistent hospitality.

The Game Ends When

You reach the end of the deck. Congratulations! Now count your score by adding up the points in the red circles from any cards in play.

OR

A card effect terminates the game. You lose and score no points!

An Important Note for Your First Game

Many cards make reference to other cards - so it will be hard to make good decisions or understand the point of most effects during your first few plays. You can either jump in and be surprised (games will be short and brutal!) or have a read through the cards in advance. Going with the flow and seeing what happens is recommended.

Components

You just need a copy of the cards. You can track your energy points using the included counter card or with a die, tokens, piece of paper, etc.

Play Area

The play area has the following zones:

• Draw Pile: face-down cards waiting to be drawn.
• Discard Pile: cards that have been discarded or killed.
• Energy: your current energy total, tracked with tokens, a counter card, or similar.
• Threat Area: the top of the play area, where Visitor cards and other threats are placed.
• Home Area: the bottom of the play area, where cards you have bought are placed.

Setup

1. Remove all of the Visitor cards (with a V symbol in the top left) along with the Home Sweet Home card.
2. Shuffle the rest of the cards and draw 3 cards face-up.
3. Choose 1 of the cards to place in your Home area (for free) and discard the other 2.
4. Add Home Sweet Home and some Visitor cards. For recommended starting difficulty: try Hapless Vagabond, Curious Quaintrelle, Furious Farmer, Vengeful Villager and one other random Visitor to the deck and shuffle to form the draw pile. Place the remaining Visitor cards to one side. They will only be used if certain card effects specify or if you want to spice up the difficulty.
5. Begin with 2 energy points.
6. You're ready to play! Proceed to the turn sequence below.

Turn Sequence

1. (optional) You may activate any number of effects from cards in your Home. This might require you to discard them (indicated by the Discard icon) or manipulate other cards. Note that you do not get energy when you discard cards to activate their effects.
2. Draw a new card from the draw pile.
   1. If the card has a big red arrow, immediately place it into either the Threat or Home areas. (Up arrow indicates Threat, Down arrow indicates Home). You never have to pay energy for a card with a red arrow.
   2. Otherwise, you have a choice to make:
      1. Discard the card and gain 1 energy - NB this is the only way to get energy.
      2. Spend 2 energy to buy the card and place it into your Home area.
3. If a new card has been placed into the Home or Threat area:
   1. Apply any instant effects - marked with the Instant Effect icon.
   2. Check if the card triggers any effects on other cards in play.
4. If there are still cards left in the deck, return to step 1. Otherwise, the game is over and you've survived - congratulations! Count up the VP on cards currently in play to get your score. VP is shown in a red seal on the bottom right of the card.

Activating Card Effects

Card effects ONLY occur when they are placed into the Home or Threat areas on the table - either by buying the card on your turn, obtaining it through another effect, or if the card has a red arrow which automatically puts it into play.

There are 3 types of card effect:

• Instant effects (marked with the Instant Effect icon): these effects happen immediately when a card enters the Threat or Home area.
• Discard effects (marked with the Discard icon): these effects can be activated at the start of your turn by discarding the card.
• Passive effects: any other text describes situations where the card might affect or be affected by the presence of other cards. These should be carried out asap and are not optional. If two or more cards' passive effects are triggered by the same event, you may choose only one to activate, ignoring the other card(s) effects until the next triggering event.

Difficulty

The difficulty of the game comes down to the Visitor cards added to the deck during setup. Note that Home Sweet Home is always added.

• Beginner: Hapless Vagabond, Curious Quaintrelle, Furious Farmer, Vengeful Villager, and one random other Visitor.
• Hard: Replace Hapless Vagabond and/or Curious Quaintrelle with random Visitors.
• Harder: Randomly select an unseen combination of 5 Visitors!

Scoring Categories

In general, this is a low-scoring game.

Terminology

• Blanked: a 'blanked' card is considered to have no effect, no VP, no name. It is essentially invisible unless the card that is causing the blanking is removed somehow.
• Buy: spending 2 energy to place a card in your Home area.
• Energy: the currency of the game, used to purchase cards. There is no limit to how much you can have.
• Home: the bottom of the play area, where you place cards you have bought.
• In-play: any cards in the Home or Threat area.
• Kill: place on the discard pile. Certain cards may allow you to place freshly-killed Visitors beneath them for VPs, etc.
• Threat area: the top of the play area, where threats are placed.
• VP: victory points, represented by numbers in red circles on the cards.
• Visitors: antagonistic cards that are marked with a V symbol in the top left corner.