From the first room to a working engine
Builds & guides
Start with combat, exploration and card keywords. Then improve your deck with growth, draw, energy refunds and a plan for dangerous enemies.
Steam Demo · 23718635 · 19 guidesStart here: learn the run
Follow the first-run loop, plan a combat turn, read card keywords and manage exploration recovery.
Rest and exploration recovery
Make space for Camp cards and plan your recovery before the next fight.
Your first run: give both decks a job
Learn the opening loop: explore, fight, choose a reward and prepare for the next encounter.
How to share a useful run
Keep core cards, upgraded copies and end-screen numbers clear enough for other players to follow.
Combat basics: plan the turn before you attack
Read enemy intentions, budget your energy and give the killing blow to the card that earns the reward.
Exploration basics: energy, resting and warmth
Spend your exploration hand with a purpose, read the rest preview and leave before optional rewards cost too much health.
Card keywords: what stays, what disappears and what triggers
Understand Persistent, Linger, Temporary, Uses, Exhaust and Replenish before building a repeatable combo.
Advanced play: make the engine reliable
Thin your decks, connect growth to draws, budget refunds and avoid dangerous retaliation chains.
Deck thinning: remove cards without breaking your engine
Choose what to forget, protect essential exploration actions and turn a large deck into a more dependable plan.
Fever and Unstoppable: turn growth and kills into draws
Build around two different draw triggers, choose the right support and diagnose why a promising chain stops.
Energy refunds: keep your combo affordable at every step
Track up-front costs, fatal refunds and generated food so a long turn does not stop one energy short.
Why eating can hurt: Thorns and Spell Weakness
Identify hidden retaliation chains and avoid turning healing or zero-cost cards into repeated self-damage.
Choose your camp upgrades
Decide what to improve, which facility fits, and what to do when a piece is missing.
Which camp upgrade should you choose?
Choose Practice Dummy, Kitchen, Grimoire or Strange Geode around the cards and resources you already have.
Practice Dummy: which attack should you upgrade?
Choose between immediate damage, extra attacks, cheaper casts and fatal-hit growth, with a plan for runs that miss the dummy.
Kitchen upgrades: make food or grow from eating?
Choose cooking upgrades by the missing half of your food engine, and avoid adding growth before you can feed it.
Build a working combat engine
Permanent core cards, generated food, the play order and the conditions that stop a combo.
Roast food build: grow Scavenger Blade as you eat
Build a working food engine with Roast and Scavenger Blade, then add recovery, a stronger finisher or a limited-use area payoff.
Hot Poker and Toasty Kebab: a three-bite food build
Turn a Hot Poker finisher into reusable food, then feed Scavenger Blade without confusing bites, hits and card uses.
Flambee build: turn a fatal hit into food and energy
Use Flambee and Gourmet Toasty to recover energy after a kill, heal and feed eating growth without overspending before the finisher.
Rolling Death: double the damage without wasting its uses
Understand the fatal-hit doubling sequence, prepare each kill and budget the card’s eight base uses.
Find the cards you need
Explore reward opportunities and follow the cards that create food or other useful pieces.
How to get cards: rewards, digging and generated food
Look for a card through the right reward route, and distinguish a permanent find from food or tools another card creates.
Thirsty Mace: where to look and how to chain kills
Look for the persistent weapon through digging and shop opportunities, then plan around its 2-energy fatal-hit refund.