Solitomb is a demon-fighting prototype which mixes Balatro and solitaire, from the maker of Slipways

Slipways was the best grand strategy game I’d played in years, because it tossed out all the genre’s micromanagement in favour of a strategy puzzle where all your exploiting, expanding, et ceteraing could be squeezed into an hour’s play. That game began as a PICO-8 prototype by designer Jakub Wasilewski before being polished to a fine shine in its full release.

All of which is just lead-in to talking about Solitomb, a solitaire-based dungeon crawler in which you fight demons by building hands of playing cards. It’s currently – heywaitaminute – a pay-what-you-want PICO-8 prototype by designer Jakub Wasilewski where “all money earned goes towards making the bigger version possible.” Like Slipways, it already seems like a frightfully clever piece of design.

You can play Solitomb in your browser for free right now.

Hit the how-to-play button in-game to go to this webpage, which is the basic tutorial. If you’ve played solitaire before, the very basics are familiar: there are stacks of cards spread at the top of the screen, with some facing upwards. After that just about everything else is different.

The cards themselves represent either the different types of monster you can fight, or the attack, shield, and potions you can take into that fight. The number on each card represents its efficacy. You build stacks of up to five cards – any lower numbered card can be placed on top of another – and drag them into your hand to start the fight. The aim is to defeat a certain number of a certain kind of enemy or to clear a pathway forward in order to reach the next level of the dungeon.

Which probably all sounds a little abstract, but makes sense almost as soon as you start playing. Want to defeat a beast of five strength? Pair it with a sword of five strength. Want to win the fight without taking damage? Add a shield of 4 strength and a potion of 1 or higher, and drag all four cards together into your hand. Now do this again and again to clear all the cards in front of you, making sure not to squader power on lesser battles, to run out of health, or to run out of attack cards altogether.

There are umpteen other systems layered atop this basic combat math. The dungeon houses an impatient demon and if you make too many dragging and stacking moves before you trigger combat, you’ll start to take damage. There are damage bonuses for combos, such as cards of the same suit, rank or consecutive ranks. You choose a character class before a run, with a passive buff and a special ability, and there’s a between-level shop for purchasing new cards and upgrades. Later floors introduce new card types. Prototype or not, it already seems rich in strategic potential.

Head over to the Solitomb page on Itch to give it a try. Or if you never got around to trying Slipways, you can pick that for half price right now over on Steam.