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There was a time back in my school days when cardgames were all the rage. Everybody had a deck of playing cards in their pocket for cheeky 15 minute rounds of Texas Hold ‘Em between lessons, with Milky Way segments and Niknaks wagered in place of chips. Yes, I’m aware I’m starting to sound like Grandpa Simpson, and no, this wasn’t from some murky era before the invention of videogames. It was the heyday of the Gameboy Advance! I’m not sure what we were thinking. But two things: 1) decks of playing cards are cheaper than game consoles, and 2) part of the fun, possibly, was that nobody really knew how to play the ostensibly well-known cardgames we were playing.
With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect there may have been creative liberties taken with the rules at times. I knew hair-pulling wasn’t a legal move in professional poker. Anyway, I’m reminded of all this by Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers, a warped and mildly satirical, 90s-styled take on Blackjack from Purple Moss Collectors.
It starts much like normal blackjack – you and the other player draw cards, trying to score as high as you can without going over 21. But things escalate rapidly. Aside from standard playing cards, you’ll have to deal with glitched cards, Hall Pass cards, loyalty cards, cards that are worth negative points, Tarot cards, cards that change the victory conditions, swappable business cards and so forth. Based on 15 minutes or so, the fun is digging out every last bizarre addition and seeing how it affects the rules of blackjack, care of a core roguelite loop that breaks play up with trips to the bar and overnight stays at the tavern. I’m interested to discover if there’s a move similar to one of my own killer techniques at school, which consisted of wailing like a banshee and throwing Pogs at the other player’s head.
You can play the Itch version of D&DG in a browser, or find a slightly bulkier demo on Steam with some story materials. If this leaves you hungry for weird cardgames, I can only recommend Inscryption.