Rardo
01Rogue
Grimble
Prefers to enter last and leave with more than he brought. Considers an empty pocket a missed opportunity.
- Greedy
- Twitchy
In development · PC · Steam
You are the problem.
A spiteful tabletop deckbuilder. You're the Dungeon Master. The party trusts you. That's their first mistake.
The game
Most games let you play the hero. This isn't most games.
Four adventurers walk into your tavern, each with a class, a signature flaw and a handful of traits you're about to exploit.
Afraid of spiders? Noted. Greedy? Lovely. Licks things? (Yes, that's a real trait. No, I won't be taking questions.)
01
Bait the encounter
Lay three cards on the table. A hooded stranger. Free ale. A suspicious cellar door. The party picks what looks tempting, which is exactly the point.
02
Fudge the dice
Every roll happens in the open. Then you quietly burn a fudge card. Loaded dice. Doppelgangers. Forced ones. Nobody saw anything.
03
Betray the party
Sway one adventurer, or the whole table, straight into the bar fight. Watch out for the Rules Lawyer. They object. They always object.
04
Into the lair
Lead them through the route, area by area, into a boss fight you've spent the whole run setting up. Then take the credit.
Meet your employer
Malice.
"Your new employer, tutor and, if the paperwork is honest, eternal problem."
Malice spent years watching adventuring tables from somewhere above them. Then he noticed a die could be persuaded. Then he noticed misery goes further if the party lives long enough to feel it.
Now he's hiring. You're the apprentice. He supplies the contracts, the cards and the running commentary. You supply the suffering. Done properly. With paperwork.
Make them suffer well. — Malice
Panels from Malice's prologue, the in-game graphic novel.
10Classes to disappoint
350+Illustrated card arts
28Monsters in the binder
1Developer (tired)
Screens
Actual pixels. Actual game.
Pre-alpha, so everything here is subject to change, balance and the occasional existential crisis.
The party
Ten classes. Zero self-preservation.
Every party is four classes, each with a signature flaw and a stack of traits. Sometimes they pair up badly.
Speaks to the Dead and Afraid of Ghosts on the same warlock is my personal favourite.
02Cleric
Brother Damp
Great faith in providence. Very little faith in bridges. Packs spare socks before holy water.
- Team mum
- Protects the weak
03Bard
Bimble
Treats a dungeon as an unusually hostile venue. Silence is just an audience waiting to be won over.
- Main character
- Greedy
04Ranger
Hawklet
Reads tracks more readily than expressions. Creatures make more sense than the people following him.
- Cautious
- Animal friend
From the deck
A few bad ideas.
DC7DMG4
On a fail: Drunk
It's free. That's the first warning sign.
Temptation
DC9DMG8
On a fail: 8 damage
Definitely just a normal patron. Definitely.
Social
DC8DMG5
On a fail: 5 damage
The barkeep says don't. The stairs say do.
Route
DC9DMG6
On a fail: 6 damage
Someone mentioned someone's mother. It escalates.
Threat
DC11DMG7
On a fail: Cursed
Undead, unbothered, and workshopping a keynote on 'letting go'.
Social
DC10DMG6
On a fail: Rattled
Many eyes. All of them on the paperwork you did not file.
Monster
Real cards, real numbers, straight out of the deck. DC is what they have to beat. DMG is what it costs them when they don't.
Origin story
It started as a song.
Not a design doc. Not a pitch deck. A song. "I Wanna Be a Dungeon Master" was a late-night mess-about in Suno that got stuck in my head, then refused to leave.
A DM who doesn't want the party to win. Who wants to watch. Who might be enjoying this a bit too much. That idea needed somewhere to live, so it got a game. The game got a demon. The demon got a bath.
So yes, a game heading to Steam exists because of a 5 minute 48 second song. (Probably the most expensive song I've ever made.)
Everyone Expire devlog
Milestone
Tutorial
Build
Direction
Notes from the parts that broke first.
First Steam build is up
A private pre-alpha build is sitting on Steam. It boots, it renders, it passed every check I threw at it. Steam won't let me hand out tester keys for three weeks after creating the app, so right now it's a very expensive game only I can play. Progress.
Bad Ideas 101
The tutorial is a scripted route that deals exact bait and rigs the dice so every lesson lands. Yes, the game about cheating teaches you by cheating. It felt right.
Alpha standing
Card faces, fudge frames, scene backgrounds, party art, and a meta progression that hands out loot crates. About 14% of those crates are mimics. They bite.
Desktop first. Steam next.
It started phone-shaped, as Do Not Trust the DM. Then it got ambitious and a better name. The direction is now desktop landscape, aimed squarely at a Steam release.
Steam page coming soon. Wishlist button lands here.