Game File: 

Solitaire The Roguelike v2.zip

SOLITAIRE: THE ROGUELIKE
by Jeremy Penner
version 2.0

Shuffle a deck of regular playing cards. Deal out 25 cards face down in a 5x5 square. Flip the card in the middle so it is face up. This is the dungeon. Deal yourself three cards. These are your starting weapons.

Your goal is to clear out the dungeon of all enemies. To fight an enemy:
- Play one or more cards from the card in your hand on top of a card in the dungeon. If it is face-down, turn it up.
- If the sum of the value of the cards played is less than or equal to the value of the enemy you are fighting, you are killed and the game ends immediately.
- If the sum of the value of the cards played is greater than the value of the enemy you are fighting, you kill the enemy. Discard the cards that you played, and put the enemy card into your hand.
- After the battle is over (and you survive to fight another turn), you do two things:
1. Reveal a card directly adjacent to the enemy that was defeated (no diagonals).
2. Optionally take a card from the top of the deck. If you decide to do so, you must then discard either the card that you just took from the deck, or the enemy card that you just won from the battle.
- If the enemy card was hidden at the beginning of the battle, take an extra new card from the top of the deck.

Jack - 11
Queen - 12
King - 13
Ace - 14
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EDIT: The first version of this game that I posted is painfully degenerate; after the first couple of turns, you were basically so powerful as to be unstoppable (though actually playing that way felt really wrong). This is a vastly improved version that I figured out while my son was in the bath which actually has the player occasionally making interesting choices.