Soulbuilder

The blessing became the disaster. The blessed cannot die — they only keep growing.
The continent is a target. The Endless Spire stands dead center, and the blessing spreads outward from it.
You start at the outermost ring and walk inward.

Soulbuilder is a co-op roguelike deckbuilder for up to three players.
Run the party of three yourself, or bring two friends. The rules are the same either way.

Three of you, one battle

Most deckbuilders are played alone. Here three people stand in the same fight and share the same things.

• One resource pool. All three build it and all three spend it. Three resource converts to one energy, and each player decides when to make that trade.
  
• Block can be given away. Put it on yourself, or hand it to the person next to you. Healing an ally, though, is less efficient than healing yourself — guarding and reviving cost different things.
  
• Some cards are paid for by someone else. The Nexum's [Pact] cards charge their price to an ally. The targeted player can refuse, and every refusal builds Resentment, which makes the price cheaper when you pay it alone.
  
• Party size changes the boss. The boss of the Rippled Wall shoves a card from your hand onto the player beside you. Alone, there is no one to shove it to — it comes back into your own deck, soaked.

Nine heroes, twenty-seven pillars

Every hero has three pillars — build axes designed so their effects never bleed into one another.
A handful of cards into a run, it is already clear what deck you are playing.

• Ignis (melee · blade) — Tempering · Forging · Afterimage
  
• Sagitta (ranged · bow) — Volley · Ballista · Discard
  
• Arca (magic) — Element · Formation · Forbidden
  
• Pugna (melee · flurry) — Chain · Mutation · Scar
  
• Tessera (ranged · firearms) — Magazine · Wager · Assembly
  
• Umbra (melee · venom) — Venom · Undying · Salvage
  
• Silva (ranged · support) — Season · Sowing · Withering
  
• Lapis (melee · defense) — Sigil Plate · Stress · Hate
  
• Nexum (ranged · pacts) — Pact · Effigy · Form

Each of the 27 pillars comes with a hands-on demonstration. Tempering is an axis you stack for several turns and release at once; Formation is an axis where the same card does different things depending on where you place it. They are shaped differently, so they are taught differently.

Where you fight is itself a rule

The eight zones are not just different backdrops. Each one imposes a battlefield rule,
and every rule is a gain and a cost in one line. There is no good land and no bad land.

• Ash Pilgrimage — You stiffen on the road. Block carries over between turns · draw 1 fewer each turn
  
• Forge City "Ro" — The line never stops. Draw +1 each turn · hand limit −2
  
• Rippled Wall — The wall only blocks; it never lets you out. +3 block each turn · all healing −3
  
• The Stilled Four-Season Wood — One season is nailed in place. That season's bonus stays on for the whole fight
  
• Whitelight Ruin — Form melts. Status effects you apply +1 · status effects applied to you +1
  
• Tomb of the First Blessing — Dying is not permitted. Survive once at 1 HP · all healing halved
  
• Abyss of Command — A leftover order plays your first card. First card each turn costs −2 · one fewer card in your opening hand
  
• The Endless Spire — The blessing overflows. Card damage +4 · damage taken +2

Four acts; you choose a branch in each. Which road to take is not "which is easier" but "what can our deck survive."

To awaken, beat your own shadow

When a hero meets the condition, a shadow appears running that hero's own deck.
Beat that trial to awaken; clear it once more to transcend.
You may also postpone it and move on — but then an elite in the next zone comes mixed with the shadow you left behind.

Everything is paid for

• Pacts — Take the power now, pay across the whole run. What you pay with differs by pact.
  
• Relics and gear — One slot each for weapon, armor, and trinket.
  
• Soaking — Every time an event tempts you deeper into the blessing, the enemies of the next zone get that much stronger — and your party's bodies endure that much more. The blessing means no harm. It simply does not stop.
  
• Hidden things — Some things only remain if you beat a boss a particular way.

How it looks

Hand-drawn card art; 3D characters standing on the field like paper cutouts.
The blessing erases color — the outer zones still hold theirs, and the deeper you walk, the more the white light washes shape away.

Who made it

Solo-developed. Written in Korean and translated into English and other languages.
Online co-op runs on Steam friend invites — this was built as a game you play with people you know.