Armed only with a pack of playing cards, delve into the
Tomb of the Four Kings and recover their treasure hordes. Read the rules (
PDF,
Spanish PDF,
Korean PDF,) or watch
a demonstration*.
Dungeon Solitaire: Tomb of the Four Kings (
Tomb hereafter) is a "Roguelike Solitaire"† game playable with a standard deck of cards. It was
released by Matthew Lowes in 2015.
Tomb Rules Summary:
- Uses all 52 standard cards and one Joker.
- Set aside the Hearts pip cards (not the Ace) and use them to track health (10-2.) When you go below 2, you are dead.
- Cards are valued at their literal number. Cards without numbers (including Aces) are special.
- Encounters are determined by dealing until a numbered card appears. An Action is (usually) determined by dealing until another numbered card appears.
- If the Action card meets or exceeds the value of the Encounter card, the encounter is successful and you take any loot, including diamonds played as Action cards.
- You must leave at least one card behind to mark your route.
- After each encounter, turn over the remaining cards and start a new encounter in its own pile.
- Diamonds are treasure.
- If dealt as an encounter it's trapped and you have one chance to equal or beat the number.
- Smaller Action cards result in [the difference] health damage.
- Spades are monsters.
- You must keep dealing Action cards until you are successful.
- Smaller Action cards result in [the difference] health damage.
- At any point one treasure card (at least equal to the monster) can be dropped from your hand as a distraction while you escape.
- Kings and the Joker can be dropped and are valued as 10 and 6.
- Clubs are sealed doors.
- You have one chance to equal or beat the number.
- Smaller Action cards result in lost time. Discard [the difference] cards from the deck. Check for and play any Aces. (They still count as discards.)
- Faces, Aces, and the Joker are special cards.
- Aces represent your torches going out. Set them aside.
- Once all four are extinguished, you are dead (presumably eaten by a grue.)
- The Joker is a Scroll of Light. It is loot in an encounter.
- When the fourth Ace appears, you can play the Joker in its place and put the Ace at the bottom of the deck.
- Kings are Treasure Hordes. They are loot in an encounter.
- Queens are Divine Blessings. They remain with the encounter.
- They automatically resolve the encounter in your favor, whether they are delt before or after the encounter card. Multiple Queens have no additional effect.
- Jacks are Skills and are immediately taken into your hand. They are usually played in lieu of an Action card. They remain in the encounter after playing.
- Diamonds defeats any trapped treasure.
- Spades defeats any monster.
- Hearts dodges one blow from a monster.
- Clubs defeats any sealed door. It may be played after an unsuccessful action card, and avoids any discards.
- Determine when to turn back.
- The return route is equal to the number of encounters up to, but not including, the turning point. These are played below the delve route.
- If you get all four kings and survive, you won. For scoring purposes:
- Diamond pip cards are worth [their number]
- Kings are worth 10
- The Joker is worth 6 (unplayed)
- There is also a rule about how to use the score for gambling(!)
Notes: Until you've collected a Jack or some treasure, there's no real decision making... except for when to turn back. Fortunately the tension of that decision—and then the anxiety of making it back—keeps you engaged. It also has a great visual narrative in the trail of encounter cards. It's a hard game to actually win, and it's possible to die on the first hand, but that makes just surviving the dungeon feel like a victory.
So, when
should you turn back? Assuming you resolve every encounter in two cards, playing all the pip cards will get you 13 encounters (with one card left over) giving you seven encounters to turn (since you don't repeat the turning point.) The four queens give you another couple encounters, as will playing the jacks. You could extend it a bit more by dropping treasure, but presumably you don't want to do that. So, consider nine encounters the
absolute max, and probably start thinking about the turn around six. Of course, things like how many cards you already burned through and whether you have the Scroll of Light will factor into your decision. (Note that a perfect game
is possible.)
Tomb takes up a fair amount of space when played as demonstrated, but you can reduce that significantly by overlapping completed encounters, which are only used as counters for your retreat. You could even reduce them to a single pile by only keeping one card from each encounter and discarding a card from that pile for each retreat encounter. Game designer Kendall Woffinden takes it to another level with a
tableless variant played in one hand. It's surprisingly workable, although it does make an alteration to the rules by fixing the retreat to five encounters.
There have been some other variant rules floated. Game designer/publisher Tim Snider's
proposal to trade an ace for an extra hit point seems ill-advised, but having the monsters
also take damage sounds reasonable. John Payne
offers rules for different modes and alternate decks (like the
Rook deck.) Woffinden has a combination of ideas in his
Curses Variant.
SUCCESSORS
Labyrinth of Souls
In 2016, Lowes launched a
successful Kickstarter for an expanded version called
Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls.‡ This included a 90 card custom deck, based on tarot cards, with black & white illustrations by illustrator/fantasy cartographer Josephe Vandel. The rules have a "Basic Version," which is essentially
Tomb played on a tarot deck that has been winnowed down to match a standard deck of cards.
Lowes released videos of playthroughs of the Basic Version, which also work for
Tomb. He is using the
Labyrinth cards, which are French-suited, but he refers to them by their Latin equivalents: wands (♣,) cups (♥,) swords (♠,) and coins (♦.) In the
first video he gets a decent win. In the
second he just manages to survive after collecting three kings. In the
third he quickly retreats after just two encounters.
The
Labyrinth rules also include an "Expert Game," which expands to use an entire tarot deck, and an "Advanced Game" (including several variants,) which uses the ten "Extra Arcana" cards of their custom deck (or a ten sided die.) For playthoughs of these, see Lowes'
Dungeon Solitaire playlist.
Game designer Geoffrey Greer has some
house rules for the more advanced versions of
Labyrinth, which aim at giving the player a little more choice. (He also provides a PDF of a checklist for use during a game, something which he admits is "quite literally counting cards.") Similarly, "Bruno from Quebec" has extensive house rules and materials that Lowes
posted on his site.
Novels
"A series of dark fantasy novels inspired by the world of Labyrinth of Souls: Dungeon Solitaire."
Dungeon Solitaire has a literary universe! Oddly, I couldn't find a complete list anywhere. Even the
publisher's site only lists ten of them.
Most of them are available on Amazon, some on other vendor sites. For the record, here are all the ones I'm aware of, listed in publication order:
- Benediction Denied: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Elizabeth Engstrom (June 28 2017)
- Symphony of Ruin: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Christina Lay (July 25, 2017)
- The End of All Things: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Matthew Lowes (August 29, 2017)
- Littlest Death: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Eric Witchey (September 30, 2017)
- The Door of Tireless Pursuit: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Stephen T. Vessels (October 30, 2017)
- The Snake's Song: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel (The Celestial Fragments Book 1)
- by Mary E. Lowd (March 29, 2018)
- Immortal's Penance: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by L.A. Alber (October 28, 2018)
- Mountain of Ashes: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by John Reed (April 1, 2019)
- Bayou's Lament: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Cheryl Owen-Wilson (August 4, 2020)
- The Mole Train: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by John Reed (December 20, 2020)
- The Ruptured Firmament: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Stephen T. Vessels (February 1, 2021)
- The Bee's Waltz: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel (The Celestial Fragments Book 2)
- by Mary E. Lowd (November 7, 2021)
- Aftermath: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel
- by Cynthia Ray (June 21, 2022)
- The Otter's Wings: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel (The Celestial Fragments Book 3)
- by Mary E. Lowd (October 30, 2022)
Devil's Playground
In 2018, Lowes launched
another successful Kickstarter for
Dungeon Solitaire: Devil's Playground‡. It is its own standalone game—with one and two player variants—as well as an expansion to
Labyrinth. It has a new 54 card deck with color illustrations, again by Josephe Vandel. There are also rules for
Dungeon War, a wargame using the cards, and a guide to fortune telling with them. There are example playthroughs on Lowe's
Dungeon Solitaire playlist.
Retrospective
In 2020, at the beginning of Covid lockdown, Lowes published a
six part retrospective of
Dungeon Solitaire. Parts
two and
three are about the design processes of
Tombs/Labyrinth and
Playground. Part
five is about the novels.
*
Tom makes minor mistakes: He plays the Scroll of Light before the final torch appears, which doesn't change the game but wastes a potential six points. He also leaves treasure he's entitled to when playing a Queen or Jack. One card must be left behind, but a Queen or Jack suffices.
†
I looked at the Roguelike Solitaire game Scoundrel and its descendents previously.
‡
Currently Lowes' Games Page has links to purchase his rulebooks (in paperback or PDF) and the different decks (now available in tarot size as well as the original poker size.) Note that the Labyrinth decks come with a PDF of the Basic rules, equivalent to Tomb.
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