Arcane Guardian is a quick, fun solo dungeon crawler card game of tactics, scarce resource management, and luck. Ancient powers have risen and are threatening humanity once more. It is you, the Arcane Mage who must face them. You have to weaken them before they swarm the realm of the living. To do so, you have to confront all the terrors crawling deep below the surface. The goal of the game is simple: escape the dungeon. Will you live to see the daylight?

Arcane Guardian is lightweight and highly enjoyable from the very first play with enough depth to keep you entertained. You control a mage who wanders in an enchanted dungeon, opens treasure chests, fights monsters and drinks magical potions. You have to defeat numerous elementals and undead. Try to save as much Mana as possible, for if you run out of it, you cannot even emit light from your staff and are left in the dark. Your options are limited, while the dangers are many. In Arcane Guardian, every decision matters!

Arcane Guardian is a Print and Play card game. The deck contains 60 cards, and there are an additional 21 cards. One game takes about 10 minutes. The game is made up of steps that are to be carried out in a set order. In the beginning, you have three ways to go. You select a deck and interact with the upper card. If the chosen card was not revealed, then you must reveal it and instantly interact with it. You may collect the card or discard it into the discard pile. After an interaction’s end, you have to reveal all cards that are unrevealed (face down) on top of a deck except on the one that you interacted with. If your health goes below 1, and you cannot heal than the game is over and you lose. You should always consider whether to fight an enemy and lose health, or cast spells and spend your mana. You may suffer several terrible curses that weaken you, but you can even their effects out with masks, or create powerful and interesting combinations of different positive and negative magical effects. Of course, luck has an impact on your gameplay, you have to roll a die when you open treasure chests and when you interact with traps.

You play until you find an ending card among the bottom six cards of a deck. If you successfully interact with it, then you win the game and escape the dungeon.

—description from the designer

Games