Here is the doc file for Blackie’s Maze, a solitaire card game inspired by dungeon crawls and RPG-style board games.
You are the Red Joker. Find and kill your evil twin, the Black Joker.
Players layout number cards to represent Rooms, Doors, and Levels, battle Jacks, Kings, and Queens with hit points,search for the Black Joker through up to ten levels in an ever changing maze dealt with a simple deck of standard playing cards. A Quick reference book lays out the mechanisms for movement, combat, Hand-management, and for finding and fighting the Black Joker.
“All my life I’ve known my brother was the evil twin. I’ve always felt that one of us shouldn’t have been born. Today, one of us dies in Blackie’s Maze.”
And here are the rules pasted below. All you need are the rules and an ordinary deck of cards with the option of two binder clips to use as stands for you jokers. Stick the rules on your phone and a deck of cards in your bag and your prepared to be trapped or marooned.
Blackie’s Maze
STORY
“All my life I’ve known my brother was the evil twin. It’s time I did something about him. But he’s not going to let me walk in and knife him. I’m going to have to hunt him. After all, he’s a trickster, like me. I’ve always felt that one of us shouldn’t have been born. Today, one of us dies in Blackie’s Maze.”
GAME PLAY
TURN SEQUENCE
Unlock Door
Fill Hand
Set Room w/ doors
Draw Enemy card from the Face Deck
- Draw from the number deck for Enemies HP
- Draw 5 cards from number deck for Enemy Combat Cards
Combat
Deal Inventory
Discard Cards
You are the Red Joker. Your objective is to find and kill your evil twin, the Black Joker.
WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY
A standard deck of cards with Jokers.
Optional – Two paper miniature tab-style stands like those from OneMonk.com. Binder clips also work really well.
SET-UP
Separate all Face Cards from the number cards. Discard the red Face Cards. The Jacks, Queens, and Kings of Hearts and Diamonds are not used in this game.
Separate the Jokers as well. Red is your character. Black is your arch nemesis/evil twin brother. It’s fun to mount these on paper mini tab style stands if you have them. Otherwise you can lay the Joker card on top of the room card to show his location.
Find the five of Hearts and place it in your INVENTORY at the lower left side of the playing area. This is your HP (Hit or Health Points). Your hand size is equal to your HP.
Shuffle the number deck. Place the deck to the right of the playing area. Leave room to place decks above and below. Draw the top card from the number deck and place it in the face deck.
Shuffle the Face deck. Place it in the upper right hand corner of the playing area.
Draw the top card from the number deck and place it face up in the lower right side of the play area. This is the level card. It tells you what level you are on in the maze. It is also a modifier for the HP of the enemies. You enter the maze on a random level. That’s just Blackie’s way.
Fill your hand from the number deck. You have the 5 of hearts in your inventory so at full health you may hold 5 cards. As you lose HP, you hold fewer cards.
On the first turn on a new level draw a number card and place it face up in the center of the play area. Make sure it is aligned vertically. This is your room. If the rank of the room matches the level card the Black Joker is present.
Set doors. Draw four number cards and lay them horizontal to the room card–one door card for each side of the room card that is not adjacent to another already-explored room. On the first turn you have not explored any rooms so you will set four door cards.
Place the Red Joker on the room card.
The discard piles will be on the left hand side of the playing area with the discarded Face Cards in the upper left corner, the discarded number cards below them on the left hand side, and your inventory cards in the lower left corner.
PLAY
ROOMS
Rooms are placed vertically on the playing surface.
If their suit matches the suit of a combat card, the combat card is doubled.
If their suit matches the suit of an Enemy card, ie. The King of Spades in a 4 of Spades Room, then the enemy’s HPs are doubled.
Each room has four doors, one for each side. Place door cards horizontally on each side of the room that has an unexplored room. All doors are locked with a rank and suit. To unlock a door match a suit, or play a card of higher value. If you cannot unlock any doors in the room, you have to retrace your steps. Return to a room you’ve already explored, set new door cards and try to unlock one.
Whenever you move to a new room, discard all the door cards from room you just left.
If you become trapped in a room with no way out, you lose. For example, if you begin level six and after combat you cannot unlock a door and you do not have a diamond card in your inventory to buy new cards, game over. Remember if you end combat with no cards in your hand, you may refill your hand. If you end combat with one card in your hand, you may not refill your hand until you move into a new room.
When a Room number matches the level number, the Black Joker appears.
LEVELS
The maze has 10 levels. During the set up stage you drew a number card to represent what level you start on… you don’t necessarily enter at level one, an ace card. A number card was also shuffled into the face deck. When this number card is drawn, it means you’ve been teleported or found stairs to a new level, matching the rank of the card.
Discard all the room cards and reset as if starting the game over. However, the level cards are never discarded. Make sure to add a new number card to the face deck, gather up the discarded face cards, and shuffle.
If the rank of the level card drawn from the face deck matches the rank of the current level, you have found the Black Joker. (The Black Joker also appears when the rank of the a room card matches the current level card.)
If you draw a number card for a level you have already explored, draw a new number card until you find one that you do not currently have in your level hand. If you draw a card that matches your current level, you’ve found the Black Joker. You could conceivably have a full set of rank cards and draw the number card from the Face Deck. In that case you lose. See Losing Conditions.
INVENTORY
You have four slots in your inventory–one for each suit. You may never have more than one card of any suit. You will start the game with a 5 of Hearts, and if you draw a 7 of hearts after combat, then you must discard the 5 and replace it with the 7. This restores any lost HP, and you may now hold up to 7 cards in your hand. If you draw a 3 of hearts, discard it. You may not redraw your inventory, but you could use the 3 to restore lost HP.
INVENTORY CARDS
Hearts equal your Health Points or Hit Points and are equal to the amount of cards you may hold in your hand.
Spades equal your shield. If you lose a combat you may draw the spade card from your inventory and add it to your combat card to block the damage. Note: In combat, you must have a higher pip number than your enemy’s card, so adding a 3 of Spades to your 2 of Diamonds against your enemy’s 10 of hearts doesn’t block the blow. If you play a spade from your inventory you are only defending yourself. It does NOT count as an attack and does NOT subtract from your enemy’s HP.
Diamonds in your inventory are used to buy a number of cards from the draw deck up to the rank of the diamond card. No change is given. You buy the full amount and discard the diamond card. But you may draw the full number of cards above the allowable number for your hand and then immediately discard cards to bring it down to your current limit.
Clubs are added to a single combat attack to deal more damage or to bring the number up to win a round of combat. A club card from your inventory may be played after the enemy plays their combat card.
ACES in the INVENTORY
Aces in the inventory are moved into the player’s hand and the player may then take any card of the same suit from his hand and place it in the inventory. The player may leave an ace in the inventory to stall until he draws a high rank card of that suit. However, the player may not use the Ace from his inventory. If an Ace is played directly from the inventory it counts as a 1 card. The Ace of Hearts revives one HP and is discarded.
COMBAT
After you enter a new room, draw a Face Card and set it next to your level hand. Then draw a number card and set that next to the enemy Face Card. The enemy’s HP are the number card + the Level card. Then this number is doubled if the suit of the enemy Face Card matches the current room.
On level 6, you’re in the 4 of spades room and draw a Jack of Spades enemy Face Card. Then you draw an 8 card for the HP. 8+6×2=28.
Draw five cards from the number deck and place them face down in a stack for your enemies combat cards. Choose a card from your hand and play it, laying it face up on the playing surface, then turn over the top card from the enemy’s combat stack. High card wins.
If you win, your enemy loses HP equal to your card with modifiers.
If you lose, you lose a HP. Cover up one heart on the Heart card in your inventory. You may now hold one less card. (There’s usually a descriptive card in a pack, I use this face down to cover up my lost HP).
When the enemy is defeated, draw a card from the number deck and add it to your inventory if possible.
If either you or your enemy runs out of cards during combat, reload to your current limit. Always reload your enemy to 5.
Think of combat as a mini-game of war except your winning attack also deals damage.
ACES IN COMBAT
ACE of SPADES – Full shield against one card or attack.
ACE of DIAMONDS – Allows discarding and redrawing cards up to full hand.
ACE of HEARTS – Restores 1 (one) HP. Play this card at any time.
ACE of CLUBS – Allows application of additional cards in a single attack up to the full hand. Then redraw to fill hand.
Now for the bad news… the cards have the same powers when they appear in the enemies combat cycle.
ACE of DIAMONDS – Automatically discard the enemy’s hand and redraw five cards.
ACE of CLUBS – Play the enemy’s full hand in a single attack and refill hand after, if this is the final card in their combat cycle, draw five and play them all. Then redraw five more.
ACE of HEARTS – Revives the enemy to full HP and blocks a single combat round. Discard your card with the Ace and proceed.
ACE of SPADES – Full shield against one card or attack.
FLEEING COMBAT
You may wish to flee combat to avoid death or damage from an unbeatable foe.
To flee you must play a spade card either from your hand or from your inventory against an enemy’s combat card. If you lose, take a hit and move to the room of your choice. You may only move to revealed rooms. If you win, move without losing a HP.
Discard the enemy’s combat cards and the door cards from the room you fled. Set new door cards for the current room if any empty sides remain.
Place the face card and HP card for the enemy you evaded into the room you fled. Upon re-entering the room, the enemy has regained full health.
You may now discard cards from your hand equal to the rank of the room you are now in as long as no enemy is present. Otherwise, fill your hand to your current limit and combat the enemy.
THE BLACK JOKER
The Black Joker, Blackie, appears whenever the rank of the number card shuffled into the Face Deck matches the rank of the current level card, OR the rank of the current room number matches the current level card. In the second case, combat an enemy before confronting the Black Joker. If you draw a new level card, the Black Joker may or may not be teleported with you. See rules under Chasing Blackie below.
He has 52 HP.
His hand is equal to your current potential hand regardless of any HP you have lost.
He is trickster, preferring to run and hide than to stand and fight. Any time his combat card is lower than yours he evades to an adjacent room of the same suit as the current room. If no adjacent room of the same suit exist, he escapes through a door of the same suit as the current room. If either condition exists, he takes the damage equal to your winning card with any modifiers. The Black Joker may not evade into a room from which he has already fled.
After the Black Joker takes damage, reset all the locks on the doors of the current room. Blackie will attempt to flee the next time he loses combat. But once you have found Blackie he may not escape to another level of the maze.
When the Black Joker evades to a new room, he locks the door behind him. Set a door card between the two rooms. You must unlock the door before continuing to battle Blackie. Discard Blackie’s full hand and redraw to full capacity.
Blackie’s HP are never restored. If he draws the Ace of Hearts, it restores a single HP.
CHASING BLACKIE
If you chase Blackie into a new room, you must first combat any enemy face cards first. It is then also possible that you could be teleported to a new level. Look through Blackie’s current hand. If he has a Spade of greater value than the new level card, he is not teleported with you. Otherwise, Blackie moves to the new level as well. But you must deal with the new enemies before dealing with Blackie.
LOSING CONDITIONS
There are three ways to lose.
- HP = 0
- Get trapped in the Maze without a way to continue searching.
- Search the entire Maze without killing the Black Joker. If your Level hand is completely flush, meaning you have one card of each rank, and you draw the number card from the Face Deck, you exit the maze and lose.
WINNING CONDITIONS
- Kill the Black Joker.
OPTIONAL RULE FOR ROYAL COMBATANTS
If you notice that it hardly matters if you kill a King, Queen, or Jack without differentiation, and that bothers you. You can add automatic modifiers for each.
- Kings +1 for all even results.
- Queens +1 for all odd results.
- Jacks +1 for all 10 cards.
