The playtest
A scavenger hunt fails quietly: nobody complains, they just stop halfway. So the story is graded before there is a sheet of codes to hide — every fight fought, every gate walked, every purse counted.
Eight dimensions, and a verdict
The playtest sorts everything it finds into eight dimensions and reads the meter as dimensions cleared out of dimensions that apply — never a score out of a hundred. Any failure blocks the deck; any warning makes it rough; nothing wrong makes it ready.
- Finishable
- Fair to the party
- Economy
- Shape
- Variety
- Questions
- Languages
- Roles
At the venue
The workbench shows the meter, the eight names with a mark on each, and every finding with the cards it is about — a to-do list an author can click through. A finding that would break a party is a failure; one that is a judgment call is a warning.
The rule
- Finishable, fair to the party, economy, shape, variety, questions, languages, roles.
- A dimension whose checks never ran shows as not applicable, never as cleared — calling an unrun check clear is the one way a meter can lie.
- One broken card that trips five checks is one problem; the meter counts dimensions, not findings, so an author chases the right thing.
- The same audit runs on the workbench and behind the assistant's audit tool, so a deck drafted in a conversation is graded by the same rules.
You decide
- Every card. The playtest reads the deck as written and says what a party would hit.
From the library
The demo deck's own playtest is drawn under the analysis section below, when the deck is there.
Every fight is fought before it is printed
Each enemy is fought through the engine's own arithmetic against the gear its gates guarantee. A fight fails when the hits it demands exceed the misses it forgives by more than 1.
| Enemy | Hits to win | Guard | Win chance at even taps | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foot Soldier | 2 | 6 | 94% | A fight |
| Monster | 3 | 4 | 66% | A fight |
| Boss | 3 | 2 | 31% | A fight |
At the venue
Nothing on a card. On the workbench, a boss or an enemy that fails the line is named with its hits, its guard and the gear the audit fought it with.
The rule
- The gear the audit brings is exactly what a team must hold to reach the fight: starting vitality plus every card the lock requires, and what those require in turn — no detours, full health.
- The four duel numbers come off the same arithmetic the arena uses; the audit never keeps a second copy of it.
- The line: hits demanded less misses forgiven, more than 1, fails. At even odds per tap that is about a one-in-three fight at three hits against two misses, and about one in nine at five against two.
- The win chance in the table is an instrument, not a rule — even odds per tap stand in for a capable child, and no player ever sees it. The card states the price of losing, never a prediction.
You decide
- The enemy's stats and the gear on the cards that gate it. Arm the fight or soften the monster; the audit tells you which line it crossed.
From the library
Three fights in the shipped library failed this check when it was written — Circe, the Sirens and Scylla, all in The Odyssey. All three are gated behind a weapon or a piece of armour now.
Age decides one number
The story's minimum age decides how hard an enemy nothing gates may hit: 2 under six, 3 at six and seven, 4 from eight. Deck size and gate depth do not move with age.
| Age band | From | Ungated attack, at most | Cards to aim for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under six | 0 and up | 2 | 9 to 12 |
| Six and seven | 6 and up | 3 | 9 to 14 |
| Eight to twelve | 8 and up | 4 | 9 to 14 |
| Thirteen and up | 13 and up | 4 | 10 to 22 |
At the venue
The workbench warns about an ungated enemy above the band's line, and the assistant is briefed with the band before it writes a card. A five-year-old's story can still end on a boss — gated, so the fight is armed.
The rule
- The ceiling is for an enemy nothing gates. A gated fight is armed by definition, and the fight check above covers it.
- The numbers come off the engine: a fresh team carries 3 vitality and no defense, and a lost duel costs the enemy's attack, so an ungated enemy at 3 benches a team on its first scan — the most any shipped six-plus story asks.
- Deck size, gate depth and the boss's attack do not move with age; the bands suggest a card count and check none of it.
- Measured off the public library rather than invented: every story's ungated enemies sit at or under its band.
You decide
- The minimum age on the story, and which fights you gate.
From the library
The library's five-year-old story gates every fight; its six-plus stories run one ungated skirmish at attack three.
The playtest walks the deck with a purse
A solver plays the story the way a diligent team would — collecting what it can reach, buying what it can afford, fighting what it can win — until nothing more unlocks. Anything left unreached is a failure, by name.
At the venue
On the workbench, a card nobody can reach is named: locked for ever behind a lock that cannot be opened, unaffordable at any point of the walk, or a boss that cannot be won.
The rule
- Locked for ever: a card behind a card that is itself unreachable, or behind a merchant nobody can find.
- Unaffordable: a ware the walk can never pay for by the time it reaches the shelf.
- Unwinnable: a boss the walk cannot reach through its gates.
- The walk is kept, step by step, and the analysis page lays it out.
You decide
- The locks and the prices — the two things that make a card unreachable.
From the library
The demo deck's walk opens on its Start, takes the six galleries in order, and ends on the boss.
The purse is counted
The playtest adds up what the deck pays out and what its shelves charge. Income below the cheapest purchase fails the deck; income below the total of every price is a warning.
At the venue
A finding names the shortfall: what the deck pays in, what the shelf asks, and the card that cannot be bought.
The rule
- Income counts every card the walk can bank; a trap or a dice roll counts as half its coins lost, the way a cautious team would play it.
- A merchant that sells nothing, a shelf nobody can afford, and a prerequisite that is hidden nowhere are all named.
You decide
- The coins on the cards and the prices on the shelf.
From the library
The demo deck sells nothing, so its purse check has nothing to fail.
The shape of a deck
A deck needs a Start and, in RPG mode, exactly one Boss and a checkpoint after the Start. It should run 9 to fourteen board cards, use at least four kinds, gate its boss at least one card deep, and make the boss its richest card.
At the venue
Each of these is a finding with a name: no Start, no Boss, two Bosses, too long, too short, samey, flat, an anticlimax.
The rule
- No Start card fails the deck; no Boss fails an RPG deck; two Bosses warn.
- Under 9 board cards or over fourteen warns. Merchant wares and market stock are not board cards.
- Fewer than four kinds warns for variety; a boss with no gate warns as flat; a boss that is not the richest card warns as an anticlimax.
You decide
- The count, the kinds, the depth of the lock and the coins on the boss.
From the library
The demo deck runs ten board cards across five kinds, gates its boss six deep, and makes it the richest card.
A language a story claims is a language it must speak
Every card, option and role a story translates is checked. A gap in a card's prose is a warning; an untranslated question option or team role fails the deck.
At the venue
The workbench grades each language the story claims with what is missing, card by card.
The rule
- A missing translation on a card's prose warns.
- An untranslated option fails, because a player answering in Spanish would be choosing between English words. An untranslated role fails for the same reason at the pick.
You decide
- The translations, written on the workbench card by card.
From the library
The demo deck is bilingual, so its languages dimension is clear.
The numbers behind the verdict
The analysis page lays out every fight, every piece of gear, the coin ledger and the walk, step by step — read off the same audit, so nothing is computed twice.
Rules check
7 of 7 clear Checks clear
- ✓ Finishable
- ✓ Fair to the party
- ✓ Economy
- ✓ Shape
- ✓ Variety
- ✓ Questions
- ✓ Languages
- — Roles
Automatic checks flag blocked routes, scarce prerequisites and balance risks. Play the story to judge its choices and mini-games.
No rule issues found. Play the story to check its choices and mini-games.
The playtest for The Last Spring at Hell Creek, as its author sees it on the workbench.
At the venue
One staff page per story: the fights side by side with their hits, guard and odds; each role's kit fought against the boss; the coins in and out; the walk the solver took.
The rule
- Everything on it is the audit's own arithmetic, laid out rather than recomputed.
- The role kit is the one place a role changes a fight: each role's favoured gear is fought against each boss.
You decide
- Nothing — it is a reading of the deck. Change the deck and the page follows.
From the library
The demo deck's playtest panel, as its author sees it on the workbench, is drawn above when the deck is there — with no door into anybody's org.
Run one this month.
- Free includes every ready-made story, printable codes and the leaderboard. No card, and it never expires.
- One trail at a time, and 3 teams on its board. A team is one phone, any number of people — and your own phone takes no place.
- A place frees when you press Reset the board. Finishing a hunt frees your trail slot for the next one.
- Paid plans add stories of your own and more daily players. Automatic daily resets start at 50 players. Upload your own card art.