Object 40 - The Backrooms TCG
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Description


The Backrooms TCG is a tactical asymmetrical trading card game based on everyone's favourite hellhole, the Backrooms! Featuring all of your favourite Levels, Entities and Objects to collect, trade and battle with! You may find Backrooms TCG booster packs, well, uh… anywhere! It's kind of random actually, we had an accident with the printer and now it's sending packs all over the place… but you can get them at various places! I hear someone found a pack inside a box of Royal Rations thinking there'd be food inside… some stores should have them too? We hope so, at least.


What can you find in a pack?


The very first set of the Backrooms TCG has just been released! Each pack contains.. some number of cards! Completely randomized! Will you get the fabled all-rares pack? Only one way to find out! Hm? Why is the number random? Well, we can't control the damned printer! Want to know what types of cards you're gonna find in packs of Backrooms TCG? No? Well, too bad!

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Card Types


G.O.I.

These are the key pieces to our game. Players represent a team of a certain G.O.I., and these cards indicate which one you're playing as! They determine what cards can and cannot be in your deck, as well as your win condition!

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Levels

Levels are the bread and butter of the Backrooms, so of course we had to give them some love with our game! Each Level card has two unique abilities, one static and one triggered Encounter ability. Players will explore various Levels throughout a game, establishing outposts and encountering entities along the way!

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Players can then traverse the Backrooms by using the Explore ability, which is explained in more detail below.

Entities

Entities are the real meat of the game. Whether they're ordinary fauna and flora, humans just trying to survive, or powerful god-like beings, Entities take a central role in our game, much like in the Backrooms themselves. Each entity may perform an Action each turn. It can be an attack on an opposing Entity, Outpost, or activating a powerful ability. Each Entity will also have a cost, usually paid in Food, an attack and a life value, and a carrying capacity value. Let's go over each of these numbers, some of which are found in other types of cards.

Cost (Yellow):

The required cost to play a card. Aside from Levels and G.O.I. cards, all cards have a Cost. This Cost is usually paid with Food, the game's resource. We'll talk more about Food later. A cost of X can be paid with any amount of Food, and cards with this type of cost will usually have effects that scale with how much Food you spend on them. Cards with a cost of ? can't be played normally from your hand. You'll have to figure out some other way to put them into play!

Attack or ATK (Red):

The amount of damage the Entity will do when attacking.

Life or HP (Blue):

Taking damage will lower an Entity's Life. Once that value reaches zero or lower, the Entity is trashed.

Carrying Capacity or CC (Green):

The amount of Objects an Entity can carry.

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Objects

Objects are cards that provide you with additional effects. Like Entities, they require a cost (usually paid with Food) and they enter play attached to an Entity you control, if possible. If an Entity leaves play, any Objects attached to it stay in play, and they can be picked up by other Entities you play later. Objects can only be used by the Entities holding them. Objects range from one-use Consumables, to powerful gear for your Entities and other valuable items!

Consumables

Once used, a Consumable is sent to the Trash.

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Outposts

Outposts are powerful cards that give you permanent benefits as long as you are in the same Level as them. Just turn them face down while you're not in the appropriate Level. If you move between Levels, any unattached Objects you control Clip Out with any Outposts you control.

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Phenomena

The final card type, and the most simple! You pay a cost, play the card, apply the effect and discard the card. Easy!

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Setting up a game:


A game of Backrooms TCG starts with players' decks on the table and their G.O.I. cards turned face up. A player's deck contains 40 cards, with a maximum of three copies of each card, although some exceptions may apply. A player's deck may only contain cards from their chosen G.O.I. and neutral cards. After both G.O.I. cards have been revealed, all players select 3 Levels and shuffle them all together. This will be the Level Deck for the game, and should be placed at the center of the table. After that, the player going second picks level 0, 1, or 2. If the game has more than two players, this choice will be made randomly. The chosen level will be the starting Active Level for the game. A special Explore die should phase in, and once it does, both players' decks will be automatically shuffled! A few of the perks of making anomalous card games! Each player then draws 5 cards, unless their G.O.I. card states otherwise. After everything is all set, the game can begin! If there are only two players, the first player skips their draw on their first turn.


The Play Area

Both players have a deck, a trash pile, their hand, and the field. There are no restrictions regarding the position of cards on the field. Players are free to organize their cards in hand and field however they please. Placement of these zones can be left up to the player, but we recommend having your deck to your right, with the Trash Pile directly behind it.

The Level Deck, as well as any Neutral Entities, will be placed on the center of the play area.


Turn Structure


At the start of your turn, you draw a card. Afterwards, you're free to perform any number of actions and play any number of cards, in whichever order you'd like. Each entity may perform one Action per turn, and you may Stash a card once each turn. Let's go over the Actions players can take.


Actions:


Stash:

Once, at the start of your turn, you may place a card from your hand on your Stash face-up to draw a card. Then, you'll gain 1 Food for each card on your Stash, which you can then use to play cards and activate abilities! A player's Stash may contain a maximum of ten cards.


Attack:

When you attack, you're spending an Entity's Action to deal damage to an opposing entity equal to its attack value. That opposing entity will deal damage to your attacking entity equal to its power, too. If the damage is enough to reduce an Entity's life to zero or lower (also known as taking "lethal damage"), that entity is trashed.


Other Effects:

Some effects will require an Entity's Action to activate. Usually, these effects will be on the Entity itself, though Outposts and Objects may require an Entity's Action to activate their effects, too.


Additional Rulings and Keywords


Create

A card's effect may instruct players to create a card. If that happens, don't worry! Our patetended anomalous technology will place as many copies of that card as specified in the effect into play from outside the game.


Neutral Entities

Sometimes, cards will Create entities that do not belong to any player. These entities, usually generated by a Level's effect, take their turn after all players have done so, and will perform an attack, targeted at a random non-Neutral Entity.


On Arrival/On Departure

These are simple. On Arrival effects trigger when the card enters play. On Departure effects trigger when the card leaves play!


Clip In/Clip Out

A card may, during the course of a game, clip out of the current Active Level due to an effect. In that case, turn the card and anything attached to it face down. Those cards are treated as though they left play. This will trigger any On Departure effects. If the game returns to the Level those cards clipped into, or if an effect makes them Clip In by other means, turn them face up again. This will trigger any On Arrival effects.


Trash

When you Trash a card, place it on that player's Trash zone. Simple, right?


Annihilate

Whenever an effect tells you to Annihilate a card, remove it from the game. There's no coming back from that one…


Stun

If an Entity becomes Stunned, it loses its actions next turn.


Disable

A Disabled entity loses its text box until the end of it's controller's next turn. It can still attack, however.


Heal

Healing an Entity removes damage from it. Makes sense, right? If an effect instructs you to Heal X, you remove X damage from that entity. If no number is specified, remove all damage from the Entity instead.


Shield

If a card has Shield X, prevent the next X times it would take damage or be trashed by an effect. So, an Entity with Shield 2 would be protected against damage or trashing effects twice before the shields wear off.


Enigmatic

Players may only have one copy of cards with Enigmatic on their deck, and a maximum of 5 Enigmatic cards per deck. Cards created by effects do not count towards this limit. This keyword is represented by a unique symbol on the top left corner of a card, and is usually reserved for powerful, unique cards that can swing the game in your favour, like this one!

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Explore

Whenever you explore, you'll roll a special six-sided die with four blank sides, a no-clip side, and a special encounter side! If you roll a blank, you draw an additional card. If you roll No-clip, you may discard the current Active Level and flip over the next one in the Level Deck. If the Level Deck is empty, shuffle all discarded Levels into a new Level Deck before flipping over the new Active Level. Any unattached Objects in play are Trashed, unless their controller has an Outpost in play, in which case the Objects Clip Out with the Outpost. If you roll Encounter, the Active Level's Encounter ability will trigger! There are various cards that'll allow you to explore, usually at the cost of an Action.


Scavenge

If an effect instructs you to scavenge a card, you add a card of the specified type (if any) from your Trash to your hand.


Bound

A keyword used to indicate a card is Bound to a Level. Outposts are Bound to the Level you play them in, and there are a few cards Bound to specific Levels. If the Active Level isn't the Level a card is Bound to, it Clips Out until the game returns to that Level.


Pacifist

An Entity with Pacifist cannot declare an attack. You'll have to use their Action elsewhere!


Study

If a card instructs you to Study X, look at the top X cards of your deck, then put them back on the top or the bottom of your deck in any order you'd like. If you were to Study 3, you could put all three cards to the bottom, or rearrange them on top however you'd like, or place one on the top and two on the bottom. It's up to you to choose how to distribute and order those cards.


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