Pamplemoose Games for Avantris Entertainment
Win tricks, build towers out of what you take, tear down everyone else's, and claim the Major Arcana for yourself.
Four players. One tarot deck. Working title.
The idea
Tarot sits at the center of Crooked Moon: fortune-telling, omens, rituals whispered over worn cards. Spires treats that deck as something the people of that world would pass the evening with. A tavern game with ominous stakes.
It starts from Buildings, a set-building card game played in prisons, and runs it through the full 78-card tarot, Major Arcana and all.
Not all games are meant to be won.
How a round plays
The trick-taking should feel like something your grandmother taught you. What you do with the tricks you win is where the game shows its teeth.
Follow suit, trump beats all, highest card wins, and the winner leads. Every trick you take is building material.
Lay down three or four cards of the same rank, from your hand, your won tricks, or both.
Spend cards from your hand to bring down someone else's Spire.
When the round ends, the largest Spire still standing takes every Major Arcana in play.
Setup
Deal six cards to each player. The rest of the deck becomes the Yard: face down, and never fully revealed. Nobody knows which Spires can't be built this round, or which Arcana were buried before the first trick.
Finding trump. Flip cards off the Yard one at a time. The first Minor Arcana card sets trump for the round. Any Major Arcana flipped on the way are laid out face up as prize cards, so a long flip raises the stakes before anyone plays a card.
The Yard
A prize card
Trump is Swords
The heart of the game
A Spire is three or four cards of the same rank. Once it's down it's locked: you can't add to it or take it apart, and it stays exposed to every rival until the round ends. Build as many as you can hold onto.
Card mockups are placeholder type only. Final art would come from the Crooked Moon Tarot. AI never touches the game design.
The signature move
Instead of building, you can topple an opponent's Spire. It costs you, because destroying something always does.
Discard one card of its rank, or one trump.
Discard two trumps.
The Spire and the cards that toppled it are gone for good. The builder scores nothing. The toppler gets a better position and, probably, a grudge.
Every trump in your hand is a choice: guard your own tricks, or bring down the tallest tower on the table.
Powers of fate
The 22 Major Arcana are never played to tricks. They're one-use powers, earned by dominating a round and played later from your hand or trick pile to bend the next one. A sample:
Discard a card and draw a new one.
Build Spires from pairs instead of sets.
Build a wild Spire that can't be toppled.
Every Spire on the table falls.
No Spire can be toppled this round.
Change trump.
Every player gains a point.
Every Arcana has its own drafted effect.
Winning
At the end of each round, the single largest Spire still standing takes every prize card on the table. A Tall Spire beats a standard one. If the biggest Spires tie, whoever has more Spires takes the Arcana. Still tied, the Arcana are discarded and nobody gets them.
for each Spire that survives the round
for each Tall Spire that survives
for the player with the most Spires
points wins the game, usually in four to six rounds
Only survivors score, so a toppled Spire is worth nothing. If two players pass 10 together, the tie goes to most points over 10, then most Arcana collected, then most Tall Spires built.
Why it fits Avantris
The first version of Spires needs no new art and no new components. It's a set of rules for the Crooked Moon Tarot. From there it can go as far as you want to take it.
You own Crooked Moon. We design the game.
A rules insert packed with the tarot deck.
A small-box standalone edition with its own packaging.
A free in-world PDF that gives fans a reason to buy the deck.
A game your cast plays at the table in actual-play content.
The honest part
The core rules, the Topple, scoring, and effects for all 22 Arcana are drafted. What Spires needs next is playtesting with people who know Crooked Moon, and your read on whether it fits the tone of the world. We'd like to tune it with you.
Who we are
A two-designer studio that builds card games inside other people's worlds.
Designed HAVOC: Gen Zero as cofounder of Nyx Studios. It funded on Kickstarter in under thirty minutes.
Co-designer on every Pamplemoose game, and a longtime Crooked Moon fan. The last campaign he wrote was heavily inspired by Carnivale Lecroux.
We'd love to get on a call, talk through the concept, and hear whether it fits where you're taking Crooked Moon.
Zack Howe & Cole Beardsley, Pamplemoose Games
zack@pamplemoosegames.com
Concept pitch prepared by Pamplemoose Games LLC for Avantris Entertainment. Crooked Moon, the Crooked Moon Tarot, Carnivale Lecroux, and all related names are the property of Avantris Entertainment and appear solely to demonstrate this concept. Game mechanics and designs are original work of Pamplemoose Games LLC. Card mockups are placeholder type only; final art would be commissioned or drawn from existing Crooked Moon assets. AI never touches the game design. Not for distribution.