Goal
Reduce your opponent's Health (starts at 25) to 0. Gold: you start each game with 1 gold on your turn. Your gold cap goes up by 1 each round (1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, capping at 5). At the start of each of your turns, gold fully resets to your current cap. Unspent gold does not carry over. Hand: refills to 5 cards at the start of your turn (skipped if you're already at 5 or more). Some abilities let you draw beyond that, but your hand can never exceed 8. Board: max 8 units per player. Right now, if you're at 8, you simply can't deploy another unit until one dies or leaves. There's no discard-to-make-room option yet.
READING A CARD
Gold cost: top right corner, shown as a gold coin icon. Hover it to see the exact cost. Attack: bottom left corner. Defense: bottom right corner. Traits and abilities: while in your hand, both appear as icons at the bottom of the card. Hover either to see what it does. Once a unit is played to the battlefield, its trait icon stays as a static texture at the bottom (still hoverable), while its ability becomes a clickable action on the card instead. Description: shown on the card while it's in your hand, not shown once the unit is on the battlefield.
TURN STRUCTURE
Each of your turns goes through four steps automatically:
Draw: your hand refills to 5 cards.
Gold: your gold resets to your current cap.
Main Phase: the only phase where you act. Play units/spells, activate abilities, assign defenders against any attack coming at you, and declare new attacks.
End Turn: you press the button. Any incoming attack resolves into your health, your new attackers stay tapped until your next turn, and control passes to your opponent.
The very first turn of the game can't declare an attack (units can still be played). Every turn after that has no such restriction.
PLAYING UNITS AND SPELLS
Drag a card from your hand onto the battlefield to play a unit. Drag a spell card onto its target: a unit, or a player (yours or your opponent's, depending on the spell). While dragging, everything you can legally drop onto gets a highlighted border, battlefield units and player icons alike. If nothing highlights, the card can't be played right now, usually because you don't have enough gold or there's no legal target.
ATTACKING
Declare an attack: double-click one of your units on the battlefield. It becomes tapped and stays committed as your attacker until it resolves. Cancel it: double-click the same unit again, any time before you end your turn. Once you end your turn, the attack resolves against your opponent on their turn. They'll assign defenders (or take the damage) before their own End Turn locks it in. Attackers deal their full attack value. It never degrades, no matter how many defenders it goes through.
DEFENDING
Assign a defender: drag your unit onto the specific enemy attacker you want it to block. Normally, 1 defender is enough to block an attacker. Units with the Provoke trait require 2 defenders instead. Assigning only 1 doesn't count as blocked, and will hold your End Turn button un-highlighted until you either add a second defender or remove the one you assigned. Cancel a defender assignment: double-click that unit again. Damage cascades through defenders in the order you assigned them. The attack hits your first defender, and if that kills it, whatever's left over carries to the next defender you assigned, and so on. If it kills every defender you assigned, the remaining leftover damage hits your health directly. A unit can only attack or defend in a given turn, never both.
ABILITIES
Activate an ability: click its icon on the card, not the unit's art. Some abilities have a gold cost of their own, so you'll need enough gold to activate them separate from what you spent playing the unit. Tapping: if an ability's tooltip starts with "Tap:", activating it taps the unit and it visibly rotates. A tapped unit can't attack, defend, or use another ability until it untaps at the start of your next turn. Targeting: most abilities need you to pick a target once activated. Valid targets (units or players) get a highlighted border. Click one to select it, and the ability's icon appears on it to confirm. Click that target again to unselect and pick a different one instead. Auto-targeting abilities: some abilities target automatically (an effect that always applies to yourself, for example). No target selection step happens, the target is shown immediately, and you can't unselect it. For these, your only options are to cancel or commit the ability as is. Cancel an ability in progress: double-click the unit whose ability you started. You cannot end your turn while an ability is mid-activation, whether it needs a target or not. Cancel it or finish it first.
TRAITS
Traits are passive properties. They're always in effect under whatever condition they describe, with nothing to click or activate. Shown as an icon at the bottom of the card, both in hand and after the unit is deployed. Hover it any time to see exactly what it does. For the full list of traits and what each one does, see the card set reference.
ENDING YOUR TURN
The End Turn button doubles as your turn indicator. It highlights the moment it becomes your turn, meaning your opponent has just ended theirs, and clicking it ends your own turn. If it's your turn but the button isn't highlighted, something's blocking it. Either an ability you started is still pending, or you've assigned defenders to a Provoke attacker but haven't met the required minimum of 2. Resolve either one and the button lights back up. Your opponent's hand is hidden (card backs only) unless something reveals it.
Hello all! I hope you all enjoy Birthright, the project is currently in a beta stage, with this release being the first play test! If you are interested in following along, please join the discord!
Any donations are much appreciated and will go straight back into the project to hire artists and UI/UX designers to improve the game for release!
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Rules & How To Play
Goal
Reduce your opponent's Health (starts at 25) to 0. Gold: you start each game with 1 gold on your turn. Your gold cap goes up by 1 each round (1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5, capping at 5). At the start of each of your turns, gold fully resets to your current cap. Unspent gold does not carry over. Hand: refills to 5 cards at the start of your turn (skipped if you're already at 5 or more). Some abilities let you draw beyond that, but your hand can never exceed 8. Board: max 8 units per player. Right now, if you're at 8, you simply can't deploy another unit until one dies or leaves. There's no discard-to-make-room option yet.
READING A CARD
Gold cost: top right corner, shown as a gold coin icon. Hover it to see the exact cost. Attack: bottom left corner. Defense: bottom right corner. Traits and abilities: while in your hand, both appear as icons at the bottom of the card. Hover either to see what it does. Once a unit is played to the battlefield, its trait icon stays as a static texture at the bottom (still hoverable), while its ability becomes a clickable action on the card instead. Description: shown on the card while it's in your hand, not shown once the unit is on the battlefield.
TURN STRUCTURE
Each of your turns goes through four steps automatically:
The very first turn of the game can't declare an attack (units can still be played). Every turn after that has no such restriction.
PLAYING UNITS AND SPELLS
Drag a card from your hand onto the battlefield to play a unit. Drag a spell card onto its target: a unit, or a player (yours or your opponent's, depending on the spell). While dragging, everything you can legally drop onto gets a highlighted border, battlefield units and player icons alike. If nothing highlights, the card can't be played right now, usually because you don't have enough gold or there's no legal target.
ATTACKING
Declare an attack: double-click one of your units on the battlefield. It becomes tapped and stays committed as your attacker until it resolves. Cancel it: double-click the same unit again, any time before you end your turn. Once you end your turn, the attack resolves against your opponent on their turn. They'll assign defenders (or take the damage) before their own End Turn locks it in. Attackers deal their full attack value. It never degrades, no matter how many defenders it goes through.
DEFENDING
Assign a defender: drag your unit onto the specific enemy attacker you want it to block. Normally, 1 defender is enough to block an attacker. Units with the Provoke trait require 2 defenders instead. Assigning only 1 doesn't count as blocked, and will hold your End Turn button un-highlighted until you either add a second defender or remove the one you assigned. Cancel a defender assignment: double-click that unit again. Damage cascades through defenders in the order you assigned them. The attack hits your first defender, and if that kills it, whatever's left over carries to the next defender you assigned, and so on. If it kills every defender you assigned, the remaining leftover damage hits your health directly. A unit can only attack or defend in a given turn, never both.
ABILITIES
Activate an ability: click its icon on the card, not the unit's art. Some abilities have a gold cost of their own, so you'll need enough gold to activate them separate from what you spent playing the unit. Tapping: if an ability's tooltip starts with "Tap:", activating it taps the unit and it visibly rotates. A tapped unit can't attack, defend, or use another ability until it untaps at the start of your next turn. Targeting: most abilities need you to pick a target once activated. Valid targets (units or players) get a highlighted border. Click one to select it, and the ability's icon appears on it to confirm. Click that target again to unselect and pick a different one instead. Auto-targeting abilities: some abilities target automatically (an effect that always applies to yourself, for example). No target selection step happens, the target is shown immediately, and you can't unselect it. For these, your only options are to cancel or commit the ability as is. Cancel an ability in progress: double-click the unit whose ability you started. You cannot end your turn while an ability is mid-activation, whether it needs a target or not. Cancel it or finish it first.
TRAITS
Traits are passive properties. They're always in effect under whatever condition they describe, with nothing to click or activate. Shown as an icon at the bottom of the card, both in hand and after the unit is deployed. Hover it any time to see exactly what it does. For the full list of traits and what each one does, see the card set reference.
ENDING YOUR TURN
The End Turn button doubles as your turn indicator. It highlights the moment it becomes your turn, meaning your opponent has just ended theirs, and clicking it ends your own turn. If it's your turn but the button isn't highlighted, something's blocking it. Either an ability you started is still pending, or you've assigned defenders to a Provoke attacker but haven't met the required minimum of 2. Resolve either one and the button lights back up. Your opponent's hand is hidden (card backs only) unless something reveals it.
Hello all! I hope you all enjoy Birthright, the project is currently in a beta stage, with this release being the first play test! If you are interested in following along, please join the discord!
Any donations are much appreciated and will go straight back into the project to hire artists and UI/UX designers to improve the game for release!