14 Nov 2022Developer post

Poker Quest 1.0, now out of Early Access

Today is the day! After four years of development, Poker Quest: Swords and Spades is leaving early access! With over 20 characters, 1500+ possible items, as well as daily runs, custom runs, mod support, and all the other bits of polish we've done, we think it's finally time and w

22 Apr 2022Developer post

Poker Quest v62 - Major update! New hero, graphics, and more

* NEW HERO: The Rainbow Knight! * Phoenix can be killed by Enflame once again. * Corrected texts on some items (Holy Mace, Splendid Sword of Thunder, Splendid Axe of Flame, Dark Warhammer of Pairs) and Wildsmith. * Multiple camping tents can now be used at a given node (including

08 Oct 2021Developer post

Poker Quest v59 - The Blacksmith

* NEW HERO! The Blacksmith. He can upgrade all his items for a large amount of energy. * IMPORTANT: Starvation no longer kills you. Instead, it takes you to a minimum of 1 life. An exception is made for the Vampire hero. * WARNING: The "Walking is Hard" random event can now actua

23 Sep 2021Developer post

Poker Quest v58 - The Witch

* NEW HERO: THE WITCH! She likes to hoard cards. * IMPORTANT CHANGE TO CURSE: Rebalanced most Curse enemies, and clarified their effects with new tooltips: "Arbitrary" and "Distinct" item targeting. Pay attention to the detailed tooltips so you know what the enemy will do. * NEW:

* NEW HERO: THE WITCH! She likes to hoard cards.
* IMPORTANT CHANGE TO CURSE: Rebalanced most Curse enemies, and clarified their effects with new tooltips: "Arbitrary" and "Distinct" item targeting. Pay attention to the detailed tooltips so you know what the enemy will do.
* NEW: Completion stars for Heroes.
* NEW: Completion stars for Challenges.
* Steam Workshop mod functionality is now in early stages of testing. Check it out in your Steam library! For more information (such as how to make mods and install them), visit the Discord channel.
* You can now check out the combat log after you lose the game.
* Challenge Runs can now unlock with partial completion of previous challenges.
* Some of the first upgrades in Upgrades Mode are now free.
* Several monsters now have Perfect Kill rewards.
* Significantly reduced the tax for subsequent Blacksmith upgrades from 3,5,7,8 to 1,2,3,4. This should make blacksmiths a much bigger part of the game now, and a partial alternative to shops.
* Armor now adds Block each turn, instead of being its own block.
* Rebalanced the World 4 boss rush in Classic mode. Enemies have less life, but draw more cards, and hide more cards, and hit hard.
* Temporarily removed the World 4 boss rush from Upgrades Mode (temporarily!) until we can properly rebalance it for this game mode.
* Raised the spawn rate for random Ambush events.
* Rebalanced The Stormy Joker. He should be easier to understand now.
* Rebalanced The Charitable Joker. Now gives your resources back if you win (for the boss rush).
* Rebalanced several poison and curse items so they scale more closely with other items.
* Reduced Paladin's Holy Mace's upgrade costs and Enflame All amounts.
* Witherstrike reduced from 30% to 20%
* Changed One For All's price from 15 to 12, and upgrade costs from 6/8/10 to 8/8/8.
* Reduced Queen's life from 90 to 80.
* Raised Throwing Knives shop price from 5 to 6, and upgrade costs from 2 to 3.
* Warlock's Soulseeker now always costs 2 life, upgrades to increase Reveal amount.
* Titan's Shockwave rebalanced to be a little more accessible in the early game.
* Fixed some bugs with end-game scoring.
* Many shop items got minor balance changes (costs, values, etc.).
* Lowered chip rewards on boss fights.
* Reduced the number of options available at Castle Blackheart and Chateau de Spade by 1.
* Tray of Chips now provides slightly fewer chips.
* Pet fights no longer close shops.
* Fixed some bugs with Daily Run stats reporting.
* Lowered the volume of the drumroll at the start of each world.
* Added a "Claim Victory" button to the world map on the final boss. This also fixes the Always Raise the Stakes option
* Made the first three choices in Upgrades mode free.

Original post

03 Sep 2021Developer post

Poker Quest v57 - New victory conditions and major changes

The game now has much more appropriate victory conditions. Everything after the World 1 boss is now optional. We believe this update will appeal to all of the players who want less of a challenge, while at the same time we hope the players who enjoy an epic challenge feel like th

The game now has much more appropriate victory conditions. Everything after the World 1 boss is now optional. We believe this update will appeal to all of the players who want less of a challenge, while at the same time we hope the players who enjoy an epic challenge feel like they still get one.

Please read the patch notes in detail to understand how these changes affect the game.

NEW FEATURE: Claim Victory & Raise The Stakes

After each world, you now have the option to Claim Victory or Raise the Stakes.
"Claim Victory" to end the run early, and get bonus Score & XP.
Or "Raise the Stakes", and keep playing, which increases the bonus XP if you Claim Victory after the next boss fight.
Getting through World 1 is "Victory", World 2 is "Victory+", and so on.
We believe these new victory rankings more accurately represent the challenge involved in achieving them.
Those of you who previously achieved the old "Victory" status have actually been achieving "Victory+++" without knowing it.

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO WORLD 4:

Due to overwhelming demand from players, we shortened the length of the complete game (assuming you always want to Raise the Stakes).
The final boss is now at world 4-1, immediately after the campsite, which shortens the full game by about 25%.
The rest of world 4 (after the final boss) is an optional series of boss fights that rapidly scale up.
After each fight in World 4, you have the option to Claim Victory, or gamble on the next fight for a higher score.
We removed the Palace of Wagers. To get higher scores, try to defeat as much of World 4 as you can.

OTHER CHANGES:

The card deck finally has face card art!
The Queen of Spades energy ability now draws all the Spades for 5 energy.
Removed most of the "Nothing" nodes, they are replaced with small piles of food, chips, and gems.
Wizard Tower and Gem Mines now only cost 1 chip to upgrade your maximum (instead of 3).
Added a new Hero Select option to choose a random hero from the heroes you unlocked.
New Classic, Daily, and Custom Run world modifier: Casino World. Worlds full of casinos!
New Daily and Custom Run world modifier: Enchantress World. Worlds with way too many enchantresses.
Scroll of Greed can no longer be used unless you have more than 50 maximum life.
Reduced Wild Joker's life (relative to other Jokers) by 12%.
The "No Modifiers" option now always shows up as an option in Classic mode.
Count Spade and Vampire (monster) have been rebalanced. They have a new effect called "Restless".
Sleight of Hand now costs 25 chips instead of 20
Enchantresses now appear in Castles again, just not simultaneously with shops.
All pets now scrap for 5 food.
Changed the upgrade prices for Fire Gloves from 15/20/25 to 20/20/20.
Book of Paralysis now has a limit of 3 uses per combat.
Ring of More now costs 11 instead of 8.
Challenge Runs now show 5 challenges instead of 3, to give you more choices.
Fixed Vampire's energy tooltip. It now correctly says +2 energy per map move.
Enflame/Freeze now show decay amounts on enemy items.
Slightly tweaked the options for The Fool and Strange Device.
New Loading Tips to help explain the game better.
New, better looking Victory / Game Over / Mid-run status screens.
We considered it, but the Mighty Titan is not changing (Sorry, Reto)
Renamed the Ninja to "The Dodgy Ninja" to more accurately represent his play style.
Several other minor bug and text fixes.

Original post

13 Aug 2021Developer post

Poker Quest v55 - The Greedy Banker

* New hero! The Greedy Banker. He loves money and is good at making it. * The button to "Abandon Run" now says "Fold The Run". * Ninja's starting setup rebalanced. * Bard now gets 3 energy per world map move, instead of 2. * Titan now has 250 starting life, instead of 200. * Time

26 Jul 2021Developer post

Poker Quest v53 is now live!

UPDATE! Poker Quest v53 (July 26, 2021): * NEW HERO! The Tortoise. He is very defensive. * IMPORTANT: Reduced the amount of XP required for the later heroes. Some of you who have reached these later heroes may immediately unlock them when you start a new run. * Fixed the text of

14 Jul 2021Developer post

Poker Quest Alpha v51 is now live!

* We are launching in Early Access on Steam on July 20! * NEW HERO: The Assassin. * NEW ITEMS! Several new items were added to the game to discover. * Poker Quest now runs on Mac! We would appreciate players testing it some, before Early Access! * Throwing Knives now requires 7 o

12 Jun 2021Developer post

Poker Quest Alpha v48 is now live! Major update with lots of new stuff.

Lots of new stuff and big changes with this update! Thanks for playing and helping us get to this point! The game has came a long way since the initial demo release and now this will be the final update before the game launches in early access. * NEW FEATURE! CUSTOM RUNS. Design

10 Mar 2021Developer post

Poker Quest v45 alpha is now live!

Poker Quest v45 * NEW HERO: The Paladin! * IMPORTANT CHANGE: Sudden Death now increases draw, each round, for both the player and the enemy. * A bunch of new items for you to discover. * Nerfed Kraken. * The Queen's Flower now has a maximum of 8 uses per combat. * Time spent in g

03 Feb 2021Developer post

Biggest update in months! Poker Quest Version 42 alpha is up!

Poker Quest v42 (Feb. 2, 2020): NEW ANIMATED EFFECTS! In the Steam version, there are new animated combat effects for attacks, enflame, curse, etc. NEW HERO: The Ninja! NEW GUILD SKILL: "Alchemy". It allows you to re-fill an additional consumable item at campsites. NEW ENHANCEMEN

09 Oct 2020Developer post

🔴 Poker Quest Live Stream

Join us on Saturday at 11 AM PDT where we'll be playing Poker Quest and answering your questions! Poker Quest is a fantasy game where you use a standard deck of playing cards (like the "Queen of Spades") to empower your items in combat. Bigger and better hands can trigger stronge

Join us on Saturday at 11 AM PDT where we'll be playing Poker Quest and answering your questions!

Poker Quest is a fantasy game where you use a standard deck of playing cards (like the "Queen of Spades") to empower your items in combat. Bigger and better hands can trigger stronger abilities on your items.

Discover thousands of different items and hundreds of monsters. March forward through a huge variety of locations and events in a procedurally generated, high-fantasy world.

Choose one of many heroes. Each hero comes with a unique set of equipment and abilities, to encourage many different play styles.

Features

A deep and interesting world full of Castles, Knights, Wizards, and Dragons. And Poker cards.
Choose whether to play with or without permanent upgrades. (Some would call it roguelite vs. roguelike modes)
12 unique heroes, and many more to come.
Daily Runs with public stats and other interesting details.
Challenge runs with game-changing modifiers.
Mini-games. Casinos!
Thousands of unique items.
Hundreds of unique monsters.

Poker Quest feels a lot like a deck-builder, but is fundamentally very different. The world map takes inspiration from Slay the Spire, with the intent of providing a great variety of events. The combat is inspired by Dicey Dungeons, but instead of dice, we use playing cards. That is where the similarities to other games end. Poker Quest contains a vast, novel set of game mechanics that centrally focus on the properties of the playing cards.

Some of the knowledge that you may have gained from other card games will naturally carry over to Poker Quest. Additionally, Poker Quest is a game that you can play to hone your skills at determining card probabilities, but while playing a fantasy RPG. With enough practice on the hardest difficulties, the answers to questions like "What are the chances they have a Spade in those two cards?" can become second nature to you. Or you can play on Casual mode and not worry too much about these things.

Original post

Poker Quest: Swords and Spades

Updates & announcements

Poker Quest 1.0, now out of Early Access

Poker Quest v62 - Major update! New hero, graphics, and more

🔴 Poker Quest Live Stream

Poker Quest v59 - The Blacksmith

Poker Quest v58 - The Witch

Poker Quest v57 - New victory conditions and major changes

Poker Quest v56 - Daily run bonus XP and Farm changes

Poker Quest v55 - The Greedy Banker

Poker Quest v54 is now live!

Poker Quest v53 is now live!

Poker Quest Alpha v51 is now live!

Poker Quest Alpha v48 is now live! Major update with lots of new stuff.

Poker Quest v45 alpha is now live!

Biggest update in months! Poker Quest Version 42 alpha is up!

🔴 Poker Quest Live Stream

Features