Every Body Will Die

A Strategic Card Game of Death and Life

Memento Mori: "Remember, You Must Die."

The only certainty of life is that it ends. This truth can be a misery or an inspiration. The struggle to avert Death can be a futile torment or a series of victories. Whatever your perspective, each danger averted carries a cost: something is lost with each escape. When that cost is finally too high...

Every body will die.

A card game with a simple goal: stay alive as long as possible

Or rather, keep your fictional character alive. Each player acts as the unseen Guardian to a mortal Ward, guiding that person's life choices and intervening in their fate to protect them from Death. At the same time, each player is Death to their opponents' Wards, burdening them with potential Causes of Death and troubling them with Curses. One by one, Wards will inevitably die... but their former Guardians will remain active as Death. Everyone plays until the last Ward is dead, and that Ward's Guardian wins the game.

Inspired by morbid Victorian style and Goth culture

Every Body Will Die is designed with a simple black-and-white theme and illustrations that evoke the Victorian era: sketches, woodcuts, and engravings including symbols of death, tragic scenes, medical diagrams, and dark humor. This morbid aesthetic inspired the game's creation and theme: Death comes for everyone, so make the most of life.

Guided by medical fact and actuarial data

Wards may die early or survive into old age, but across multiple games, the average age at death will match an average life expectancy: about 70-75 years. The game is designed to be realistic, both in its progress along a human lifespan and in the details of the various Cause of Death cards.

Complex strategy emerges throughout play

Players must choose carefully and plan ahead from the first round of the game - just after their Wards' birth - through an entire lifespan. Wards begin with a limited pool of Luck, but as the years pass, each Ward will gain other Traits - Vigor, Mind, and Status - which their Guardian can use to remove or delay Causes of Death. The first key to victory is deciding what Traits to gain and which to spend. A Guardian may also use beneficial cards - Remedies and Blessings - to influence external forces in their Ward's favor, sparing their personal resources.

These defenses are crucial, as an unprotected Ward could die at any time. As Death, each player chooses and plays malicious cards - Causes of Death and Curses - to endanger their opponents' Wards. The more troublesome a Cause of Death, the more it costs to remove and the higher the likelihood that it could become fatal. Curses make survival even more difficult by destroying Traits or altering Causes of Death. The second key to victory, then, is to hasten the deaths of opponents' Wards through well-chosen attacks which force them to spend their Traits and expend their beneficial cards more quickly.

As the game proceeds, round by round, Wards become older, and more years pass during each round. At first, later Stages of life also grant increasing Trait gains, but if Wards survive past adulthood, this trend reverses, and older Stages add fewer Traits. It becomes more and more difficult to avoid every Cause of Death... until eventually, every Ward will die.

Game Box Contains:

• 200 Cards: Causes of Death, Remedies, Blessings & Curses
• 228 Trait Tokens & 72 Year Tokens
• Timeline tracker card & slider
• Game Guide

Game Introduction and Guide (YouTube)