LOTUS TCG 18-card Booster

Legend of the Unbound Star

Legend of the Unbound Star (LOTUS) is a solo, roguelite-inspired dungeon crawler trading card board game that comes in a booster pack. In a single pack you'll get all the gamepieces you need to play through a small, bespoke dungeon crawl experience, even if you don't have any dice on hand. Each booster pack comes with a couple of heroes, bosses, dungeon levels, and a dozen monsters and loot, everything you need to get started.

The Premise

I wanted LOTUS to be an ultra-portable dungeon crawl game but with the variability and unknown of exploring something that was wholly new and unique to yourself. Inspired by roguelite and roguelike computer games, the trading card game system is more of a delivery vehicle for the experience, using randomization to generate unique mixes with each pack opening; your mix of heroes, bosses, loot, and monsters will be different to your friend's, and your gameplay experience will be your own. You don't need to buy entire decks or hundreds of cards if you don't want to, you can get just a single pack and begin your own adventure.

The Game

To begin a game of LOTUS you'll first select a Hero to play as and what Class they'll be. Each pack comes with two Hero cards with different character Classes on their backs, offering you two options to choose from.

Next you'll select which Boss you'd like to fight and then the Dungeon Level you'll play through. Behind each Boss card there is a randomized Dungeon Level, so again you have two choices to pick from in each booster pack.

Once you've chosen your Hero/Class and Boss/Dungeon combinations you'll set aside the Rare Spawn card and then shuffle the remaining Monster cards face up. This will become your Event Deck. As you progress through the Dungeon you'll always be able to see what the next Monster is that you'll have to fight.

You'll move through the Dungeon, room by room, eliminating Monsters and rolling to see if you get any loot, eventually making your way to the Boss of the level. Once you get there, though, if you're feeling like you're not quite ready to take on the Boss then you can choose to play through another level, flipping over the Boss and Dungeon cards to set up the next area to play through.

In true roguelite fashion, though, once you die, you die, that's it. You reset everything and can play through again, although this time the order of the monsters you come across might be very different along with the loot you acquire. Maybe you'll want to try a different level and boss combination. Maybe a different Hero, a different Class. If you defeated the Rare Spawn then you can keep the Relic that it drops for subsequent playthroughs but that's entirely up to you.

Each booster pack offers a unique mix of experiences, you can replay through a single pack many times and each time will be different. Maybe you want to see if you can defeat both Bosses in your pack, or play purely for a high score and see how many Victory points you can pick up, or maybe you want to try to acquire as much loot as possible before dying and score your game that way. The Quests and Fates card offer up pursuits to tackle for additional points, and has suggestions on how you can tweak the gameplay and rules, offering additional challenges to your dungeon crawling experience.

This is your game and your experience.

Contents

Each Legend of the Unbound Star booster pack comes with:

• 2 Random Hero cards, each with a random Character Class on the back
• 2 Random Boss cards, each with a random Dungeon Level on the back
• 1 Random Rare Spawn card
• 1 Random Quest/Fate card
• 12 Random Monster cards, each with a random loot or event on the back

Things to Come: Updates and Future Plans

10.17.2024 : I wanted to give a heads-up to those interested in the game and have purchased packs already, I plan on releasing a regular booster pack version where it's closer to what you'd find in a traditional booster pack release of the game, foil packaging instead of the hook box. The SKU should be a little cheaper so those who want to pick up more cards but already have the hook box for the instructions can do so a little more cost-efficiently.

The Overworld explorer/townbuilder is being developed, I'm currently brainstorming over what kind of system I want the game to have and how it can integrate LOTUS into it; currently it's a little 3X out of 4X, with dungeon locations being either explorable within the system or playable with a LOTUS deck.

How Would You Like to Play?

Since this is a solo game, you're free to expand your gameplay experience however you want, you can trade for and collect other cards to build your own personalized dungeon crawling adventure. You want to explore the Gellic Steamvaults and stand against its insectoid inhabitants? Go for it! Get more Gellic Workers for your Event Deck along with a Prism Gellic as a Rare Spawn and you have your own makings of an adventure specifically for you and by you. Mix in different quest cards or alternate house rules from the Fates cards to add in even more of your own flare.

As far as the future plans for this game, I'd like to expand LOTUS further, adding more of everything, Heroes, Bosses, Monsters, LOOT :) I'm also working on a sister game to this, a small overworld adventure game where you have a town you support and can venture into dungeons that can tie into LOTUS. Again, it would be a bespoke, roguelite inspired game built into a TCG booster pack, a pick up and play anywhere game that integrates with this one but something that can be played on its own independently.

Regardless, thank you very much for stopping by! I hope you enjoy your exploration of the Legend of the Unbound Star!