Card Drives
A downloadable game
Card Drives is a solitaire cyberpunk TTRPG where you play an endless series of hackers wielding a cyberdeck: a powerful computer console full of card drives. This cyberdeck is represented by a deck of playing cards you will mod and trash and draw on as you play the game. Each modded card becomes more powerful, giving you more access to powerful programs (poker hands) you use to exploit nodes and explore the net.
It's a souls-like cyberpunk Balatro. It's a love letter to rogue-like deck builders. It's heavily inspired by Two-Hand Path and everyone who has ever sharpied a Magic the Gathering card.
In this demo version of the game, you navigate the NUWESTPAC Seaboard network to try to take down Wotan over a series of runs. Jack out before it's too late, or you risk flatlining and leaving all your keys and data behind. But don't worry, with each game and new run, you use the same cyberdeck, which gets more and more powerful as the game continues.
Recover your data.
Mod your deck.
Exploit the 'net.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 2.4 Update and New Gameplay Video19 days ago
- Card Drives Demo v 2.3 and Videos24 days ago
- Card Drives Now on Kickstarter!32 days ago
- Card Drive Demo!95 days ago
Comments
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Do you think it could make sense to retcon this version as something of a “Prequel” for the full KS version in the in-game world’s mythology? I see you’re already tweaking the rules for the “full” version, from what I just saw in the KS updates - but it seems to me this “Demo” game is substantial enough that it can be considered a worthwhile standalone thing. It feels to me like it could be fun to keep it available after the KS fulfills, and consider the hacking of Wotan as an “old tale” from “the old days” among the hackers of the “new” Card Drives.
The demo will still be available for free after the game is released. I'm also gonna test out some rules for taking your deck made playing the demo and bringing it into the full game. So it definitely could be a kind of prequel!
Played with a "late game deck" to show off how modded ram cards work. See if I can beat the AI!
Quick question on the demo. Is the only way to remove ICE from my deck is to hack a node with the [trash] tag while I have an ICE card in hand. Then I can trash it?
Yup! Or get lucky when you [trash] a random card from your deck when you flatline, or when you get it as an upgrade when you cash in your data when you jack out.
Ok. If I draw ice after hacking out, I.e. a 0 value, don’t I trash a random card?
You do! Hopefully it's another ICE card!
If ICE is getting you down, remember you can always mod those cards too so you can play them in programs or just as RAM cards.
nice. That is a great idea. Mod the ICE. I didn’t think of that. Thanks.
I played through a few runs of the demo, check it out:
Check out Shamus of the excellent Out of the Box Board Game Channel playing the Card Drives demo. I've watched lots of his videos when I'm curious about print and play games and solo games.
I never played Poker, so the “Programs” were very confusing to me, I was not sure how to do them. Only when I saw the name “Full House” in there, I started having a suspicion: “hey, that sounds like a thing that cards people say; maybe it’s some kind of a specific thing in card games?” I’d be grateful if you could add explanations of those things in the booklet somewhere for people like me, who never in their life encountered those names - and even more so in English.
For others like me, here’s a list of those, as far as I could understand from Wikipedia - I may be wrong though:
(note: “rank” in those seems to mean the card’s “value” if it is 2-10 card; while for non-number cards, based on Card Drives booklet, it seems to be A=(1 or 11) and J/Q/K=10, except for Straight, where presumably “traditional” Poker values would apply, which seem to be: J=11, Q=12, K=13, A=14)
Based on the above, I also assume probably to “play a program”, one has to use a hand of 5 cards always? though I’m not really sure about it - maybe e.g. for a Pair it’s enough to use/discard 2 cards? I’m even more confused with e.g. PAIRING which says “Draw 3 cards”, but then right above it is written: “After playing a program, you refill your hand to 7 cards.” - so how many cards am I expected to discard, and how many to have in my hand after playing the Program? 🤔
You don't always need to play a hand of 5 cards to "play" a program, just the cards needed to fulfill the requirements of the hand. For example two-pair requires 4 cards, 2 of a matching rank and 2 of a different matching rank. Three of a kind requires you to play 3 cards from your hand: 3 cards all of the matching rank.
To play the pairing program you play 2 cards of the same rank (a pair) and then draw 3 cards. Then, if you have less than 7 cards in your hand you draw up to 7. To play the flush cache program you play 5 cards that all have the same suit, shuffle your cache into your deck, then draw back up to 7 cards if needed.
Hope that helps!
Thank you! So, IIUC, this means as a result I might sometimes have more than 7 cards in hand, is that right?
Also, to clarify the ranks/values:
Each face card counts as 10 only when looking for a value, for example if you want to exploit a node that has 10 you would need to play 1 or more cards that have a total value of 10. So a jack, queen, or king would work there. This also matters when upgrading your deck when you jack out, as the cards you pull are checked for their values.
However when looking for pairs you need 2 cards that have matching ranks. So for example a queen and a king are not a pair because they are not the same rank. Two queens are a pair, two kings are a pair, and two kings and two queens would be two pair, or in the parlance of this game "double pairing".
Full shutdown, or a full house, requires 3 of one rank and 2 of another different rank. So 3 queens and 2 kings would count as a full house.
You can only play one program at a time, so a straight killotine would not also count as a flush cache.
Corpo keys is a royal flush, which means 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace all of the same suit.
Ohhh, ok, thanks, that’s very different from what I understood! I read the following guideline in the booklet, and I assumed I need to follow it: “Aces have a value of either 1 or 11, face cards count as value 10 outside of a straight” - that face cards count as 10 except in programs named “Straight”.
As to the Straight Killotine vs. Flush Cache, I wanted to ask a different question actually, I now see I didn’t phrase it clearly enough: what I want to ask, if I have cards for a Straight Killotine, can I instead play them as a Flush Cache? i.e., let’s say I have 2+3+4+5+6 of one suit, so I could play them as Straight Killotine; but do I have the choice to instead treat and play them as Flush Cache? Or is it required for Flush Cache that the ranks must not be fully sequential, that I can only play a Flush Cache if the cards do not form an unbroken sequence?
EDIT: Ahh, and also then, for a “3 SEQUENCE” Exploit, can faces be used here, or only “number” cards? and if faces can be used, they count as a “10” each, yes? or again as ranks?
So one of the inherent assumptions in poker is that you are always playing the strongest possible hand, and that assumption is also true in Card Drives. As a straight flush is stronger than either a flush or a straight, if you play 5 cards that share a sequence and are all in the same suit, that always counts as a straight flush.
Face cards can be used in a 3 sequence exploit. This is another inherent assumption in poker, that face cards have a rank that puts them in Jack, Queen, King order, and that order comes after the 10 card. So for example a 3 sequence could be 9,10,J, or 10, J, Q, or J,Q,K, or Q,K,A.
Arrived via KS. Looks great. Will you make a BGG page? Also I have a rules questions. How many cards are needed for the flush OR straight. 4?
Thanks! I haven't really messed with Board Game Geek or RPG Geek pages before.
Programs like the flushes and straights always refer to standard poker hands that appear next to it in brackets, so to play a straight circuit (straight) you would need 5 cards in sequence, to flush cache (flush) you would need to play 5 cards all with the same suit. Hope that helps!
Great. Very helpful. It’s been awhile since I’ve played poker. I’d strongly recommend adding a BGG page. It’s where I visit to get more details for KS games and see what kind of community is developing. Also games with BGG entries are more likely to feature on my YT channel as I find BGG is a common stop for people looking for more info.
Somebody already created a BGG entry FYI: https://bgg.cc/boardgame/459747/card-drives
yes. Thanks. I found it when I went to add my video.
Thanks for making the video, it gave me some better understanding of a few things I didn’t wrap my head around yet after just reading the rules. For anyone else interested, the video is at: https://youtu.be/VTBr8QIN-6U