Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, reworking and improving many mechanics!


Here are the details:

• scroll rework: hero does not move ONTO scroll anymore, but next to it; also reworked lots of scrolls to remove Origin and simplify them
• cowardly/shifty rework: cowardly and shifty Monsters will not retreat anymore when in last room
• sleep rework: instead of at end of turn, sleep gets reduced when the card would act, also tweaked many values regarding sleep to reflect the change
• Apothecary: in some mezzanines, you can now buy Potions
• Peddler: in some mezzanines, you can now buy totally not cursed Trinkets
• trinkets appear one floor earlier in towers
• tweaked Achilles Armor: you lose 3 HP flat when timer runs out
• reworked bloody chest: drop requirement that monsters have to be defeated in a single turn
• buffed Solomons Hammer
• tweaked card portrait and indicator positions to show more of portraits
• redesigned Resource Shrine
• redesigned Intimidation Ring
• redesigned Wall Of Ice
• redesigned Wooden Shield
• redesigned Shield Slam
• removed Metronome
• made sure Bloody Chest only spawns with 2 or more monsters
• made Push Wall quick interact
• simplified Contraption descriptions
• (potential) bugfix for dreaded undo-not-working bug
• option to unlock all difficulties
• bugfix: removed inconsistencies in monster movements
• bugfix: remove bias for drawing Auras next to Hero when Auramancers Amulet is equipped

• Aching Chest
• Steadfast Hammer
• Outrider Helmet
• Spiked Shield
• Vandals Cape
• Knights Heirloom
• Rogues Heirloom
• Ogiers Collar
• Magnetic Ring
• Assassins Bauble
• Kosmemophobia

Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, adding shrine and balancings!


Here are the details:

• Shrines: neutral cards that have effects on both hero and monsters
• stealth and teleport charges dont stay between rooms anymore
• nerfed Pocket Wormhole: gains 1 less Teleport Charge
• nerfed Rearrangement: cannot be upgraded anymore
• nerfed Force Multiplier: weapon also loses attack
• buffed Spell Wand: triggers whenever a spell is prepared
• buffed Foresight: replaces itself by drawing a card at origin
• buffed Preparation: it also upgrades the Scroll it draws
• buffed Ring Of Patience: triggers every 18 turns, not just on turn 20
• buffed Bow Artisan: gives Bows Quick Equip
• tweaked Powder Keg Bow: multiple uses, less base damage
• tweaked various Hammers: Solomons, regular Hammer and Hammer Artisan
• Potions and Sins are displayed separately in hero draw pile
• show a cards max HP when focussed and damaged
• show a cards requirements and provided tags in card library
• performance improvements
• bugfix: movement indicator was sometimes drawn over sleep indicator
• bugfix: successful exert shows exert, not blocked
• bugfix: fixed calculation for multiple bens keys
• bugfix: for slow card interactions while sleeping: attacks get cancelled, scrolls and armor still triggers
• bugfix: skipping rope does not skip second main floor anymore

• Shrines
• Wings Of Hypnos
• Orions Blessing
• Lesser Heal
• Sacred Statue
• Blasphemy

Watch Retromation play Lost For Swords, a roguelike deckbuilder where the cards in your deck shape the rooms youre exploring!

Watch Retromation play Lost For Swords, a roguelike deckbuilder where the cards in your deck shape the rooms youre exploring!

Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, adding +6 difficulty as well as a lot of quality-of-life features! Here are the details:

• +6 tower difficulty: flipped monsters heal 3 when exiting room
• add icons to various keyword explanations when inspecting card
• doors and backtracks flip immediately when entering a room
• Winged Door only spawns after all monsters have been defeated
• visual effect for ethereal cards
• cards that relate to the origin show an indicator at the origin spot while interacting
• performance improvements
• reworked card inspect screen
• Intimidation Ring ticks down instead of up
• show Mage hero as not available in demo
• bugfix: room rewards should properly spawn according to chosen room

Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, adding Japanese as a fully supported language, as well as improved readability and a few minor updates!


Here are the details:

• new Language: Japanese!
• overhauled overworld map
• stealth rework: attacking monster reduces stealth by 1 instead of removing it fully
• keep teleport counters and stealth until next room
• improvements to card rendering: bigger texts whenever possible
• fixed bloody chest trigger not always triggering

Hi there! New big update for the Lost For Swords demo, including improvements to the Rogue hero and changes to the way rooms are generated!







Here are the details:

• between rooms, youre given the option to pick the next room layout to go to, with differing amounts of monsters and loot
• Rogue rework: updated mechanics (push), new mechanics (stealth), new and updated cards. See below for details
• push rework: pushed cards continue to push the cards they bump into
• boss rework: reduce the size of the initial monster deck, but boss adds new monsters to the deck after each phase
• teleport rework: teleportation is now an explicit counter on hero that determines how often hero can still teleport to empy spots on the board
• additional difficulty (+5): increased vendor prices
• reduced boss difficulty: decreased boss attack and monster amount
• disallow upgrading of some starter deck cards: Rusty Sword, Broken Shield, Leather Cap
• Healer shows up in some mezzanine rooms, offering healing in exchange for emeralds
• switched effects of Poison The Well and Everlasting Poison
• reworked Bagoas Belt: adds potions of poison to deck now
• reworked Shield Slam
• reworked Pocket Wormhole
• reworked Shadow Presence
• removed Reactive Armor
• removed Defensive Dagger
• buffed Poison Cloud
• nerfed scaling of Lance
• nerfed scaling of Mjlnir
• increased healing of Large HP Potion from 6 to 9
• when attacking with regular speed weapon, and target dies before attack hits, the attack is now cancelled
• preview of card that will be drawn when hovering over replaceable cards
• improved rendering of equipped trinkets: more space, unobstructed trinket counters
• show indicator for teleportable locations
• map shows highest unlocked difficulty for each tower
• improved visuals when hero takes damage beyond defense: armor is hit first, then HP
• fix: moving off pressed card on board after click/tap does not trigger a selection

• Concealed Rapier
• Stealth Dagger
• Cap Of Healing
• Plague Doctor Cape
• Stealth Cloak
• Tripwires
• Tear Of Nyx
• Ninjutsu Pendant
• Stealth Potion
• I-Barrel
• Push Wall
• Secret Tunnel

Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, including a rework of boss battles, new cards and lots of improvements!






Here are the details:

• Boss rework:
  • bosses are immune to all damage while there are still other monsters on the board
  • rebalanced boss HP, Attack and Monster spawn rate
• reworked most of the Sins and Sin related cards:
  • Sin interaction does not move hero onto the Sin anymore, but next to it
  • many Sins replace themselves by putting a card in their place after interaction
• reworked Stalker to not swap place after attack: was too strong
• reworked Blessed Hammer: now triggers before monsters act
• reworked how damage is dealt to Monsters in deck: before, Monster defense always stayed at the Monsters base value while in the deck, and never got reduced when they took damage. After the change, Monster defense in the deck behaves the same as on the board. And a Monsters defense is reset to their base value after the deck gets shuffled between rooms
• Hero XP: each hero gains XP by completing floors of towers, unlocking cards
• renamed Feeble to Cowardly
• reworked Cowardly: a cowardly Monster can only flee when its their turn, not directly after getting attacked
• slightly reworked how Brute attack increase works: Brutes gets +2 attack when its their turn, if they have been attacked this turn (including unarmed attacks)
• Bloody Chest and Strange Chest have Eager
• reworked Doublecast into a Scroll (was a Spell)
• Mimic drops 20 Emeralds when defeated
• switched order of deck shuffling and auto-equip: auto-equip is first, then shuffling
• ability to unlock content in options menu
• better visuals when Monsters in deck are dealt damage
• show hero (and their HP) on card-find screen
• shuffle deck sound effect
• fixed rendering for many different resolutions, including Galaxy Z Fold5
• added particles for cards with quick or slow interact
• added particles for quick and slow cast spells

• Intimidation Ring
• Auramancers Amulet
• Ring Of Patience
• Gluttony
• Envy
• Force Multiplier
• Hungry Sword

Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, including new difficulty options and better run variety! Here are the details:

• new late-game mezzanine with two vendors: collector and jeweler
• option to skip the first floor battle if you found the rope on the previous run
• more fine-grained options for easier difficulties
• improvements to translations
• lots of card description clarifications
• quality of live improvements

Hi there! This is a big one! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, including new and improved bosses and lots of playable cards. Rogue Disarm is now a viable strategy, for example!





Here are the details:

• reworked bosses: instead of a regular 3-room floor, bosses appear on special single-room floors. Players must defeat the boss in three phases
• Trinkets are now equipped in mezzanines too, offering more interactions and possibilities for the future
• mezzanine rooms with Merchants now appear in addition to other mezzanine rooms, not instead of them
• Merchant rooms have Herotrap
• new NPC - Trader: trade away your cards in exchange for random new ones; appears in prison mezzanine
• Mirage creates Illusory Walls in 4-neighbor spots (instead of 8-neighbor)
• Monster attacks can become negative (will deal 0 damage while negative)
• cards at vendors and in Mezzanine are properly sorted
• reduced healing of Ring Of Health from 3 to 2
• improved Solomons Hammer
• reworked Forged By Flames
• removed Thick Skin from Rogue
• renamed Curses to Afflictions
• allow Monsters to walk off the map when their telegraphed movement says so
• Potions replace Priest and Healer in prison mezzanine
• hide yet-to-be-discovered cards in card library
• different floor tiles for different towers and training cellar
• improved animations when interacting with NPCs
• improved emerald spending animations and sounds
• enable previewing upgrades when inspecting a card
• cards wiggle just a tiny bit when hovering and when activating
• improved wording regarding board and room
• bugfix: 2 or more unidentified loot in the same room now offer different rewards each

• Hammer And Anvil
• Samsons Sword
• Fencing Rapier
• Jesters Bottoms
• -Shadow Presence
• Vicarious Shame
• Augustins Charm
• Sword Traders Ring
• 50 Emeralds
• Bloody Chest
• Large HP Potion
• Constitution Potion
• Herotrap

Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, including full support for Chinese and German languages. Here are the details:

• full Chinese translation
• full German translation
• colorized card types in card descriptions and keyword explanations
• Steam Cloud saves
• lots of card description clarifications
• fixed animation for cards that are immune to getting pushed off the board
• show tower name and floor number in in-game menu
• bugfix: cards with timer AND attack indicator were overlapping in certain setups

Hi there! New update for the Lost For Swords demo, including keyboard and controller support, new content and new cards! :) Here are the details:

• reworked map screen and forts: map contains only towers now. Forts have moved into the training cellar of the new castle, which serves as the place to select/change the hero.
• greatly increased size of Paltry Tower: 5 floors, including a new monster, the Sentry.
• added basic keyboard and controller support: Controls explained in options screen
• in hero deck screen, differentiate between cards on the board and in the deck
• nerfed Shield Maiden starter deck: -1 Shield Slam, +1 Broken Shield
• slightly changed highscore calculation: each collected emerald is worth 2 points instead of 1
• bugfix for To Arms
• limit Pocket Wormhole to 2 uses per room
• change to interaction between Slow Weapons and Brutes: Brutes now get +2 attack AFTER being hit by the slow weapon, not before
• - small bop animations when cards get pushing into each other or monsters try to move to occupied spot
• - bugfix: alternative starting decks were not unlockable

• Sentry
• Pauldron
• Arbitrage

Hi there! New update for Lost For Swords, with a bunch of balancing changes, improvement and new cards! :) Here are the details:

• reduced Gathering Tower to 8 Floors: this makes for a better gameplay loop! To balance it out, a couple of changes to benefit the player:
• increased Emeralds options in Loot Select from 10 to 20
• increased Emeralds in Strange Chest from 10 to 20
• in Prison-Mezzanine, spawn Unidentified Loot instead of 20 Emeralds
• added highscore and win streak system to towers!
• gameplay change to Push mechanic: push now also flips the affected card(s) before push and damage happens
• gameplay change to cards in decks and shuffling: order of cards in decks is now consistently shown to player in deck popups. Cards returning to a deck are put on the bottom of the deck. Effects that draw cards from the deck draw from the top of the deck. Effects that affect first X Monsters in deck do so in order
• buffed Shield Slam
• buffed Graceful Exit
• buffed/reworked Sinners Might
• reworked Achilles Armor
• reworked Greed (Sin): gets destroyed after atoning
• slightly buffed Hammers
• slightly reworked Fawkes Pendant: all barrels are now X-Barrels
• nerfed Defiance: 1 Armor Plate instead of 2 at base quality
• bugfix for Puncture Ring affecting ALL kinds of attacks/damage
• bugfix for rare occurrence allowing players to move to an already occupied spot
• when inspecting card, related card is shown properly upgraded

• Brewmasters Tunic
• Ring Of Fortitude
• Strange Chest

Hi! Another update for Lost For Swords, this time focussing on difficulty and additional content! It adds multiple difficulty modifiers to the big Gathering Tower. Tone down the difficulty if the game seems too hard, or beat the tower to unlock higher difficulties! The update also includes alternative starting decks for both Knight and Rogue, which you can find and unlock while on a tower run! The update adds various new cards for the Knight, which enable different Hammer-focussed builds:


(small Diablo II reference in there :D) Here's a detailed list of the changes:

• introduced difficulty modifiers for Gathering Tower: adjust the game to your liking, make it harder or easier. Unlock harder difficulties by beating the tower
• introduced alternative starting decks for Knight and Rogue! Unlock them by finding deck inventories in the tower
• reworked how slow weapons/hammers work when their attack target moves out of the way: attack is cancelled and weapon is not dropped effectively buffs hammers and makes them much more viable!
• added quartermaster that stands in front of towers. Hands out alternative starter decks
• added quartermaster intro cutscene when first visiting tower
• added campfire scene when beating Gathering Tower
• captured Rogue call for help right when you enter the room, so you wont miss them as easily
• buffed Spiked Armor: deals all of your Defense as damage
• buffed Atonement: flips Sins before destroying them
• increased all hero HP by 3
• starting with second backtracking on a floor, punishment Tired produces more punishing Fatigue cards
• reworked input buffering so it sticks to cards, not card locations

• Fear Dagger
• Solomons Hammer
• Hammer Artisan
• Blessed Hammer
• Goros Hammer
• Achilles Armor

Hi there! Another update for Lost For Swords, this time focussing on language! It adds a second language to the game: German! Additional languages will follow soon, as I have now set the basis for proper multi-language support. The update also includes a lot of improvements and bugfixes.

• support for German language in card descriptions and explanations (set in options)
• added indicators for weapons and monster attack values when higher or lower than their base
• increased damage of exploding barrels from 5 to 6
• added credits screen
• renamed Burning Sins to Common Penance: to avoid it getting mistaken for a Sin
• added better tooltips for sin explanation
• better explanations for a lot of cards
• bugfix: crash bug that occured when card select screen appears in specific cases
• bugfix: choosing greyed out backtrack option is not allowed anymore
• bugfix: related cards can now be clicked on and inspected as well

• Pocket Wormhole

Hi there! A new update for the Lost For Swords demo just dropped! It includes a full rework of the systems and visuals outside of a tower run, including an overworld map. Furthermore, lots of improvements to help beginner players learn the game better, such as a second tower and better visual guides... and lots of other stuff too :) Here's what's new:

• Introduced overworld map
• Added second tower that serves as a better introduction to tower gameplay
• Reworked first fort
• Reworked objective system: defeat monsters to obtain winged key, which opens door to next floor
• NPCs and Bosses are more talkative
• Added options for disabling post-processing and particles/flashing
• Healer can raise your Max HP by 2 if you visit her fully healed
• Slightly increased base HP of Knight and Rogue
• Small HP Adjustments to Monsters and Props
• Visible healthbars for cards
• Renamed Dungeon Deck to Monster Deck
• Reworked Defiance to only trigger when hero is 8-neighbor
• Many visual improvements to movement and attacking
• Small changes to monster pathfinding
• Fixed Ethereal Shuriken returning to deck - thanks @Jam2020
• Fixed upgraded Reactive Armor not working as described - thanks @Jam2020
• Fixed Vainglory shuffling one too many Vanity into the deck - thanks @TheOneWhoWondersThere
• New Card: Subtle Body Charm