Brute Fort - micro solo dungeon card game

The Story

Brute Fort is an 18 card dungeon delving game for a single player. It takes 10-15 minutes to play.

In this game, your courageous (or foolish) heroes venture into the shadowy recesses of the 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖙. Inside they'll discover a jumble of fearsome foes and alluring loot. Over the course of play you'll place cards from your hand to build up the explored rooms of the cursed building.

This is a micro game with a macro history. I first started working on Brute Fort two years ago. In its first iterations it was a sprawling collectible card game with a focus on deck-building.

Over that period I've hewed it into a tightly sprung puzzle. 18 cards is enough. This is a game of push and pull, light enough to be played casually, deep enough to engage the problem-solving part of your brain, addictive enough to have you play games back to back.

The Cards

These cards pull no punches. Pure black and white. And pulp.

Aesthetically Brute Fort takes inspiration from old forgotten media, like "video nasty" VHS tapes from the early 80s, and the cards themselves lean into dark fantasy grittiness.

All the artwork in this game was photobashed in my signature style using a dizzying hoard of public domain images. AI? Absolutely not. You're looking at hours of image research and manipulation to get things just right.

The Package

This is how I always envisioned Brute Fort. A double tape cassette case: a tuck box of cards on one side, a tape cassette soundtrack (more on that later) on the other side.

The beauty of using the double tape case is the inlay unfolds to form a lo-fi play mat:

Finally, the case is completed with 5 x 12mm dice. These are not required to play the game but are useful as markers when you calculate your score at the end. Plus they keep the tuck box from rattling around in the cassette case!

The Music

I've teamed up with the inimitable Gus BC once again for a bombastic soundtrack of 80s pulp synth.

I supplied Gus with the brief of '80s dungeon' and all the artwork files, and given him free rein to craft the perfect soundtrack. Here's a preview track:

The soundtrack is roughly 45 minutes. Side A are tracks like the above. Side B is one long atmospheric ambient track to really set the tone whilst you play.

You can also check out Gus's stellar work on our last collaboration, Sleeping in a Drowning Stone, to get an idea of what to expect.

The Gameplay

Brute Fort takes the familiar format of card duelling games, like Magic The Gathering and Marvel Snap, and turns it into a lightweight solo experience. Instead of battling against an opponent, this game sees the player battling the eponymous fort itself, racing to reach the top and come out on top.

In this game, you’re building up a fort one row at a time. The cards you’re using are double-sided – one side’s the conquest side, one side’s the peril side. At the end of the game you want to score more points for conquests than perils. Simple, right?

However, to play a card as a conquest, you need to spend a resource called resolve on one of your three heroes. The catch is, they don’t give change.

So to stop yourself burning through all your heroes straightaway, you can steel their resolve, dividing it into smaller chunks.

Except, doing that means playing a card as a peril!

Added to this little puzzle is the fact that generally the higher up in the fort you play your cards, the better the effects they give you. So you're trying to hold out to play certain cards later on, but all the while you're having to make calls on how much damage you can inflict on yourself to get there.

There are some extra wrinkles, like the 'mini-boss' card that you place with your heroes at the start of every game, which imposes a condition that affects your whole playthrough. You can see the draft rules and download a PDF of the cards without artwork if you want to take a closer look.

The Extras

If you back one of the physical tiers in the first 48 hours (i.e. up to 17:00 GMT 20 November 2026), you'll get a free embroidered patch with your order:

Now, stretch goals. From experience running previous crowdfunders, I like to keep my projects manageable, so there is exactly one.

If we cross the significant £18k mark, I'll include 5 expansion cards. That's over 25% more game! These will be themed around a new mechanic to complement the base game.

Beyond that, be assured that any extra funding helps pay myself and Gus for the hard work we've put into the project. And we truly appreciate every bit of support.

The Shipping

The world of shipping can sometimes be volatile, so your shipping costs will be collected after the campaign ends, closer to the actual date items will be shipped.

After the Kickstarter finishes, you'll receive an email survey to make sure I've got the details I need to get the items to you.