REVERIE

A dark occult tarot roguelike of cards, candlelight, spell phrases, and strange arithmetic.

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Reverie is a tarot-themed roguelike card game built in Godot 4.

⚠️⚠️This page is probably outdated by the time you get to it. Check the most recent devlog (at the bottom)⚠️⚠️

You build a focused tarot deck, choose a spread, commit castings from your hand, discover hidden spell phrases, collect relics, build points and multiplier, and try to pay The Toll before the reading collapses.

In Reverie’s language, points are Sigils. Multiplier is Confluence. Your hands are Castings. Discards are Banishings.

The game is inspired by the scoring satisfaction of Balatro, but moves that feeling into a darker occult space: tarot cards are cast in order, strange phrases answer back, delayed effects return later, and the score moves through the table like part of the ritual.

Reverie is currently in ultra-active development. 

Most things are still subject to change.

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WHAT YOU DO

Choose a spread.
Customize a focused tarot starter deck.
Commit castings from your hand.
Discover hidden Quick and Ritual spells.
Use Pattern Tells to recognize known spell phrases.
Collect relics that bend the scoring rules.
Spend Offerings in the shop.
Move through a branching Reading Path.
Survive escalating readings.
Pay The Toll

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THE SPELL LAYER

Cards in Reverie are not just values.

They are words.

A casting is not just a hand.

It is a sentence.

Certain card combinations form spell phrases.

Some pay off immediately.
Some linger.
Some return on the next casting.

As you discover them, your Grimoire records what the table has revealed.

The goal is for the player to slowly learn the language of the deck through play: not by reading a manual, but by noticing what the cards seem to remember.

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THE CURRENT FOUR-SET SLICE

For now, Reverie is focused around four active tarot sets.

• This was intentional. I had more sets planned and prototyped, but the game started to feel stronger once I narrowed the playable slice. Four sets gives the project enough variety to show the core idea while keeping the game readable, testable, and polishable. • 

The current active sets are:

THE SILVER NITRATE DREAM

Frame. Cut. Burn. Repeat.

Silent film, theatrical unreality, staged spaces, bad edits, and the feeling that the world is only holding together because the camera has not looked away yet.

Silver is the first set where Reverie’s faction idea became mechanical. Its cards can create Second Exposure, replaying part of what was already cast. Strong Silver castings can leave behind an Afterimage, letting the player choose which image remains and place its ghost beside the next cast.

The set does not just look like old film.

It behaves like old film.

It preserves.
It replays.
It haunts the next scene.

THE IMPERIAL AUGURY

Decree. Omen. Authority. Collapse.

Imperial ritual, state prophecy, military divination, civic grandeur, and the machinery of power interpreting disaster as destiny.

This set gives Reverie a harsher symbolic language: command, hierarchy, conquest, monuments, ceremony, and the feeling that fate has been processed by an empire.

THE HARVEST COVENANT

Offering. Season. Witness. Sacrifice.

Folk horror, communal ritual, agricultural dread, old agreements, and the sense that the village knows something you do not.

This set is about cycles, obligation, and payment. Something was promised. Something is due.

THE DISCLOSED FORM

Observation. Exposure. Structure. Inevitability.

Anatomical plates, clinical study, impossible bodily order, and horror through clarity rather than chaos.

This set treats the body like an occult diagram. It is not about gore. It is about revelation.

The body opens.
The pattern underneath answers.

Other sets may return later, but the current goal is to make these four feel beautiful, readable, and mechanically meaningful before expanding again.

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CURRENT FEATURES

• Playable route-based run prototype
• Spread selection
• Starting Deck Customizer
• Four active tarot sets with final card art integration
• Focused Major Arcana card pool
• 39 implemented spells
• Quick and Ritual spell system
• Set-specific spell batches for all four active sets
• Persistent Grimoire discovery and spell cast counts
• Pattern Tells for known Quick spell phrases
• Kinetic scoring reveal with points, multiplier, queued payoff travel, and Round Total handoff
• Relic shop and Offerings economy
• Final Omen pressure
• Settings persistence
• Deck, Ashes, Backpack, and Grimoire inspection tools

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CURRENT DEVELOPMENT FOCUS

Reverie is a solo hobby project in active development.

The current focus is no longer “add more decks as fast as possible.” The project has enough systems now that the priority is making the existing slice feel better.

Current priorities include:

• Improving readability during scoring
• Polishing the four active set identities
• Making spell discovery easier to understand without overexplaining it
• Improving the Starting Deck Customizer presentation
• Auditing the Grimoire now that the spell pool is larger
• Making Pattern Tells and queued payoff reveals clearer
• Keeping the game playable while systems evolve

New sets, deeper mechanics, and more occult layers are still planned, but they are being held back until the current foundation feels strong.

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DEVELOPMENT STATUS

Reverie began development on April 30th.

A lot has changed already. The project has shifted from a broad prototype full of possible directions into a more focused playable slice. Most art, UI, balance, and presentation are still evolving.

This devlog is a place to track that process: what changes, what gets cut, what starts working, and what the game slowly becomes.

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The shop is open.
The cards are waiting.
The signal is coming through.