Operator

Everything you fight has a number floating over its head. Your job is to build that number out of the cards in your hand. Add them together, multiply them, whatever gets you there.

The catch is that landing it exactly costs you way less than smashing through it. Overshoot and you've burned cards for nothing, and you don't get them back. There's no draw pile, no shuffle, no second wind. When the cards run out, so does the run.

Which is why there's no health bar. Nothing on the board can actually hurt you. The only thing that kills you is running out of ways to solve the next fight.

Adding is free forever. Everything else runs on charges you loot off the things you kill, and there are never enough. Factorial doesn't even turn up until the seventh fight, and only if you land an exact kill to earn it. Want the big scary tool? Go earn it.

You'll run into circuits that only accept a certain shape of number, and if you bring the wrong shape your attack does absolutely nothing. Doesn't matter how big it was.

Sharpen bumps a card up by one. Duplicate copies one. Split snaps a card into two smaller ones. Golden Split turns a Fibonacci card into the two below it. When you're staring at a gate you can't hit, these are how you build the number you need instead of hoping you've got it.

Every fight has a par, which is the cheapest way it could possibly have been won. Get close to it with exact kills and you grade well, and your grade decides how much you're allowed to buy before the next fight. Bludgeon your way through instead and sure, you'll win, but you'll turn up to the next one broke.

It's a prototype, so it's rough in places. Runs in your browser, works on a phone, nothing to install. If something breaks or a fight feels unfair, leave a comment. I read them.