Jester's Banquet

WARNING
This game contains jumpscares! If you would prefer to play without jumpscares, they can be disabled at the start of the game

A friendly game of cards...

Create groups of alternating suits to score big points!
Uncover bonus cards to find a special surprise..!
And make sure to keep your friend... well fed.

Jester's Banquet is the survival horror x playing cards crossover - survival is important, but your primary objective is to score the biggest numbers possible. You can choose to play safe, and you'll encounter no danger, but your score will be doo-doo. Or... you can put yourself at risk of being consumed, and win big.

Controls

Point and click - that's it!

Developer's Notes

This game was made for the Godot Wild Jam #83 - Consume!

If you are encountering performance or audio issues in the web version of the game, I highly recommend downloading and playing if possible for a smoother experience. I am aware of some audio issues when playing the web version on mobile. I also do not have a Mac and cannot test that build of the game in any way - if it doesn't work, the HTML version should hopefully do fine.

My original plan was to implement the Analog wildcard and hand-draw all the card assets - even if I'd had the whole jam time, drawing 52 playing cards by hand would have been crazy. I also thought of having the Jester start off as a tutorial character (like Balatro!) for the other wildcard, but that would have meant adding some sort of dialogue system and it would've been blegh... Still, I'm disappointed that I didn't really implement any of the wildcards.

The development time for this jam was nine days, but I was not able to work on the game for the first few days - I have made use of a few pre-made assets. The main assets I used are listed below:

Jorel's Card Pack: https://games-by-jorel.itch.io/jorels-card-pack

Card3D addon: https://godotengine.org/asset-library/asset/3031

LootLocker: https://lootlocker.com/

Other things such as smaller addons, fonts and sound effects are featured in the Credits and Licenses file

How to Play

I highly recommend playing the game before reading for a more enjoyable experience. Look back to this section if you are lost.

Use cards from your hand to create stacks of four cards at the top of the screen - stacks must consist of alternating suit colours and be in rank order, just like Solitaire! You can place cards at the top or bottom of a stack, and the ranks loop around (e.g cards can be organised: 2 - Ace - King). Once the stack has reached four cards, press the green button at the top to complete the stack and earn points - the rank of each card scored corresponds to the points you will receive.

Each hand also comes with two hidden bonus cards - if you finish the hand without revealing them then they are permanently discarded from the deck, sacrificing potential points. You can instead choose to reveal one or both them, and they will join your hand and remain in the deck. Using bonus cards gives you a greater chance of increasing your score this hand.

Some bonus cards come with a surprise: the Joker! The Joker is a friendly card which will challenge you to a short game - prepare three cards of a specifed rank before the Joker finished its dance. The Joker will take its banquet directly out of the stacks that are currently in play; don't score your stacks too early, as once the cards have been scored the Joker can't feast on them, and you may be vulnerable. The more of the Joker's desired cards are present in your three stacks, the greater your chances of survival.

Stacks can also be discarded in an emergency, for example if there is no space in your stack collection for a card that the Joker is hungry for. This comes at a heavy cost, as discarded cards are permanently removed from the deck for the rest of the game, costing you potential points. Use the red button above a stack to discard it.

Once you have finished with your current hand, press the Next Hand button at the bottom of the screen; cards in your hand will return to your deck and bonus cards will be discarded, before a new hand is dealt.