A cutthroat survival horror card game
In the town of Blackridge, blood buys bread, and the only thing more dangerous than the beasts in the dark are the hunters at your side.
Move your lantern. Something’s out there.
How it plays
Every day in Blackridge
You’re mercenaries hunting the horrors of a cursed frontier, and each other. For 2 to 4 players (best with 3 or 4). The game is played one day at a time, and every day goes like this.
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An event
Each day begins with an event, where players bet items to compete for rewards. Only the player with the highest bet benefits, while the rest face the consequences. The Event Leader goes first, then play goes clockwise.
- Pass: hold off for now. You can still bet when the turn comes back around to you. Keep passing until all bets are final and you’re not participating, which usually means the penalty.
- Bet: place one or more items face down. Corrupted items go in sideways.
- Partner up: combine your cards with any number of players into one bet, and agree up front how to split the reward and the trophy. Nobody has to be truthful about their cards.
- Play a Corruption card: once you’re Blighted, your Corruption cards work much like tools or weapons.
- Raise: once everyone has acted, go around again adding cards or corrupting ones you bet, until all bets are final.
- The reveal: every bet flips and the highest bet wins, as long as it reaches the creature’s Wager. If the top bets tie, those players dodge the penalty, but nobody gets the reward.
- Shops aren’t bets: everyone can buy. Incidents bring their own rules, printed on the card.
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Meal Time
After the event, every living player must discard a Ration. No Ration? Take a Corruption card instead. Blighted players don’t eat: they discard a Corruption card and take a Damage card.
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Resupply
Then every living player draws a random item. Roll a die: 1–2 is a Ration, 3–4 a Tool, 5–6 a Weapon. Blighted players draw nothing, but they can bluff that they did. Then the next player clockwise becomes the Event Leader.
The cycle continues until only the strongest remain. You win the game if all other players are dead or Blighted and you are the last one standing. If players manage to get through every event, the living player with the most trophies (creatures they killed) wins. Tied on trophies? Fewest ailments (Corruption and Damage cards) wins, then fewest Damage cards.
The bounty board
Something new every day
Creatures are the main threats. Your bet has to reach the creature’s Wager, and the highest bet wins the reward. Skip one or lose the bet and you usually take the penalty. Kill it and you keep the card as a trophy. Some creatures have two options, and you can bet on both. Shops aren’t bets, so everyone can buy. Pay the Cost or spend a trophy instead. If the Cost is items, you can rob the shop and take Corruption. Incidents are mini-games with their own rules, and the Mandatory ones make everyone play. Tap or click a card to read it up close.
Hand management
Your hand is your health
Every player has 10 slots. Weapons, tools and rations go in them, and so do the Corruption and Damage that pile up. Corruption can be cleared with the right items, but Damage never goes away. When your hand is full of Corruption and Damage, with at least 1 Corruption, you’re Blighted, but you’re not out yet. When it’s completely full of Damage, you’re dead. Pick a loadout and see how long you last.
Choose a loadout to start.
You’re dead.
Corruption
The corruption that plagues the land
Corruption cards take up slots in your hand, just like items. Once your hand is full of Corruption and Damage, with at least 1 Corruption, you’re Blighted. The corruption has taken you, but you are not out yet: Blighted players can play their Corruption cards, and if you gain an item in any way, you come back to life. A hand full of Damage means you’re dead, and so does running out of Corruption while you’re Blighted.
How it gets in
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Meal Time
After an event is over, it’s Meal Time. Every living player must discard a Ration. If you have no Ration, take a Corruption card instead.
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Corrupted abilities
Most weapons and tools have a corrupted ability. Place the card sideways when you bet to use it. The Lever Action deals 3 damage. Corrupted, it deals 5 and you gain 1 Corruption.
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Creature penalties
Blackwater Bog Beast: all non-participating players or ones who have lost the bet take 2 corruption.
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Other players
Rivals can hand it to you. Win the Death Rattler’s offering and you make a player of your choice draw a corruption. Shilling snake oil and the Silkflame Siren push corruption onto other players too.
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Bluffing
If you bluff a card as corrupted by placing it sideways, you take the Corruption listed on it. If it has no corrupted ability, you take 1 Corruption.
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Robbing a shop
Instead of paying a shop’s Cost, you can rob it and take 1 Corruption for each item in the Cost. A Cost that isn’t items, like Surgery’s, can’t be robbed.
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Duels
In a Duel, all duel damage is taken as corruption instead.
How to get it out
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Tonic
When using this at Meal Time there is a chance it removes a corruption. Roll a die: 1-4 does nothing, 5-6 removes a corruption.
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Ritual Knife
Winning the bet on a creature event removes a corruption.
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Snake Oil Salesman
Get surgery: remove 2 corruption, and pay for it by taking 1 Damage. Or shill snake oil: pay 1 tool and 1 weapon to give one of your corruption cards to another player.
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Chickens Foot
Lets you play Corruption while you’re still alive. Play this card on an event face up. Then play a corruption card from your hand. After the event is concluded the corruption card is discarded. Corrupted, you play 2 corruption cards instead and take 2 Damage.
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Once you’re Blighted
Corruption cards you play are discarded like any other bet. Each Meal Time you discard one and take a Damage card, and you can discard them to make room for items you gain.
Once you’re Blighted
Blighted players can play Corruption cards on Creature events, as many as they like in one bet, and they’re discarded like any other bet. Being Blighted changes the rest of your game too:
- Event penalties don’t affect you, and any Corruption you would take is ignored.
- If another player makes you take Damage, it replaces one of your Corruption cards.
- At Meal Time you discard a Corruption card and take a Damage card, and you don’t draw an item.
- Your hand is always full. If you’re still Blighted at the end of an event, fill every empty slot with a Damage card.
- Gain an item in any way and you come back to life. You keep every item you gain, discarding Corruption to make room, never Damage.
- You can only use a shop by spending a trophy.
- Run out of Corruption cards and you die and lose the game.
There are 12 kinds of Corruption card, two of each in the 24-card deck. Pick one from the hand to see what it does.
Deals damage
Violent
Deals 2 damage.
Played like a weapon, face down in your bet.
The story
Made in 24 hours
Blight of Blackridge was created for a Blackthornprod video as part of a 24-hour game development challenge. The goal was to design a survival horror game within the time limit. The result is a thrilling and chaotic experience centered around betting, deception, and screwing over your friends. Since then it has kept growing, and it’s now on version 2.1. See what changed in each version.
Saddle up
Ways to play
Tabletop Simulator
Tabletop Simulator is around $20 on Steam. Once you have it, install the mod and you’re set. The mod is up to date with version 2.1.
Get the mod → FreeScreentop.gg
Plays right in your browser. A little less functionality than the Tabletop Simulator version, but it works relatively the same: all you need is an account. Also up to date with version 2.1.
Play now →The rule book
Everything from setup to bluffing, partnerships and what happens when the Blight takes you. Read it here or download the PDF.
Read the rules → PDF ↓ 8.1 MB
Every card
All 53 card designs from the 2.1 deck, in the art gallery.
Looking for people to play with, or have feedback? Join the Discord.
“6 tickets to hell, and your name is on all of them”
the Six Shooter