Runecast

Runecast is a roguelike deckbuilder where the cards are letters. You draft runes instead of cards. Every real dictionary word you spell becomes a spell cast at the creature in front of you.

SPELL TO CAST

Tap letters to build a word, then cast it on the enemy. Longer words do more base damage while relics and scrolls raise your damage and your multiplier. Elemental and enchanted runes make your words hit even harder. Fire, ice, thunder and wind each bring their own effect, while enchanted runes push the score higher. You only get five casts, so make them count.

THE CLOCK IS AGAINST YOU

Every cast invites a counterattack, and a clock runs while you think. When it expires the creature enrages and strikes on its own for the rest of the fight. Health carries between fights and there is no free healing.

BUILD A RUN TO BECOME STRONGER

Between fights the map branches, and every path is a choice. Fights, chests, rooms that reward you and rooms that cost you. After every fight, you visit the merchant and buy relics, scrolls, rune packs and unique services. Relics are the run's spine. They compound, and the right pair changes how you play rather than just how hard you hit. Scrolls are one-shot answers to a fight that isn't going your way. Rune packs transform the runes in your deck into elemental and enchanted runes.

BOSSES DICTATE WHAT YOU CAN SPELL

Every boss sets a rule. The word must end in a vowel. No repeated letters. Shorter than your last word. Thirty-four bosses, each with their own demand. A word that breaks the rule still casts — it just deals half damage. The rule never stops you playing, but half damage against a boss that soaks everything you have is a loss you feel, and you feel it more with every chapter.

SEVEN MODES

• Standard run — eight chapters, a branching map, a merchant between fights

• Puzzle Gauntlet — one life, each rung setting its own rule

• Arena — eight rounds against other players' recorded runs, played against your own clock, with monthly seasons and a leaderboard

• Daily Trial — one seed, the same for everyone, once a day

• Weekly Affliction — a week-long run under its own mutators

• Boss Rush — every boss, back to back, nothing in between

• Endless — offered when you beat the final boss

And Ascension: twenty rungs of stacking difficulty on the standard run, for when eight chapters stop being enough.

TWO DICTIONARIES, TWO DIFFERENT GAMES

Runecast plays end to end in English or Greek, and neither is the translated version of the other. Switching language changes which words are valid, not just which labels are shown. Greek has different letter frequencies and inflected endings where English uses suffixes, so a Greek run has its own optimal plays. Word games are almost never localised, because localising one means rebuilding the thing the game is made of. This one was built that way from the start.