Build your style. Face your mind. Master yourself.
A martial arts card combat roguelite where you craft and evolve a fighting style across runs. Combat is simultaneous commitment — both you and your opponent assign cards to six slots before resolution begins. Slots resolve in order. Victory comes from reading your opponent, not reacting to them.
You don't collect cards — you forge them. Each run, you build a fighter from scratch: choose a martial arts style, shape your deck through Tempers and Keywords, and navigate a sprawling skill web called The Mind. Between fights you refine. In the arena, you read.
Both fighters assign cards to six slots before resolution begins. Slots fire in order, each modifying shared context. You can't respond to what you haven't seen — so you learn to anticipate instead.
Upgrade cards with Tempers. Assign Keywords at the Meditation screen. Power has weight — literally. Broken combos are naturally self-limiting.
An FFX Sphere Grid-inspired skill web, unique to every style. Spend Focus to unlock abilities. The web resets each run — the empty cup philosophy.
A parallel narrative layer structured around the Early Heaven Bagua. Eight stages, eight thresholds, five thematic journeys through your own mind.
Both fighters simultaneously assign cards to six slots — then resolution begins. Slots fire in order, each one modifying a shared context state: position, guard integrity, momentum. There is no reaction window. You don't respond to what your opponent does. You predict it.
Cards carry height (High / Mid / Low), speed, and type (attack, block, dodge). Blocks absorb partially based on height coverage and speed — they are not binary. Dodge is all-or-nothing, resolved by height, angle, and speed.
Cards aren't collected — they're refined. At the Meditation screen between fights, you temper your cards using Focus: applying Keywords and Tempers that shape how cards behave this run. Keywords are unlocked once across your meta-progression — assigned fresh each run.
Every card has a weight — its minimum slot number, visible on the card face. Playing a card below that threshold incurs escalating exhaust costs. The most dangerous combinations are naturally self-limiting.
Every martial arts style has its own sprawling skill web — a neural map of technique, awareness, and power. Spend Chi to traverse nodes and unlock what your fighter is capable of.
The web resets every run. You begin empty. You fill it again. This is the empty cup — the willingness to start over and build something truer than what came before.
Each style has its own card pool, skill web, and feel. They unlock progressively — mastery of the base styles opens the hybrids, which unlock the mastery paths, and finally the bridge styles that cross traditions entirely.
Beneath the fighting game is a philosophical RPG. Eight stages structured around the Early Heaven Bagua — each one an element, a psychological threshold, a boss archetype. Your choices here are not combat. They are self-examination.
Master: A Challenge is in active development. Follow along for devlogs, design breakdowns, and early access updates.