Ufflegrim: Mechanics Guide

Reki here. Since Ufflegrim is a somewhat unusual game, there have been some requests for guides and references. This written guide will go through all the major mechanics and how to play.

You’ll start in the deckbuilding screen, also known as the Well. From here, you’ll want to progress to the next Floor. Reaching Floor 100 is the main goal of the game. When you’re on a Floor, you want to make your way upwards. An exit to the next floor’s Well will always spawn on the upmost tile. Entering it is your main goal, with Quests to get more cards being your secondary goal.

All creatures can be encountered as enemies, or summoned as your own minions. They can have different life, attack, creature types, one of several movement patterns, and a creature effect. You can find a creature’s base stats and effects by hovering over it with the cursor and observing the description box that appears.

Your character has 2 attack and 40 life. You can walk into enemies to attack them, which will draw 1 card from your deck for you to use. All cards have 2 different effects based on where you played them:

1) Creature effect.

This is the thing a card does when you play it as a creature. To play a card as a creature, just place it on an empty tile.

2) Drop effect.

This is what happens if you try to play a card on top of an existing creature. It will not summon the card as a creature, but instead activates its drop effect, similar to a spell in other card games.

Keeping an eye on your life and letting your creatures tank for you while you attack to draw more cards is key to success.

Much of the mechanical depth of Ufflegrim comes from its creature type system. Card game players will likely be familiar with such systems, such as classifying a creature as a Dragon so it can work with Dragon-based effects.

Ufflegrim’s system functions slightly differently. Creature types are frequently added and consumed as resources by creature effects and drop effects. For instance, you might encounter a creature that adds [Wet] to enemies it attacks. From there, you could use a drop effect that deals damage to nearby [Wet] creatures.

When deckbuilding, you’ll want to pay attention to these creature type based effects, and set up to abuse them for maximum offensive or defensive potential.

Besides putting in creatures whose effects work well together, there are two deckbuilding mechanics to engage with.

1) Deckfill.

A deck in Ufflegrim has a variable amount of cards. You can have up to 30 in your deck, but as few as 1. Every card has a deckfill number. Your total, combined deckfill must reach 100 or more. Thus, if you have a card that has a deckfill of 100, it’s a valid deck just by itself. In general, stronger cards have lower or even negative deckfill numbers to lower your draw consistency as a tradeoff.

2) Limiters.

Select few cards have limiters attached to them. These add additional deckbuilding rules you must follow for a deck to be considered valid. For example, the starting card, the Faithful Shortsword, requires that it be the only card in your deck. Another example might be, “Your deck must contain 5 [Undead].”. If a card is too strong to be balanced by other means, it will have a limiter attached to it.

You’ll randomly be assigned a quest whenever you enter a floor. Completing quests is how you get new cards for your collection. In general, they encourage you to engage with enemies on the floor without rushing.

If you’d like the ability to fast travel around the 100 floors, the Crafted Dungeon is your hub area. In the Well of every floor, you’ll have the ability to purchase tiles to place down, building your own base. After you’ve placed some tiles, you’ll be able to link a portal to your current floor within the Crafted Dungeon. Traveling from linked floor to floor may be helpful if you didn’t get all the cards in an area, or perhaps if there’s a certain skin or tileset you’d like to purchase for your dungeon that isn’t available on later floors. Later in the game, you’ll also be able to enter a survival challenge mode within your Crafted Dungeon.

When you enter Floor that has no boss or special encounter, you have a random chance to get either an encounter or a modifier.
Encounters are areas with nonstandard tilesets, creatures, and layouts. There may be unusual quests to complete, or rare cards to obtain.
Modifiers are special game rules. For example, all creatures you summon are transformed into Shrine Golems. Or every few turns, all creatures are pushed upwards by 1. In general, modifiers attempt to give you a different way to play the game, or an interesting challenge.