Tempest is a single player table-top puzzle game. Your goal is to rescue citizens from the chaos of the storm before they succumb to the biting winds, hail, and debris.
This version (1.0) is published a part of the 0dd.company gallery "The Storm" under CC0 (Public Domain).
The game has not been playtested particularly thoroughly, and will likely need tweaking to maximize enjoyment. I wholeheartedly encourage re-releases with better balancing.
Honestly, the game may not currently be beatable -- especially the final level, without signifigant changes.
Inspiration and some quotes taken from 1700's book, "The Storm", by Daniel DeFoe, available on Project Gutenberg.
Enjoy.
MVU
https://mvu.one
https://0dd.company
"If a Sermon be ill grounded, if the Preacher imposes upon us, he trespasses on a few; but if a Book Printed obtrudes a Falshood, if a Man tells a Lye in Print, he abuses Mankind, and imposes upon the whole World, he causes our Children to tell Lyes after us, and their Children after them, to the End of the World."
To play, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil, a deck of standard playing cards. For simplicity, graph paper will work best.
Before playing we'll need to set up a board representing one "day" in the storm. Here's what your board might look like. Let's see how to set it up:
First take your cards, remove the jokers, and split the deck into the four suits.
Depending on which day you are playing, the number of cards you need will be different. For day 1 you need 6 cards per pile, which will be indicated in the day by "A-6". Remove everything from each suit except A,2,3,4,5,6, then shuffle each of the decks.
Next, draw your map. Each day has a different sized map made up of a grid of squares. Day 1 is 6x6.
To randomize the map, we'll be drawing 6 pairs of coordinates from the Hearts and Spades decks. Hearts will be the X coordinate and Spades will be your Y.
Note: position 1:1 is the top-left square. Ace = 1.
The first pair of coordinates is Safe Haven, where your player will start. Mark a star in that square and place your player token on it. In the example map on the previous page this was [4, 3].
The next 3 pairs will be the citizens. Mark them as A, B, and C on the map. For each citizen, draw a Diamond card to determine their name. Write their letter, name, and 4 health-points for each citizen near your map!
Finally, use the last 2 pairs of Hearts and Spades to determine the coordinates of your obstacles. Mark these with "x". For each obstacle, draw a Club card to determine the shape (centered around the x). Colour in these spaces to indicate they cannot be passed.
If part of an obstacle would overlap with another map feature, don't color in that cell.
In later days there will be more cards -- always exhaust the coordinate pile when setting up the map. There will always be only 3 citizens, but the number of obstacles will increase with each day. Note that when drawing citizen names in days past day 1, you must discard any drawn names that have appeared in previous days (they've either been saved already or died in the storm) and draw another.
Now, re-shuffle the 4 suit piles (they should still only consist of A-6, we won't be using other cards) and put them below the map. We're ready to play!
The game takes place in rounds. Each round will consist of a storm action, followed by a player action. Your goal is to move around the map and save as many citizens as possible by bringing them back to Safe Haven.
Storm Action: Draw a card from either the Diamond or Club pile, then one Heart and one Space to determine coordinates. Take the corresponding action from the storm action list at that coordinate.
Most storm actions will cause changes to the map, most commonly changing the "storming" state of one or more squares.
By default no squares are storming. When you increase the storm level of a square, draw lines through it for each additional level. Use vertical lines for level 1, horizontal for level 2, and diagonal for level 3 (max).
Note: The Safe Haven square and obstacle squares cannot have storms in them.
Player Action: Draw a card from the deck opposite of the storm action -- if the storm was drawn from Diamonds this round, use Clubs and vice versa. You may move that many spaces on the map (minus any penalties).
Note, the player gets to choose each round which deck the storm will be drawn from (Diamonds or Clubs) and thus which deck they move with. Keep track of which cards remain in each deck to optimize your chances of success.
Movement: By default you move the number on the card, Ace for one space, 2 for 2 spaces, etc. As you progress you will begin to incur movement penalties. Each citizen who is with you reduces your total movement for the round by 1 space, and spaces which are storming cost one more movement to enter for each level of storm.
There will be cases where you can't move -- for example if you draw a "2" for movement, have 2 citizens with you, and are surrounded by level 2 storms. On any round, you can always choose to ignore your drawn card and instead "force forward" which allows you to ignore all penalties and move exactly 1 square (with your citizens) instead of using the card number. This incurs 1 additional damage to any citizens with you.
Citizens: The goal of the game is to rescue the citizens on the map. If you move into the same space as a citizen you can "pick them up". As soon as you do this, put a checkmark next to that citizen, they're now following you.
Each citizen you pick up slows down your total movement for the round by 1. If you drew a 5, your total movement is now 4. Picking up a citizen immediately reduces your total movement for the round, but the action itself is "free." You can have multiple citizens with you.
If needed, you can also "abandon" a citizen currently with you at any point along your path, which immediately removes the penalty.
Citizens each have 4 health points. They lose points whenOnce a citizen follows you back to Safe Haven they no longer follow you. You should circle their name when this happens, they are rescued. You may continue to move about the map after saving one or more citizens.
The day ends when there are no more cards. As long as you rescued at least one citizen you may proceed to the next day, otherwise you have have lost and must restart the game from day 1.
Storm Actions
When you draw a storm action (Diamond or Club) also draw coordinates (one Heart, one Spade) to determine where the effect happens on the map.
Summary
Example Game (Day 1: 6x6 grid, cards A-6)
The player picks diamonds for the storm: ♦3 (gale) at ♥3, ♠6. The Gale effect storms a whole column, and Citizen B takes -1hp. The player action is ♣5, they move down 2, and then into the storm (cost an extra movement) to pick up B. Having B with them reduces their overall movement by 1, so they have to end their turn.
On round 2 the player decides to draw the storm from clubs, getting ♣4 (torrent), ♥1, ♠3 for the storm. They draw a ♦4 for movement. The player decides to try to save C as well, and moves 3 spaces (4-1) towards C. Note, moving out of a storming cell has no penalty, only moving in.
On round 3 the player decides to draw the storm from clubs again, getting ♣2 (debris), ♥2, ♠2 for the storm. This deals -2 damage in a 3x3 area and hits A, but we've given up on Old Mack already. They draw a ♦5 for movement, though with 2 citizens we have a -2 penalty for movement, and can only move 3 spaces.
On round 4 the player draws ♦Ace (Lightning), ♥4, ♠5 for the storm. Close miss, but now there's an obstacle in front of us! The player draws ♣3 for movement and can only move 1 space. There's only 2 rounds left before we're out of moves!
On round 5 the player draws ♣Ace (Lighting), ♥5, ♠1 for the storm. That doesn't hit anyone, but destroys an obstacle. Drawing a ♦2 for movement we can't bring 2 citizens with us. Our options are to stay still, abandon someone or "force forward". Note, at this point you can infer what the last round cards will be! Our quadrant will be flooded, and B is doomed. We abandon H. Stein (B) and move 1 space.
The final round, both the storm and player draw a 6 (downpour). Since we have ♥6, ♠4 it's in our quadrant, dealing 1 damage to both B and C. We have 5 total movement, and it costs +1 movement and -1 damage to move through each level 1 storm square. We have just enough movement (and C has just enough hp) to make it back safe. We only saved one citizen, but that's enough to progress to day 2!
Now you're ready for the real thing! In the real game, each citizen will grant you powers in subsequent levels if you save them!
Here's some tips to remember when playing your own game:
"The Wind has blown out the Candle of Reason,
and left us all in the Dark"
The storm lasts for 3 days, each day introducing additional cards and a larger map size.
The following is a quick reference list for map sizes, & obstacles, and which cards are included each day:
Each Citizen has a power that can be activated beginning the day after you save them. If a citizen dies or is not saved, they are unavailable in subsequent days.
When placing obstacles at a coordinate, center them around the X square. If an obstacle would overlap with a feature or citizen leave that square blank. If an obstacle would completely block off a path between Safe Haven and one or more citizens, draw a new obstacle.
Each turn you will draw the Storm Action & Coordinates before the player action. Remember, you can choose which of the two decks to draw from each round -- keep track of which cards are left in each deck to maximise survival rates!
Note: This part of the game is entirely untested.
These final levels may not even be beatable.
Abandon all hope ye who proceed.
The earth splits open and demons rise from hellfire and brimstone, the storm's true face is revealed:
Armaggedon.
Even in the end of times you know your duty: To save the Queen (or King, or Jack).
The Final Day does not work like previous days. Setup will involve drawing from the remaining face cards and using a pre-set map.
Prepare your 4 decks of cards as normal with cards A-10, as well as an 11x11 grid. Prepare an additional shuffled deck consisting of The remaining 12 face cards. Draw cards from this face deck to determine, in order: the Map, the Target to save, your Blessing, and a Beast.
Do not perform setup with additional citizens or obstacles.
Instead of a safe haven, the final maps each have a Start and End space marked S or E -- you must rescue the Target and bring them to the End space before they perish!
Final Day: Maps
King - The Port
Final Day: Maps
Queen - The Tower
Final Day: Maps
Jack - City Center
Final Day: Target
There is only one target to save on the final map: Your Leige! Place them on the map in location "T". Different characters will have a different amount of Health points, and each comes with a special power that's activated when they're in your party.
Final Day: Blessing
In addition to the abilities granted by your saved citizens in days 1-3, you get an additional power as listed below based on which card you draw:
Final Day: The Beast
From the sea a great beast emerges with the storm. Its goal is destruction.
Draw a card from the Face deck and place the matching beast from below into the space on the map marked B.
Each round The Beast will take it's Beast Action after the storm action and before the player draws movement.