Caliban (Demo)

A deck-building roguelike where Balatro meets Blackjack.

Welcome to Caliban (Demo)!

Buy drinks, carve runes, and socket gems into individual cards until a single hand shatters the score target. Build your deck, stack your combos, can you beat the demo?

At the Table

• Draw, Score, Bust: Stand safe for small points, or chase 21 hunting for multiplier triggers and combo chains. Bust and the hand's worthless. Stop short and you leave points on the table.
• Cursed Dealers: Every stage ends with a boss that rewrites the rules — splits disabled, dealer cards face-down, drink slots shuffled, multipliers slashed in half. 
• The Tavern: Win rounds to earn gold. Spend it on drink cards between encounters, carve runes that warp blackjack's core rules for the rest of the run, or bargain at the shop to reshape the deck.

Where Runs Get Weird

• Stacking the Glass: Combine drinks like Malt (+mult per club/spade), Stout (+mult per even card), and Measuring Cup (flat +mult) to chain multipliers into the hundreds on a single hand.
• Forging Your Deck: Socket gems into individual playing cards. Create cards with Blessed, Lucky, or Druidic editions. 
• The Climb: 22 cursed bosses. 156 drink cards. Every run finds a new combo. How long can your engine hold together?

Heads up, this is a prototype. A lot of the drink cards are still wearing placeholder art. That pass is underway and will land in future updates. Everything else, mechanics, balance, the full run loop, 11 languages, is playable end-to-end. Try to break the score target.

Demo content:

• Play up to stage 6, no daily challenge mode.
• Limited number of drink cards available (unlock extra ones by joining the Discord) 
• Drink cards still have some placeholder art.
• Translations are in Beta, they're still being worked on.

Drop a comment below with your highest score, or the most OP drink combo you've managed to stitch together.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4183980/Caliban/