Future versions of this game will include an interactive tutorial and tooltips, but for now, you can read this quick primer.

This is an early build of a game still in development. Brace yourself for bugs, inconsistencies, and simply unfinished mechanics. This game is currently designed to be played on a desktop’s keyboard (the version I do most of my testing on outright runs in a terminal emulator).

Users of touch screens can use the expandable buttons to deliver input. It is also possible to click certain elements of the game's interface, but this feature needs improvement.

Controls

Use WASD or the arrow keys to selection options or cards on the board. “Up” adds more cards to your selection, while “down” removes them. “Left” and “Right” replace the newest card in your selection with the unselected card beside it.

The number keys or the numpad allow you to select options or card positions directly. (Zero of course selects the tenth position.)

Pressing Space or Enter submits selections and advances the game.

Pressing ‘f’ or any number greater than the cards on the board (e.g. ‘0’) will change mode, usually swapping between playing cards normally and discarding them.

Pressing ‘e’ or ‘.’ will sort the visible cards on the board. Unless you have cards selected, in which case they are moved to the left side of the board.

Pressing ‘q’ or ‘+’ will bring up a menu with tabs displaying various helpful information. Most importantly, the first tab allows you to see which cards are in your draw pile.

Gameplay

Encounters in Starmarked are called trials, and the most common type of trial is a series of tolls. These tolls demand that you give up a certain number of star points, subtracted from you total. The game is over when your star points go negative.

Tolls are paid at the end of a round, and thus, the goal of each round is to acculate enough star points to survive. You can think of this as your health and offensive power in one. It is how much you are winning.

Most rounds are divided into turns, which come in two types.

The setup turns center around playing sequences of individual cards to fill up the board, and the climax turn involves playing a hand of cards ranked according to the rules of poker.

The game currently assumes you know the poker hands (if not, there are many resources explaining this), so I will focus on explaining the concept of “strikes”, which define the moment to moment gameplay.

When you play a card during the setup phase, it it compared to the value of the previous card you played. As a general principle, you benefit from playing a series of ascending cards, but in practice the tactical considerations can become quite nuanced.

• If you play a card whose value is greater by exactly one, the result is a Strong Hit.
• If it the value is greater by more than one, the result is a Weak Hit.
• If the value is equal, the result is a Match.
• If the value is less, the result is a Miss.

Misses have negative consequences: avoid them!

These are not the only possibilities; more niche hits can be created by edge cases interactions. But one special strike type you will see often is the Block.

Blocking happens when the intervention of a rule improves the result of a Miss, shielding you from negative consequences.

Playing ‘red’ or ‘orange’ (i.e. Hearts suit and Diamonds suit) cards will generate heart points. These points will be spent automatically to reduce the damage from a Miss, turning it into a Block if it is reduced to zero.

After a strike, you draw one card to replace the one just played. If the strike was a hit, you draw another, increasing the the number of cards on the board. When the board is full, the setup phase ends, and the binding phase begins.

Binding involves playing multiple cards at once, calculating the poker that they contain, and gaining stars according to its ranking. Beware that binding a High Card (the lowest value hand) will instead cost you stars! Likewise, the next lowest hand (One Pair) confers no stars by itself.

While certain interactions can win you stars during setup, it is the climax where you gain most of your stars, but to ensure enough stars are gained, you must have a good board going into the climax phase. Thus, thoughtful play during your setup phase is key to progressing in Starmarked.

Most cards are drawn face down, obscuring their true value, which make the question of what move is best rather complex. Landing hits and matches reveals cards, but the best way to quickly increase the range of visible cards is by discarding.

Discarding expends the spade points you gain by playing ‘blue’ or ‘cyan’ (i.e. Spades suit and Clubs Suit). You will draw and reveal however many cards you discarded.

Note that, in a certain sense, there is no distinct concept of “discarding” as a such: you are actually still binding cards. Thus, “discarding” a hand that contains a poker hand will earn you bonus stars.

Because of this, you cannot discard hands once you reach the climax phase — it would be the same as playing them!

This primer should be enough to help you make it through your first trial in Starmarked. At the end of a trial, you are offered options for improving your deck, and you can explore different types of trial rooms on the map.

However, because such elements are still under active development, there is a risk of any explanation I give becoming outdated.

Have fun exploring what else the game has to offer.

Thank you so much for your time.