Glyph Knight

The Kingdom lies teeming with monsters. Goblins guard every village, and animated skeletons and beasts roam the country side. The Fortresses and Mage Towers have hired Elite Knights and summoned ghastly creatures to isolate themselves, while at the center of it all, the Dark Knights exert their dominion from the Castles. You are a Glyph Knight, a wandering hero who must travel the lands, recruit allies, and master ancient skills to take back the Kingdom. Glyph Knight is an 18-card game played solely in hand. Your hand of cards acts as both your "map" and your source of actions. Each turn, you’ll plot your journey through the land, generating glyphs to defeat enemies, acquire new skills, recruit allies, and ultimately conquer the Castle to win the game. Your cards represent both a location, an enemy, and the paths you take to get there. The paths generate the glyphs needed to power your actions, whether that be combat, or diplomacy to try and train more allies. At the end of each journey is your destination, which is the location you interact with, if you can defeat the monster guarding it. When you leave, if you've upgraded the location by training allies there, or learned skills, you get to take them with you to help in the next conflict. But upgrading locations come at a cost, since doing so also empowers the enemies at that location. Glyph Knight is a game of delicate balancing and path optimization, while also introducing skill and ally ability combos to help you overcome the challenges it presents you. —description from the designer