The Mapless House

The Mapless House, first edition. Stray Current Studio, straycurrentstudio.com/games/the-mapless-house/

• What you need
• Setup
• Building the house
• Phase one: mapping
• The Exit
• Phase two: the hunt
• The Stalkers
• Getting out
• Dread lines
• Quick reference

You wake inside a house that has no plan. Every card you draw lays down another corridor or room, and somewhere in the deck is the way out. When the Exit appears, so does the thing that was waiting at it. Reach the Exit before it reaches you.

One player. Fifteen to forty-five minutes. No dice, no app, no one to ask.

What you need

• One standard 52-card deck, jokers removed.
• A table with room to spread out, or squared paper and a pencil.
• A coin or token for yourself.

Setup

Split the deck into these parts:

Leave room beside the Mind and Body decks for an Aside pile each, and room for a Refused pile.

Building the house

Cards go on a grid, edge to edge. Only cards that share an edge are connected; corners don't count.

• Corridors (2 to 10) must touch exactly one card already on the table. Corridors don't branch.
• Rooms (Jack, Queen, King) may touch any number of cards, from one to four. Rooms are where the house branches.
• Dead ends pull. While the last room you placed touches fewer than two cards, the next corridor must be placed against that room.
• Refused. If a card has no legal place, the house refuses it. Put it on the Refused pile.

Every time you place a card, read its dread line.

A card's value is its threshold, the strength it takes to stand in that place: 2 to 10 at face value, Jack 11, Queen 12, King 13.

Phase one: mapping

You don't move yet. Draw one card at a time from the Narrative deck and place it, until the Exit appears.

The Exit

The Exit can only open once the house has shown itself: once all twelve cards of one black suit (♠ 2 to King, or ♣ 2 to King) have left the Narrative deck, placed or refused.

• If you draw the ♥ Ace before then, shuffle it back into the Narrative deck. The house is not ready.
• When you draw it after that, find the card on the table farthest from the Entrance, counting steps across and down. Place the Exit in an empty space touching that card, the space farthest from the Entrance.
• Put the ♠ Ace Stalker on the Exit. The hunt begins.

Phase two: the hunt

Start with a Move. After that, every turn runs in this order:

1. Expand. Draw one Narrative card and place it, following the building rules. Skip this if the Narrative deck is empty.
2. Move. Move your token one step to a card that shares an edge with yours. If you are held, you can't move: skip this step.
3. Encounter. Turn the top card of the Mind deck and the top card of the Body deck. Add them together, plus any cards already holding you.
   • Equal to or over the threshold of the card you stand on: you hold your nerve. All those cards go to their Aside piles.
   • Under the threshold: the house holds you. Leave the cards face up beside you. They count again next turn, and you can't move until you break free.
   The Entrance and the Exit have no threshold; you always succeed there.
4. The Stalkers move. Every Stalker on the table takes one step toward you, after every Encounter, whether you won or lost.

Running dry. When you need to draw from the Mind or Body deck and it is empty, shuffle its Aside pile to make a new deck. The first time this happens, the ♣ Ace Stalker appears on the Entrance at the end of that turn.

The Stalkers

• Stalkers ignore the walls. They move through empty table as easily as through rooms.
• A Stalker closes the bigger gap first. If you are farther from it up and down than across, it steps up or down; otherwise it steps across. On a tie it moves up or down.
• Once the ♠ Ace has left the Exit it never steps back onto it. If its step would land there, it steps along the other line instead, or waits if it can't.
• If a Stalker reaches your space, you are consumed. Walking into a Stalker's space is just as fatal.

Getting out

Escaped: you step onto the Exit before a Stalker reaches you. The house remains. Consumed: a Stalker reaches you. There is no retreat.

Count the cards on the table when you finish. A bigger house is a harder escape.

Dread lines

Read the line for each card as you place it, aloud or on paper. By the end you have the house's story.

Quick reference

SETUP      ♦A Entrance (you)  ·  ♠A ♣A Stalkers aside
           Narrative: ♠♣ 2-K + ♥A Exit  ·  Mind ♥ 2-K  ·  Body ♦ 2-K
CORRIDOR   2-10, touches exactly 1 card
ROOM       J Q K, touches 1-4 cards
DEAD END   last room touching < 2 cards takes the next corridor
REFUSED    no legal place -> Refused pile
EXIT       only after one black suit has fully left the deck;
           too early -> shuffle it back
           place beside the card farthest from the Entrance;
           ♠A Stalker starts on it

TURN       Expand -> Move (not while held) -> Encounter -> Stalkers
ENCOUNTER  Mind + Body (+ held cards) vs the card you stand on
           (J 11, Q 12, K 13; Entrance and Exit always pass)
           meet it: cards Aside   ·   miss it: held, cards stay
STALKERS   1 step toward you after every Encounter, through walls
DRY DECK   shuffle its Aside; first time -> ♣A on the Entrance
WIN        step onto the Exit   ·   LOSE  share a space with a Stalker