Stabjack
A combination of Roguelike Deckbuilder and comic noir tragedy. Stabjack plunges you into a dark, gritty, demon-infested world, with gameplay that builds on the familiar concepts of Blackjack. Can a talking knife help you solve your wife’s murder, or is this just the beginning of your descent into madness?
Stabjack at its core is a deckbuilder, but with endless build and gameplay combinations you'll be making your own playstyle and adapting quickly to your own choices.
Cards have modifiers, backgrounds, and enhancements in addition to items that quickly change the pace of the game and gameplay. Decision making during combat for what action you'll take and to what targets makes every difference, in addition to effects that can occur in between and during turns.
There are many things to discover, secrets to figure out, and a lot of content to be had already!
The design for our full release has been fully fledged out before we even began development, and while we continue cranking it out, we already have so much for you to enjoy in this Alpha! The feedback and player interactions we get will help make sure that we end up with an incredible game!
More content we have coming includes...
- More main story investigations, including hidden routes with many secrets to find
- New game modes to unlock with unique challenges
- Dozens more items, more Card Backgrounds and enhancements to enable more builds and synergies
- More enemies with specialized mechanics to come across
- More NPCs with their own stories and involvement in investigations
- Many new events with unique interactions and outcomes
- More animations, story art, and special combat art to discover
While this is the Alpha stage, we hope you enjoy it to the fullest! We build all of our games with a community-first approach. Please consider joining our Discord server if you would like to keep track of our development efforts.
This is also an excellent way to give feedback, interact with our team, or discuss things with other Stabjack players!
Wishlist us on Steam as well! We'd really appreciate it so much.
Download
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Development log
- New languages, items, and a sneak peek of future foes!Sep 10, 2025
- Stabjack is now playable in browser!Sep 01, 2025
- Stabjack: Behind the scenesAug 19, 2025
- Stabjack Alpha Demo ReleaseAug 13, 2025
Comments
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A very decent game, one question though - why are cards randomly changing their types and backgrounds on "New Game+"?
First all cards became "Stone" - ok, I can survive not being able to store them, as I already had a perfect combo(face, face, ace = 21 every draw)
Next NG+ all 3 cards became random Napkin type cards and game was ruined without any explanation or reason explained to the player.
We have an event that that turns cards into these types but since you're saying it's occuring on a NG+ that's very strange.
This smells of an issue with the Browser based version of the game and code not being executed correctly in it. Would that happen to be the browser based version you're trying? I'd have to look at that specifically, and if so, definitely try the downloadable game instead.
Also if you are using the Browser based version, are you doing so from your phone or on desktop?
Could be that it's an event. I guess as soon as you make a decent combo, you need to avoid all events like the plague as you can't decline these effects.
Only 2 things can currently ruin your run - cards turning into a pumpkin(napkin) and a curse decreasing crit by 3, 21->18 so you no longer can play 3 face cards.
You could make a deck consisting of face, and 11 aces though or 21 aces.
21 stone aces, each deals it's value of 16 or more(+5 from relic) to current target when drawn along with all other benefits.
Sounds like you're enjoying the game quite a bit 😄 I will note that all of the things you see can screw up a run are actually avoidable inside the event (they can be declined once you know about what choices do what during different events, it's not random).
Curses however can be cleared if you find an event that does so, but you're right that they can currently throw a big wrench into your plan unexpectedly if it's your first time learning about them or you take a risk and don't like the result.
Found the issue- when Skip Story mode is enabled, the event isn't stopping at the part that tells you your cards turned into Stone or Napkin so you're missing the clue that it occured, and learning when and what choices were made that caused it wouldn't be possible.
Thanks for pointing this out, it has to be fixed to be made way more clear in 0.37.13 when Skip Story is enabled.
One question regarding this - is this a deliberate design choice not to let used know effects of actions before you make your choice?
Have you considered showing a hover or a small text below choice buttons possible effects, so that players don't need to remember every single interaction and which should be avoided?
That's what the action preview is for, it's on the right side of the board and to the left of the action buttons. It updates in real time. I'm not sure why you're not seeing that, it's fairly obvious, you wouldn't happen to be playing on Browser on your phone would you? That tends to be highly unstable so I want to make sure that's not the case.
Mindblowingly amazing game. The detective bits are such a nice addition to the story. Here’s my full feedback
What an awesome video!!! Thank you so much for your feedback. We've taken note of a few things we can improve. You might see them in upcoming builds.
I've probably put in 15-20 hours at this point, up to the alpha version 0.37.10. There are a lot of positives of my experience. Gameplay is fun, builds can be varied, devs are open to feedback, making changes or adding new things in.
My hope for the game going forward is to increase enemy variety, maybe add more items although there is plenty already as I've haven't unlocked everything yet and continue to squash bugs because if someone gonna find a bug, it's gonna be me.
It's an easy recommend at the moment and would like to see more people give it a try.
Thanks for the comment! We've got so much coming and we are so excited about it as well. The roadmap on this page isn't even all of it, we're stoked.
Stabjack is an absolute gem of a game that hooked me from the first deal of the cards. Its a very unique take on a roguelike deck builder that will keep your attention for hours.
The team, poured their heart into this alpha, and it shows. Even in its early stage, stabjack feels polished with a clear roadmap that will keep me coming back with each update.
if you love roguelikes, or deck builders, stabjack is a must play. it's already one of the best in the genre.
10/10 an unforgettable descent into a beautifully brutal world!
Easy to pick up with a very addicting gameplay loop. Can't wait to see the full release!
Very cool game! I love the art style <3 It seems like a game that a lot of thought was put into how it was designed. Great job!!
Very Refreshing take on a card card focused Rogue lite, very excited to play the full release, had the blast trying out the alpha.
Simple to pick up but allows you to really get involved with deckbuilding and items that change the gameplay giving great replayability.
Moments that a plan(or some draw luck) pays off in combat feel great from something like lining up a bunch of crits with a scry to drawing just the right combo of shield cards to live through being hit into the next round.
It has a clean and thematic UI with some nice conveniences.
I'm excited to see where the story goes in the future, along with any new items and card types.
This game was amazing during my play test of it. I love the strategy in the game making you think about your next action and card buffs involved as you playing making it a fun and unique experience. Hoping for more of the story from the team behind the game. i need to solve the mystery of my wife murder >:L