How We Die

A tabletop session turns terrifyingly real when Hic and Illec’s alien-summoning scenario appears to trigger an actual invasion. The pair’s missing game master, Is, leaves behind only an invitation to his home, pushing them through a surreal crisis where board-game logic and reality overlap. How We Die is an indie deck-building roguelike with a deliberately tactile TRPG atmosphere, mixing ominous extraterrestrial horror with the strange humor of players making questionable character-building decisions. Its world feels less like a conventional apocalypse and more like a campaign sheet that has started writing back.

Combat revolves around tools, dice, and carefully engineered probability rather than brute-force attacks. Enemies drop equipment that expands your options, and each map presents another route toward Is and the truth behind the invasion. Dice function as both action points and resources: by upgrading their faces, adjusting values, and arranging effects, you turn unreliable odds into repeatable outcomes. Tools can be used repeatedly whenever their requirements are met, so the strongest turns come from chaining effects, generating extra draws, and finding combinations that let a single favorable roll snowball into a devastating sequence.

Its standout idea is the conversion of dice manipulation into a deck-builder’s central engine; instead of merely hoping for lucky rolls, you gradually build a system that makes luck behave. The roguelike format encourages experimentation with different tool pools, numerical upgrades, and bizarre belief-based modifiers, including choices that may strengthen Illec while pulling her toward alien worship. That gives runs a pleasing push-and-pull between immediate mechanical power and narrative unease. Players who enjoy Slay the Spire-style synergy hunting but want more dice-driven planning and a visual-novel/TRPG framing should find plenty to chew on, while newcomers benefit from its clear objective: gather the right tools, solve the current encounter, and make the numbers work in your favor.