Three friends, their spellbooks, one painted hex board.
The tabletop edition of ArcoMage — coming with the Gamefound.
Single-player campaign mode — Level 1, “The wizard arrives.”
One of fifteen hand-written chapters your pledge unlocks.
Announcing…
The First ArcoMage Cup!
Be part of history! Sign up today to battle for the
ArcoMage Cup — the world’s newest hyper-competitive
e-sport. Fast paced, free-to-play, made for adults but kid friendly.
Join our Gamefound to help us create more spells, a single-player
campaign, and a mobile version — and get never-again-offered
founder perks. Join a guild or create your own and be part of the community.
Nine ghost-themed spells — 2 Epic, 3 Legendary,
3 Rare, plus a bonus Common — included free in the Archmage
Deluxe and Collector tiers. Here’s the painted card art and the
creatures they put on the board, fully animated, straight from the engine:
Demonic PossessionLegendaryLichLegendaryMemory JarRareRing of SaltCommon bonus
And these aren’t just cards — here are the
creatures the Ghost Pack puts on the board, fully animated,
straight from the engine:
Ghost3/3Child’s Ghost1/1LichCemetery Moth
Five more cards in the pack
arriving before launch — Graves of the Innocent, Haunted
Locket, Cemetery Moth, Haunted Portrait of a Library, and
Haunted Hourglass.
Add Your Name to the Scroll
One email. We create your player profile and pick you a Founder
portrait at random. You can change everything later — this just
gets you in the bracket.
No password yet — we email you a magic link to set one whenever
you want to log in. No spam, ever. We use this to confirm your seat
and ping you when the tournament bracket opens.
Why this game is different
Thousands of spells — eventually
The card system is data-driven from day one. Every spell is a layered
SVG: the illustration is the only image; titles, costs, rules and
flavor are text data. New spells get added by writing one
JSON file and generating one illustration. Tens of spells at
launch, hundreds within months, thousands as the campaign hits
stretch goals.
A learning neural-network AI
An AlphaZero-style self-play network is the in-game opponent for
solo play and the balance engine. It plays thousands of
games against itself nightly, learns which spells dominate and which
get ignored, and reports back. Solo play won’t feel like a
puppet show; it learns the way you play.
Truly competitive — balanced by data, not vibes
Most card games balance with patches by feel. We balance with
measured win-rates from thousands of self-play matches. Over-picked
spells get nudged down; never-played spells get nudged up. One-click
JSON edit, instant card re-render, measurable shift in the next 100
games. Data-driven, not vibes.
GPT multiplayer when humans aren’t around
When a real opponent isn’t online, you duel a GPT-powered
opponent who plays in character — trash-talks, taunts, breaks
character only to congratulate a clever combo. The server-side
bridge is already live at arcomage.org for the early browser PoC.
Real spell effects + voice
Three hundred and eighty particle effects ported to the browser
through Proton give spells real presence on the board. Spells can
say their name through ElevenLabs TTS —
“Fireball!” — adding character without the
anime-card-game absurdity.
Guilds & community (more than a Discord)
Backers at the Guild Founder tier get a guild Discord, a roster
page on the site, and a Guild Stone visible in-game. Team play for
4–8 players is a stretch goal we’re excited about — but
we’d rather ship the core right than promise six modes day
one.
Cards built from data, not Photoshop
Every spell’s art comes from our reference-anchored generation
pipeline; every number on the card is editable JSON. A balance change
ships as a one-character edit and re-renders instantly. Here’s a
sample of the first six finished cards:
The remaining 74 cards in the launch deck
are in active production. Backers get every card in the launch deck plus
every expansion released for the first year.
Bringing spells to life
Our in-game videos are generated with state-of-the-art AI video tools
like Google Veo 3.1 and Runway ML, or
hand-animated in Blender. Every trophy reveal, chest
opening, and spell animation on this page came out of that pipeline.
Your Gamefound support helps us pay the per-clip generation fees so
we can keep producing high-quality animated spells, player-avatar
videos, and in-game cinematics — without slipping into AI slop or
cutting corners on motion that should feel cinematic.
The Gamefound-only Founder spells —
the iconic Life / Death split, the backer-exclusive
backer-exclusive Recycling Center and Safety Deposit Box
lands, and the Ghost Pack. Each
card’s art animates — this is what they look like in the
grimoire.
Life / Death
Circle 5 · 10 Mana ·
Split Sorcery
Recycling Center
Circle 5 · 20 Mana ·
Land
Safety Deposit Box
Circle 5 · 20 Mana ·
Land
Silent Hourglass
Circle 2 · 1 Mana ·
Summon Artifact
Hollow Locket
Circle 3 · 5 Mana ·
Summon Creature
Wraithbone Hollow
Circle 4 · 8 Mana ·
Land
Spells are baked into the game
from launch — not random packs, not paywalled DLC, not gated
behind grinding. Every backer at the matching tier gets every Founder
spell.
Cracking open a Founder Spell Chest — sealed
thematic bundles of bonus spells included with the Archmage and
Guild Founder tiers.
What's in the Box
A complete, premium two-player kit - built to the same rules
you play online, made real on your table.
1
Hex game board
An 11x17 in foldable board - the same 2-lane battlefield you play online.
100
Spell pages
A5, six-hole punched, printed front and back - your whole spellbook in your hands.
12
Custom dice
Custom D6 marked 0-5 (an ouroboros is the zero). They are not rolled -
you place them on the mat as counters to track values.
2
Character sheets
Printed and laminated - wipe-clean, reusable game after game.
2
Quickstart guides
Laminated - learn the game in five minutes, one per player.
5-10
Reference pages
A5, printed front and back - the tables you reach for mid-game, at a glance.
5-10
A5 sleeves
Protect your character sheets and reference pages for the long haul.
2
Monogrammed bags
Branded pouches for your dice and condition markers.
1
60-second sand timer
Optional hourglass - play at the app's 60-second pace, or set it aside for an unhurried game.
1
Rulebook
The full ArcoMage tabletop rules, cover to cover.
DELUXE TIER2 faux-leather A5 spell binders
Backers at the $98 Duel Box tier and up get two premium faux-leather A5
ring binders for your spell pages - your choice of DTG-printed or
foil-embossed covers. A real, lifetime-keeper spellbook.
Reward tiers
Every tier ships the full digital game
the moment it launches. The tiers below are the physical boxed
edition — printed hex board, ring-bound spellbook, tokens, and
dice. Pledges are one-time; shipping is charged at actual cost after the
campaign.
$58
Duelist Pack — 1 Player
One complete, standalone kit — and the honest
floor. There’s a catch that’s also the point:
a single pack can’t play alone. You bring your
spellbook, your friend brings theirs — so two duelists each own a
full set.
Complete physical kit — hex board, rulebook, ring-bound spellbook, player mat, token set, dice, and box
The full digital game on launch (Windows / Mac / Linux + browser + mobile)
All 139 Ultima Online starter spells, in print and in-game
Day-One Founder badge + early access
One pack is one player. To play head-to-head at
the table, you and a friend each pledge a Duelist Pack — or grab the
Duel Box for two in one shipment.
Most popular
$98
Duel Box — 2 Players
The whole game for two, in one box — the value
pick. Everything two duelists need to sit down and play straight out of the
box: one shipment, same premium components.
Full 2-player tabletop game in a single box
Two ring-bound spellbooks, two player mats, the hex board, all tokens and dice
The Ghost Spell Pack — nine ghost-themed spells — and every Gamefound-exclusive spell
Animated Rank Badge — your tier emblem as a 12-second painted loop
Ships in ~1 week
$279
Collector
The top of the ladder, fulfilled fast. Everything in
Archmage Deluxe, plus print-on-demand priority so your copy
ships in about a week — not after the main run.
Everything in Archmage Deluxe
POD-fast fulfillment — your box ships in ~1 week, ahead of the main print run
Guild Stone — found your own guild + a hosted Discord on our infra
Numbered Collector’s certificate
Private DM channel to the dev (Trent) for the campaign’s lifetime
Stretch goals
Real stretch goals only — things that add
genuine value, not numbers for marketing optics. We’d rather ship
the core right than promise six modes on day one.
Funding goal met -> the deluxe binder unlocks as an add-on for everyone.
The leather zip-up 3-ring binder with archival plastic sleeves — standard
in Archmage Deluxe — becomes available as an add-on for
any backer at any tier who wants to upgrade their spellbook.
Tactile, real, lifetime-keeper quality.
500 backers -> a bonus printed spellbook of exclusives, free with every
Duel Box and up.
Hit 500 backers and every Duel Box,
Archmage Deluxe, and Collector pledge gets an extra
printed, bound spellbook containing every Gamefound-exclusive spell
(the Ghost Pack, Life / Death, and any others we announce before
launch) — on top of the spellbooks already in the box.
Team play, 4–8 players — coming, look forward to it.
4-player isn’t a smaller version of the 1v1 game — it’s a
different game. King-making, alliances, multi-target politics. It
needs its own balance pass, its own AI training, and a new spell
school designed for it (multi-target spells like Redirect,
Force Allegiance, Curse All Opponents). Funding
the campaign brings it closer.
Second school of magic. 16 new spells + 2 new
Circles + expanded buildings at launch instead of post-launch.
Campaign mode. A single-player narrative arc with
scripted wizard duels, branching choices, and a real story.
More factions. New playable kingdoms with their
own spell schools, buildings, and lore.
Animated cards. Subtle motion on the rarest
cards — flames flicker, frost crawls, time bends.
The 3D wizard’s room dream version. Walk
through your wizard’s tower, pick spells off the shelf, sit at
the desk. A long-term vision; the 2D base game ships first.
The road ahead
A preorder is a promise, so here is exactly how we
keep it — from this campaign to a printed box in your hands, and the
online features that follow. The physical game leads; everything else is
built around it.
1
The campaign now
Founder preorders are open at the $58 $38 price. Backing
the campaign is the signal that tells us how large a print run to order —
the more Founders, the better the per-unit cost for everyone.
2
Manufacturing quotes (RFQs) next
We send requests-for-quote to established board-game manufacturers — board,
hex tiles, dice, custom cards, and the deluxe binder — lock the final print
specs, and secure the minimum production volume. If we cannot reach that minimum,
every preorder is refunded in full. No one is charged for a box we cannot make.
3
Reclaim the ArcoMage trademark
The original ArcoMage trademark has lapsed. We are moving to reclaim it so
the name lives on properly — protecting the game, the community, and the
Founder edition you are backing.
4
First print run ships to Founders
Founders ship first, ahead of any general retail release. Your board, dice, and
spellbooks arrive as the exact battlefield you have been playing online —
made real.
5
Mobile edition online
A native mobile edition for iOS and Android, so the tower duel travels with you.
The desktop client already wraps the web game, so mobile is a focused build, not a
rewrite.
6
Guilds online
Found your own guild with a Guild Stone, get a hosted Discord on our infrastructure,
and climb guild-versus-guild ladders. The community you build online is the same one
that gathers around the physical board.
About the project
ArcoMage is the work of one developer + a careful set of AI tools. It
exists because every digital card game I’ve loved eventually broke
my heart in the same place: the shuffle. You sit down, draw seven, and
half the time you can’t play your game.
So I removed the shuffle. Your wizard knows their book. Every
spell you’ve prepared is always within reach — one click if
you’ve pinned it, one keypress for the Circle that holds it, five
clicks worst case if you’re still learning the book. The skill
becomes which spells you practice and the order you cast them in.
The architectural decisions on this project — data-driven cards,
OOP-as-API, NN-tuned balance, no pay-to-win — are all things
I’d never want to compromise on. That’s why I’m
funding this through Gamefound instead of taking publisher money.
You back this campaign, you get a card game built the way I’d
want to play one.
Most Gamefounds say “here’s
a dream, fund it.” This one’s a little different. The
browser game already runs. The spellbook UI already flips pages.
The card pipeline already ships cards. The 380 particle effects
are already ported. The GPT opponent is already live at
arcomage.org. The neural-network self-play loop is scaffolded.
What your pledge actually funds is the next layer:
The neural-network training compute. Thousands
of self-play games per night cost real GPU time. The
data-driven balance promise is only real if the games actually
happen.
GPT API costs. The multiplayer fallback
opponent + the bulk spell-illustration pipeline are real
recurring bills. The first 80-card batch cost about $5; the
thousands-of-spells promise scales the bill proportionally.
Hosting + infrastructure. arcomage.org needs
to handle launch traffic. Founder Guild Discord servers need
hosting. The replay buffer for the NN needs storage.
The stretch goals. A second school of magic,
team play, campaign mode — each takes a full balance pass
and weeks of focused work. Stretch funding pays for that focus.
Time. One developer with AI tooling means
ArcoMage ships when it’s right, not on someone
else’s timeline. Your pledge buys uninterrupted weeks of
building, not divided attention.
You’re not funding an idea.
You’re funding the next chapter of a game that’s
already real.
Gamefound asks every campaign to be upfront about what could go
wrong. Here’s the real list.
Solo developer. ArcoMage is one person + AI
tooling. This means it ships when it’s right, not on the day a
marketing department picked. Backers should expect honest progress
updates, not optimistic ones.
Server-dependent gameplay at first. The AI
opponent and balance engine run server-side. If the server is down,
the game can’t play matchmaking. We mitigate by hosting on
redundant infrastructure and committing to multi-year post-launch
service. If the lights ever go out for good, we’ll ship a
self-host client release so the community keeps playing forever.
The neural-network balance loop is novel. The
architecture is well-understood (AlphaZero, DeepStack, LoCM); the
practical work of tuning it for a CCG is the part we’ll iterate
on most after launch. First-pass balance is human-authored; the NN
refines it once we have real play data.
If under-collected, we ship smaller. A funded
campaign at the base goal gives us the launch deck and core
multiplayer. Stretch goals only land if the stretch funding lands.
Refund policy: digital backers will be refunded if we materially
cannot deliver the base game; physical backers refunded for
unshipped physical goods.
FAQ
Is this a digital game or a tabletop game?
Digital first. The base experience is the desktop + browser game
(vs the AI, vs GPT, and eventually vs other humans). Printable
tabletop decks are a stretch goal.
Will there be microtransactions or random card packs?
No. You buy ArcoMage once. The launch deck is what you get; balance
patches are free forever. Expansions (new schools, new Circles) are
paid DLC at fair prices — never random packs, never
pay-to-win.
When does it ship?
The Gamefound funds the final 3–6 months of polish, server
capacity, and (if the print-deck stretch goal hits) physical
fulfillment. Digital backers get beta access ~3 months before public
launch.
How does the AI actually work?
An AlphaZero-style network — one policy head, one value head — trained
by self-play. Two snapshots play each other; the winner’s
weights are promoted; the loser becomes “black” for the
next batch. After every batch, a balance dashboard shows which
spells got picked most and which got ignored, so we can nerf and buff
with evidence instead of guesswork. The headless sim runs thousands
of games per hour on commodity hardware.
Is this AI slop?
No. AI tooling helped us build the system —
generating card illustrations at consistent quality, drafting the
spell-design prompts, training the balance NN. But the design (the
spellbook UX, the anti-pay-to-win ladder, the hex-footprint rules,
the cost curve, the spells themselves) is human-designed,
art-directed work. AI is the brush; the painting is mine.
What platforms?
Windows / Mac / Linux at launch (desktop client + a browser version
of the same game). Mobile (iOS + Android) is a stretch goal — the
desktop already wraps a web client, so a mobile WebView wrapper is
a small effort with real reach. Console is post-launch.
What if the campaign doesn’t fund?
Then no charges are made — that’s how Gamefound works.
We’d regroup, take what we’ve already built (the cards,
the spellbook UX, the GPT opponent, the browser PoC) and look for
another path to ship.
Back ArcoMage on Gamefound
If a strategy card game without the shuffle sounds like the game
you’ve been waiting for, pledge a tier above. Every backer is a
Founder — portrait, badge, and all.
