Royal Execution: A single player card game with a standard playing deck.

Find the single page PDF with rules here: roofkat.itch.io/royalexecution
Find 'Clear The Dungeon', which Royal Execution is based on here: • How To Play Clear The ...
If you liked it, have any questions, or just want to reach out - feel free to get in touch on / roofkatgames !
This was my draft for this thing! Since I'm horrible at actually using it, I'll just leave it here and maybe it'll help with tags or whatnot:
Hey there my name is Ramon and I'd like to present Royal Execution.
It’s a single player card game played with a standard deck of 52 cards + jokers.
The goal is to eliminate all royals, by playing combinations of three other cards against them. Before I get into it further I want to say that this game is based on the card game “Clear the dungeon” created by Mark from “Riffle, Shuffle & Roll”.
With that out the way, let’s set things up!
In order to execute the royals we’ll separate them from the deck first. The letters on these royals may seem a bit weird, that’s because I’m using a Dutch deck. The B here is a Jack, the V is a queen, and the H is a king. Now that we’ve separated them we’ll shuffle them, and then lay them out in three rows, all of them face down except for the last on each row.
The remaining pile is our draw pile. We’ll shuffle those too, and when we’re done we’ll grab the top 9 cards, lay them down underneath the rest of the pile rotated 90 degrees. I’ll explain why when we get to it!
Alright that’s the setup. Now, each turn you’ll grab the top three cards from your draw pile, laying them face-up in front of you. That’s your hand. You have to play all three of these before drawing new cards. You can either use them to attack the royals, or you can discard them to the top or the bottom of the discard pile. As we just started the discard pile doesn’t exist yet, so I’ll get to that later. First let’s talk about fighting royals. In order to defeat a royal, you need to place three cards on them. The first two need to have a combined value that is either the same or greater than the value of the royal. The Jack has a value of 11, the Queen has a value of 12, and the King has a value of 13. So to take out a jack you could place a 5 and a 6 on it, or a 4 and a 10. For these first two cards it doesn’t matter what suit you use, all that matters is the values. Now the third card has some more restrictions: This is the trigger card that makes the attack work, and it needs to have the same suit as the royal it’s attacking. So if you’re attacking a king of hearts, this third card needs to be a heart as well. On top of that it’s value needs to be higher than at least one of the first two cards. So if you played a 5 and a 6 to defeat a Jack of hearts, you’ll need to find a 6 of hearts or higher as a final card. This means it’s often useful to try combine a low and a high card as the first two in your combo. For example combining two eights means the value is high enough to defeat any royal, but you’ll make it hard for yourself to find a suitable trigger card.
Once you’ve executed a royal with a combo of three, you can choose which of the three cards you played you want to add to your discard pile, and the remainder goes into the graveyard along with the royal they just defeated. If there’s a face-down royal behind the one you just defeated, turn it around to face you. The card you just got out of the combo is added to the discard pile that you can also discard cards from your hand to. And same as when you discard from your hand, the card you got out of the combo can be added to the top or the bottom. The reason you get to decide that is because these cards aren’t out of the game: you can play the top card on the discard pile at any point. This means if you have a jack of hearts and a king of hearts both waiting for a high value trigger card, once you find one it can be used to take out the Jack, then added to your discard pile, and used it again for the king.
Those are the main rules, but as you might have realized we still have two special type of cards in the draw pile: Jokers and Aces. Jokers can be used as any value from 2 to 10, and as any suit: so they’re ideal cards to play if you put yourself in a tough situation. Aces have a value of 1, but they can always be used as a trigger card if they match the suit of the royal. These two, jokers and aces, cannot be retrieved when you defeat a royal though, after being used they will always go into the graveyard along with them.

[@xv8852]

your english is crazy good. i was shocked when you said "i forgot what its called in english"

[@roofkat]

Thanks XV!

[@riffleshuffleandroll]

Thank you for the shout out! Very glad to see you finished this project. I hope all is well, and I’d be happy to work together on future ideas.

[@sewaprolo]

I would've called the game "Regicide." Anyway, awesome game. Thanks for sharing.

[@cuddlequeen3225]

There's a lot of games that could be called regicide at this point lawl. There's a product that is sold (basically themed deck of playing cards) called Regicide so probably need more unique names.

[@kosterix123]

Regicide is a normal reaction, until you realize that there are at least five different game rulesets all called regicide. There's also one called Headcannon. It blows up royals, from a distance. Think of it as a 2-d version of execution... Which is so far the most impressive (to me).

[@cuddlequeen3225]

I like that this game is based on Clear the Dungeon which in turn uses elements from Gridcannon to create a community effort of lonely gamers that own a deck of playing cards.

[@eduardoxenofonte4004]

4:49 His brain be like: Kar- WAIT THIS IS IS ENGLISH

[@paynemachina7276]

I am addicted to this. Thank you very much for designing this game. I myself doubled the card set and removed all the jokers and aces. The goal is to Execute all 24 royals. Thank you very much for this.

[@roofkat]

Impressive! Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@VeselkoKelava]

Hi. Very nice design, some very interesting mechanics there. It seems a lot of people have issues with reusing the discards. May I suggest discarding to the bottom. That way if you keep a high card, you have to dig down to it. This should force players to use low cards more, and add some tactical choices.

[@tailormarie4280]

I love the game so far and appreciate you showing it thank you

[@drumblecumble]

i do enjoy the thought process required for this game; seems very fun!

[@raymondsaint4156]

Very fun card game so far! It might be one of my favorite solitare games!

[@TipsyRoo]

Since you get to keep a card, this seems like a hard game to lose. The fun part about Clear the Dungeon is that, in most cases, you don’t know if you’re going to win until you reach the final round. This one feels like the ‘keep a card’ acts as a fail safe.

[@roofkat]

Although it was based on Clear The Dungeon, this game ended up being quite different - probably easier if you know what you're doing yeah! However, if you play the version without jokers or aces, it should still provide a decent challenge, especially if you're trying to get as high a score as possible.

[@antoniozumpano826]

This is a great solo game, congratulations!

[@classicalsheetmusic1986]

French revolution: God's vision

[@vastamari21]

I am on the process of thinking some additional rules for giving the chance to the royals to fight back.The only thing is that you may need an extra deck of cards and two dices: Imagine this: You take the 4 jacks,the 4 queens and the 2 jokers from the extra deck. The Jacks are Royal guards and the Queens are Royal Mages! As for the Jokers are your spies! Every time you trigger an attack to one of the royals you roll the dice.If you get a double then the Royal gets a chance to call reinforcements! So you draw a card from the small deck of 10 cards that you made!(4Js, 4Qs and 2Joks).If you draw a Jack(Guard) you add 2 extra points in the royal and if you draw a Queen(Mage)then you add 3. If the overall points that you have(without the trigger card) are less than the points accumulated by the royal then you get damage! Damage points:As long as you get damage you roll a dice and you get as many damage as the number of the dice.Max health lets say 20! If you die you lose(obviously!!) As for the jokers: When a Joker appears in the extra deck(Lets call it "War deck") then you reroll the pair of dice and you adding the number divided by two to your points! If you get a double then the Royal that you have attacked automatically dies whatever the dice!(It can be 1 and 1!) I call this rule "The rogue assassin" because your spy turns into a rogue assasin(obviously!!) But we are not done yet. If in the "War deck" appears a Guard for the same suit as the Royal that you have attacked, then my friend you are in a really bad situation! Why's that?? Because this Guard is actually a Royal Knight and it adds 5 points to the Royal's overall!(Let me see you fighting the Royal now!)Don't forget!A draw favors the Royal!! But wait.... What about a Queen(Mage) with the same suit as The Royal that you have attacked..... Then my friend you are officially doomed because this is not a usual Mage! This is the royal Wizard(or Wizardess if you prefer!)There is only one way to win now!... You roll one dice and you draw two additional cards .If the total of the two dice and the two cards are above 20 then you managed to kill the the Royal Wizard! You survived and the Royal dies automatically and goes to the graveyard with alla the cards attached to it except the one you choose to go to the discard. Please if you read all that and you think that something is missing from the rules let me know! This comment will be updated with some corrections and modifications!!

[@vastamari21]

Actually the reroll in the Joker case is useless because you already have enough points to fight as long as you have triggered the attack....I will think of something else with the Joker

[@HUNRockman35]

Nice for using Cartamundi decks, because I know from the Jokers.

[@bethanyward3340]

Can a deck of those cards be purchased? Absolutely lovely.

[@jdm2626]

These are Dutch playing cards. I’ve only been able to find them online (through Amazon, etc)

[@pedro.fontoura]

Hi. I have an online implementation that let's you play a very close game to "royal execution". Minus the "choose an attack card after the execution". Also, cards are always discarded to the bottom. I can share the link by email, if you want.

[@mdcs1992]

Hi. Sorry I'm late. I've been a solo board gamer for 25+ years and just started watching these games with standard playing cards. Yours is as good as most out there and definitely worth trying. Glad you added the bit at the end because being able to calculate a score you can try and beat is always a plus. You probably know that the trigger element is used in Grid Cannon. As I like complex board games, I find all the playing card games a rather simple and unexciting. This is obviously because of the simplicity of standard playing cards. Off topic. Languages interest me. I taught myself German completely from scratch, to a standard high enough to work in a German speaking Tech Support role. Anyway...I digress. My question is What do the B, V and H stand for. I know in German that the B is Bube. I've liked and subbed. Thank you for uploading this.

[@roofkat]

Hey mdsc, thanks for watching the video! It's a Dutch set of cards, so the B V and H are B = "Boer", which means Farmer, in place of the english J V = "Vrouw", which means woman or wife, in place of the english Q H = "Heer", which is either a fancy way of saying man, but also translates to lord, which is probably what this comes from, replacing the english K Hope that helps :)

[@mdcs1992]

@@roofkat helps greatly. I think written Dutch is sometimes similar to German but the pronunciation is different. Thanks for replying.

[@taxcafe71]

Hello, when you say we need to ‘play all three” of our draw pile cards, I’m assuming discarding is not considered ‘playing’? Is the game over if I’m not able to play my 3 face up cards? Also, once I play my first (or second) Royal defeating card, is it too late to discard that royal defeating card if I realize I’ve made a mistake? 😂 I’m pretty sure it’s game over with either scenario, but I thought I’d ask. Fun game, thanks to you and Ramon! Syma

[@taxcafe71]

I read your comments, in addition to the rule pdf, and you clarified the draw pile question. Thanks!

[@eveningclicks7767]

Interesting! I'm gonna try this with the royals having an attack back via dice roll causing some cards to go to graveyard every other turn and see how that goes. Jokers the exception. Access to the reserve pile can be applied if draw card deck is empty and royals still need defeated. Beyond that, I think the reserve pile should have cards placed underneath. I wonder how your game would do as player vs player. 🙂

[@nattakritaupparakul8839]

Hi there!! I do love your games although I have a suggestion here, I think the idea of "u can choose to either put the used cards on or under the discard pile" making the game too easy, no offense here, so I suggest only put the card on top of the discard pile will make the game more challenge so now players will have to find ways to get rid of em some how. Furthermore I think the idea of reusability is good, still I find it too boring after I got a hand on some high cards, my suggestion is what if u add some restriction such as "the cards that once went to discard pile will be able to reused only once" or "U can only put the trigger cards to discard pile"or so u think suitable, I am pretty sure u will come up with something better than my idea, I think these might spice ur game up a little. For ur record I do love ur game, all these comment have no grudge or any thing if u find my choice of words irritating forgive my lack of language skill, english is not my mother language. Hope my idea helps, best regard

[@roofkat]

Thanks for your suggestion, both of those sound good! Have you tried playing it with those changes? And your English is perfectly understandable :)

[@nattakritaupparakul8839]

@@roofkat thanks for the reply. I’ve indeed already tried those, well for the first “only put the cards on top of discard pile wether they r high or low” makes u think a bit more, and doesn’t make the game unbeatable, second “the cards that once went to discard pile can only used one more time” for this I put the used card crossed like the 9 last cards in the deck, will make u think more wether to put it in the discard pile to save or used it right away, this will make the game more thinkful, also I added a lil rule that if I used the aces as tricker cards I can revived them once more, spoiling myself here hehe😋. Finally the “u can put only the tricker cards in the discard pile” doesn’t go as good as the second rule, and if I used those 3 together it was a lil too hard for me, so I suggest only 1st and 2nd rule apply together here, and all these will make u use more card and consider what to use and what to keep I don’t know how to describe it so i suggest u try it and pls let me know how u think about it.

[@nattakritaupparakul8839]

@@roofkat oh and I have just come up with a new idea what if we can draw a card if we beat a royal card, I haven’t tried this yet it was just poped up while Im writing this comment tho lol

[@TheVitorFilho]

Nice game like the Joker jailbreaker, to make harder i think the buying could be like in klondike. You see the 3 cards but you have to use the first to use the second, and use de second to use the third. AND you ar forced to put the cards on the board if a move is possible, if isn't possible you put the card on de the reserv. like: On board: Q ♥ > 6 > none K ♠ > 10 > none K ♥ > none 3 buyed: (first) As ♠ (second) 9 ♣ (third) 6 ♦ - In this case, I'm forced to put the As on the K♥, because 1+6= 7 ande 1+10=11 -then, the 9 i cant put on the 6 or 10 - ending putting the 6 on the 6 ( if the 9 is on 10) or in the reserv (if the 9 is on 6) sorry if my inglish ishard to understand, i'm from brasil /o/ i love card games

[@roofkat]

Hey Vitor, thanks for your suggestion, glad you like it! You could play it like that, but I think it will take away a lot of the choices you can make, which makes it less easy to be strategic. Curious to try it out that version though :)

[@qlixrz5014]

What happens if i get to the 9 on the bottom thats flipped the other way

[@zombitch_slayer5363]

Is there a limit to how many cards you can use in one go from the discard pile at once?

[@boardzonthetable1423]

nice game, but this rule for save a card turn on the game VERY, VERY easy. Maybe modify this rule for example you save the lowest card use to defeat royal turn on the game more challenging

[@roofkat]

That's fair! I wanted to make it likely to succeed if you made fairly good choices, but there's a lot of ways to up the difficulty if you want to. Getting the lowest card could be a way to do it :)

[@MarcosAndre-bm3ku]

can jokers be used just like the cards that finish or can they also be used to initiate an attack on royals?

[@roofkat]

They can be used as either!

[@zombitch_slayer5363]

Is there a certain amount of cards you can choose to discard per hand

[@hannahyoung5846]

Can you discard more than one card each round?

[@TheVitorFilho]

Another way, you can't save any the 3 cards you played on the royal, and you have 3 free cells to reserve 1 card per cell. all the 3 card on the royal are discarted to graveyard and the cards you buyed and can't save go to the graveyard to

[@Outlawtex]

I like playing if you use a discard card as a trigger card they all go to the graveyard ..makes it more challenging

[@TristanIraDiocera]

How many jokers do you need in the game. Is it 4 or just 2? My deck has 4 jokers. If i separate the royals, the remaining deck will have 44 cards. Which means that if the deck is almost cleared i'll have 6 cards left on the deck because 44 isn't divisible to 3. Doesn't that mean that my very last hand will have 6 cards instead of 3? Or doesn't it mean that i only need 2 jokers so that the deck will have 42 instead of 44? Because 42 is divisible to 3.

[@TristanIraDiocera]

The problem here isn't just about the very last hand but also about the chances of getting a joker.

[@roofkat]

@@TristanIraDiocera Hey Tristan! I would recommend playing with just 2 jokers, as you're right - if you play with 4 jokers it will no longer be divisable by 3 and the chance for jokers becomes really high :)

[@ahaansachdev1104]

You could also try with all jokers and divide the last hand into 2 hands of 3 each

[@GRAY-vg8fl]

So I have only one question. Since a Joker worth 2 to 10; if I have on a king, say, a 4 and a Joker (which is in this case worth 9), can I trigger that combination with a value 3 trigger card? Because I used the Joker as a 9, but it's worth 2 to 10, so a 3 is bigger than a 2. In other words, do I consider the absolute value of the Joker, or the current value?

[@eveningclicks7767]

I'd say no because the joker was assigned the value 9 to help card 4 reach 13.

[@captainnolan5062]

Why not count the remaining cards and see what your "score" is, then try to beat your score by having more remaining cards the next time?

[@jc12113]

Why do you have to put the last 9 cards sideways?

[@roofkat]

17:56 explains why I separated the 9 cards :) It's just to make it clear how far along you are into the deck, once you reach those you only have 3 turns left. Hope that makes sense!

[@jc12113]

@@roofkatOk thanks

[@83dante60]

KZbin proposed me this video. I've watched it, And I would love to do a video about it on my solo board game channel. Would you autorize me to do it ?

[@roofkat]

Hey, thanks for checking in! No problem if you'd like to make a video about it :) If you credit me, and mention it was based on the card game “Clear the dungeon” created by Mark from “Riffle, Shuffle & Roll”, that would be great ^^

[@83dante60]

@@roofkat That's normal. The video is out now. I have credited you, put a lonk on this video, credited Mark and put a link on his video of clear the dungeon. I hope I did a good job :)

[@jamieclaessens6148]

i played hardcore discard pile away and not toching the last 9 cards and max points!!!!!!!!

[@roofkat]

Oh wow, nice job!

[@kaydengraham7556]

What is the value of the ace??

[@roofkat]

Aces have a value of 1, but as long as the suit matches it can always be played as a trigger card (the third card you play on a royal).

[@virchaudhari4691]

What does the joker do?

[@roofkat]

at 07:15 I explain Jokers and Aces :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/nH-vhIqrd6-gZsU

[@maxbrass8725]

This game may be more fun if it was more like blackjack somehow

[@kosterix123]

5:10 9 diamonds is not higher than 9 of spades. So either you cheated or the rule should be "trigger card must not be lower". 9:00 then your setup is incorrect - you should first remove the jokers and aces. In headcannon, Ace is discard all cards tied to a royal, and joker is move 1 card around to another royal AND trigger it. Must match suit of course. The "normal rules" of your game are pretty much in flux, i.e. everyone is tinkering with its own variation, and no one version has come on top. In your version for example you could come up with a distribution of 3 kings, which would limit your options a lot, or all 3 of a same suit. Then good luck finding a card of a matching suit in time. I dunno, these variants all lack tension.

[@roofkat]

Hey Kosterix. At 5:10, I explain that the trigger card needs to be higher than at least one of the previously played cards. Because the cards laid down are a 4 and a 9, the value of the trigger card needs to be 5 or above. around 09:00 I explain that if you use a joker or ace in your combination, you cannot retain them in your discard pile, which is something you can do with other cards. If the video was not clear for you, perhaps the page I made here will make more sense: roofkat.itch.io/royalexecution If you have a good variation in mind that has more tension, please feel free to share!

[@magnusberglind3392]

Fun, but I don't think it's possible to lose. Played 4 times and won every game.

[@guttenbergfredmont3735]

can you sub in spanish this video?

[@roofkat]

Hey, I'm afraid my Spanish isn't good enough to write subtitles, but the english automatic subtitles are fairly accurate. You could try Auto-translating them in the subtitle settings

[@junknoodles1028]

Can uou just keep recycling the joker? Also has anyone ever lost this game? Seems very easy

[@roofkat]

Good question - but no, you cannot recycle jokers or aces. Only normal, numbered cards can be recycled