Profectus — Game Design Document

Version 0.1 · Draft

1. Overview

Profectus is an infinite-progression browser RPG built around deck-building combat. Players create a hero from one of three classes, dive into endlessly generated dungeons of escalating difficulty, and grow their power through a single shared skill tree, equipment, and an ever-evolving deck of ability cards.

Between dungeon runs, players return to the city to level up, craft, buy, and organize. While in the city (or away), the hero can be sent on idle dungeon runs that simulate in the background and yield loot — but never the game's true currency.

There is exactly one currency: Anima. It is earned through active play, trickles passively over time, and is spent on everything: levels, cards, equipment, skill tree nodes.

All playable heroes are women, set in a luminous, whimsical medieval-fantasy world presented like an enchanted manuscript.

Design Pillars

One currency, many dreams — Anima fuels every system; choices about how to spend it are the meta-game.
Your deck is your hero — class is a starting point, not a cage; long-term builds emerge from deck + tree + gear combinations.
Always progressing — passive Anima trickle, background dungeon runs, and penalty-free failure mean the player is never punished for playing.
Shared worlds — players can merge into each other's worlds and share fate and fortune, bound by mutual consent.
Luminous mysticism — every screen feels ancient and enchanted, never gloomy or oppressive.

2. Setting & Tone

A medieval fantasy world with a whimsical, mystical atmosphere: enchanted forests, floating spires, moonlit ruins, illuminated manuscripts, and warm sanctuaries washed in moonlight.

World structure: A central hub city (safe zone, commerce, progression) surrounded by procedurally assembled dungeons, each with its own environment theme (forest, sunken city, crystal caverns, …).
Tone: Light-hearted mysticism with theatrical flair. Danger is real but never punishing.
Characters: All heroes and notable characters are women.

3. Core Loop

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                THE CITY                     │
│  spend Anima: levels · cards · gear · tree  │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
               │ equip deck & gear
               ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              DUNGEON RUN                    │
│  branching map → card battles → loot        │
│  ACTIVE run: loot + Anima                   │
│  IDLE run (background sim): loot only       │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
               │ return with spoils
               ▼
          back to the city

The loop never ends: dungeons scale infinitely, so progression is unbounded.

4. Currency: Anima

Anima is the soul-stuff of the world — the only earnable resource.

Sources

Source	Anima	Loot/Materials
Active dungeon fights (played)	✔	✔
Idle dungeon runs (background)	✘	✔
Passive trickle	✔ (small, over time)	✘

Sinks

Levels — buy character levels outright.
Skill tree nodes — unlock and upgrade nodes.
Cards — acquire new cards, upgrade existing ones.
Equipment — purchase, identify, or reforge gear.
City services — inventory/deck slots, cosmetics, convenience.

Because idle runs give no Anima, active play remains the engine of growth; idle runs reward preparation and patience with materials and gear.

5. Heroes & Classes

The player picks one class at character creation. Classes define the starting stats, starting cards, and opening position in the skill tree — but any build is eventually reachable ("starting points help, mixes are possible").

Class	Fantasy	Starting identity
Shield Maiden	Immovable protector	High health/block, defensive & counter cards
Witch	Weaver of hexes	Damage-over-time, curses, area control
Assassin	Whisper of the blade	Burst damage, critical strikes, evasion

Class differences soften over time as players invest across the single shared skill tree, enabling hybrid builds (e.g., a hex-slinging duelist).

6. Combat: Deck-Building Battles

Combat is turn-based, card-driven, in the style of energy-per-turn deck-builders.

Rules

Each turn the player receives energy and draws a hand of cards from their deck.
Cards cost energy; unspent energy does not carry over.
At turn end, the hand is discarded and a new hand is drawn next turn.
Enemies act according to visible intents/patterns; the player responds.
The card hand is displayed at the bottom of the screen; the battlefield above shows the hero, enemies, and the dungeon's themed backdrop.

The Deck

Deck size is the player's choice: minimum 10, maximum 80 cards.
Larger decks = more variety per draw but less consistency; smaller decks = reliable combos. This tension is a deliberate strategic dial.
Cards are gained from dungeon loot, city vendors, and skill tree unlocks; they can be upgraded with Anima.

7. Dungeons

Dungeons are procedurally assembled from a theme pool (forest, city, caverns, …). Each dungeon has its own environment backdrop for combat.

Structure: Branching Map

A run presents a node map. At each junction the player chooses a path between encounters:

Fights (card battles)
Elite fights (harder, better rewards)
Treasure / events
Rest points
Boss (capstone of the map)

Deeper/further branches are progressively harder. Dungeon difficulty scales infinitely, matching the endless progression model.

Idle Runs

From the city, the player can dispatch the hero on an idle run that simulates in the background while the player does other things (or is offline).
Idle runs yield loot/materials only — never Anima.
The player returns to collect the spoils.

8. Progression

Three interlocking systems, all powered by Anima:

Levels — purchased with Anima; raise base stats and/or grant small perks.
Equipment — two layers:
- Worn gear (weapon, armor, trinket, …) providing stats and set effects.
- Card rewards from loot that add or upgrade cards in the deck.
The Skill Tree — one large shared tree for all classes:
- A character's class determines her starting position/nodes.
- All paths are eventually openable; cross-class nodes enable hybrid builds.
- Nodes grant stats, new cards, deck manipulation, and passives.

9. Multiplayer: Shared Worlds

Players never fight together in combat — but they can inhabit the same world.

Joining

A player may join another player's world.
Consent lock: once joined, a player cannot leave without the consent of the other(s).
Each participant keeps playing their own character.

Shared Economy

The moment a player joins, loot/inventory and Anima become pooled.
Both players can spend and use the shared resources freely.
Leaving a shared world requires consent; the split of pooled resources upon parting is a design question to resolve (see §12).

10. Failure & Friction

Losing a fight has no penalty. Keep all loot already earned; retry freely.
Combined with the passive Anima trickle and idle runs, there is no state in which the player loses progress. Difficulty, not punishment, provides the challenge curve.

11. UI & Presentation (Luminous Medieval Mysticism)

Per project conventions, all UI uses the custom medieval-fantasy daisyUI theme:

Palette: warm parchment and misted sage surfaces, deep botanical text, amethyst (primary), moonlit green (secondary), and antique gold (accent). Keep the overall value range light and readable.
Shape: arched and shield-like silhouettes, manuscript rules, celestial ornaments, vines, and gently rounded carved-stone forms.
Layout: balanced compositions with a clear focal point and generous air. In combat: battlefield above, card hand anchored bottom-center like a fanned folio of spell cards.
Typography: Uncial Antiqua for key display moments, Cormorant SC for headings and controls, and Spectral for readable body copy.
Motion: restrained magic: soft aura pulses, drifting light, and brief celestial glints on card play. Subtle always.

12. Open Questions

[ ] How are pooled Anima/items divided when a shared world dissolves?
[ ] Energy amount per turn and hand size defaults?
[ ] How many concurrent idle runs are allowed?
[ ] Card rarity tiers and upgrade paths?
[ ] Does the skill tree have refund/respec, and at what Anima cost?
[ ] Dungeon theme rotation schedule and boss variety?

13. Technical Notes (context, not implementation)

Fresh v2 (Vite plugin) on Deno; islands for interactive combat/map screens.
Turso (libSQL) persistence for accounts, heroes, decks, inventories, shared world state.
Auth required; first admin bootstrapped via owner email env var.