Why waste time exploring a haunted house when you could be the haunted house? This summarizes the premise of new roguelike deckbuilder Deck of Haunts. Developed by Mantis and published by DANGEN Entertainment and Game Source Entertainment, DOH invites you to be the creepy house on the hill. Each night, for whatever reason, people will walk in to explore this so-called haunted house that preys on the blood and sanity of its victims. As the house, or perhaps more appropriately, the heart of the house, survive 28 days if you can.
Game Play
Begin the month by awakening and embracing your darkest urges. At night, explorers will find their way through the front door to see what’s so scary about this old house. You start with 3 action points to use the cards in your hand. As the month begins your options will be slightly limited with your deck. You can drain their sanity, damage their body, move them to another room, or increase the tension in a room. Be warned that once a regular human explorer finds a dead body, they’ll be running for the hills.
If they escape, you get nothing. If you kill them, you’ll earn 30 essence points. Driving them insane will only earn 25. If you can manage to drive someone insane while others are still alive, try to double your points by killing the insane person. Sometimes this is easier said than done, especially depending on which humans invade your home. The next morning, you’ll get the chance to add an additional card in your hand or get a room card to continue to upgrade your house. You can only choose one. You’ll then get the opportunity to change the layout of your house before night begins again.
Of course at night, it isn’t just regular humans with too much time and no sense of self preservation who explore the house in Deck of Haunts. As the month goes on and people are dead or insane from visiting the house, expect there to be investigations. Police officers will join those exploring the house. Of course, besides a badge and a gun, there isn’t much keeping the officers there. When they come across a dead body, they’ll also be running. Perhaps to get back up?
A few days later you’ll see men of the cloth who will arrive to exorcise the house of any demons. Too bad they are literally walking in one. They too will run at the sight of dead bodies. However, they are slightly more annoying then police officers who arrive. Those holding the holy book can only be harmed or driven insane while they are alone.
Killing everyone before reaching the heart isn’t enough to win the game though. Eventually the masons will arrive and a dead body does not scare them in the slightest. They are here to destroy the heart of the house and nothing will deter them. Unless you can deal with them quick enough that is.
Building Your House
You’ll start out with three basic room types that you can add on and one clock tower. The basic room types have no perks, instead plan on upgrading these in future turns or use them to just add more barriers along the way. Essence is what you will need to keep upgrading the house so make sure you aren’t letting too many humans escape. Keep in mind humans with certain traits can enter from any exterior area of the house, except the heart room, so keep it safe.
While I won’t spoil all the different rooms so you can create your own strategies, there are rooms that allow you to do additional damage, store cards for later use, and even increase your points for the night. Of course, those annoying explorers with the investigation traits can ruin your evening if you rely too much on these types of rooms. Certain rooms will only last until they are investigated and then they may come with disastrous side effects for you. Weigh your options carefully as you layout the spaces.
The Good
As with every roguelike, you get a lot options as you go. This doesn’t make Deck of Haunts easier, in fact, in some ways, with more options, it may get harder. Will you choose to increase your deck or find additional ways to build out your house? Finding new configurations for the layout of the house is half the fun.
Of course as it is a roguelike, the calendar will not always be the same. So your strategies will change with each run. The number of people entering the house will also vary. This means it will really feel like you aren’t playing the exact same scenario over and over again.
The card types also have a good amount of variability. This isn’t just the cards in your hand, but also the rooms you’ll build in your home. You’ll also want to find combinations that work out in your favor. Keep in mind that you cannot have rooms that aren’t connected to the rest of the house in some way.
The length of the runs is also pretty perfect. If you are quick enough, you can complete a successful run in about 20-30 minutes. This includes time to think strategically about the layout of the house. It feels like the right amount of time, the run doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, much like some of the visitors to the house.
Pay attention to some of the things that the visitors of the house say as well. Some are quite clever such as “should I say something like zoinks?” The clever references to popular culture are a fun addition and I’d love to see more of these added in over time. Perhaps a “The Cabin In The Woods” reference somewhere? Of course it might be copyright infringement to have someone fly into a force field on a bike.
The Bad
The game does have some bugs that while they aren’t entirely game breaking, they can lead to some confusion. The larger your house builds and depending on the layout, you may notice some people don’t seem to move. You can hover over them to see which door they should be near so this can help figure out which room they should be in. Of course, you’ll have to have enough essence points and get far enough for this to be an issue. To be fair, I do truly believe these will be patched out as I have actively seen the team going through bugs that existed early on that have been resolved.
The difficulty spike with the final boss also somewhat feels like quite the jump. It could be that I did not have the best set of cards each time I went up against the final boss, but trying to take him out at times felt near impossible. After almost 19 hours, I could only take him out once with the perfect line up of the bell tower and the bell falling on him to take 100 damage. The increase feels like a lot from the second to last day to the last, but overall, there isn’t too much to complain about. Of course after the high of overcoming the Masons, what comes next?
Final Thoughts
Give into your darkest desires in Deck of Haunts. Torture your victims or drive them insane all while building the haunted house of your dreams. It’s all fun and games unless you’re the explorer in the house.
For anyone who are board game fans, Deck of Haunts feels like it takes some of the best mechanics of house building from Betrayal at House on the Hill. For those who are horror fans who always thought they could build a better house, this is absolutely for you. While you may not have marathon hours in this game, you will find yourself wanting to go back and revisit this game over and over to do it better.
Be warned, if you are not a roguelike fan or the idea of playing as the house itself doesn’t appeal to you, then this won’t be the game for you. However if any elements of Deck of Haunts described above feels like something you’d try, you’ll find yourself enjoying your time.
Deck of Haunts was reviewed on PC and will be available May 7, 2025. Gamer Social Club would like to thank the development team over at Mantis and the publishers at DANGEN Entertainment and Game Source Entertainment for the review code.
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