Having launched on Kickstarter on the 8th of October, expandable card game Plunderlust hit its funding goal in just over an hour. The game, which initially began as a spin off of TTRPG Vast Grimm, sees players, either solo or competitively, exploring and plundering locations in a dying universe, recruiting gruesome Scum to add to their crew as they fight against terrifyingly deadly Monsters.
The co-creator of Plunderlust, Brian Colin, was kind enough to send Card Gamer a pre-production copy of the game so we could try it for ourselves. Is it worth putting down some of your own hard-earned intergalactic booty for? Let’s find out!
How Do You Play Plunderlust?
Supporting gameplay for either one or two space pirates, you’ll start each game of Plunderlust by dealing seven cards face down to be your Torments. These are essentially the life force of the universe, and if all of your Torments are drawn, you lose. To win, you’ll need to defeat a Boss Monster, but with standard Monsters being pretty tough to get rid of at times, it’s quite the challenge to win!
Each player has a hand of cards, and in each turn they’ll go through various phases: they’ll draw up to a hand of seven cards in the Draw Phase, play Locations, remain in place or explore a previous Location during the Explore Phase, have your opponent play Monsters or Mercs for you to face during the Lurk Phase, engage those cards in combat during the Fight Phase, then spend the Creds (the game’s currency) you acquired when exploring in the Buy Phase.
Note that if playing solo, you’ll need to spend your own Creds to put yourself and your Scum up against Monsters or Mercs, so you have to be careful not to give yourself anything that’s too tough to deal with, or you’ll find your Crew being picked apart!
There’s a great game here, with the excitement of exploring and looting locations, paired with deadly combat against vicious monsters, being especially engaging. The theme, while dark in tone, is beautifully brought to life with some amazingly vibrant, strikingly lurid color schemes and the scratchy, punky art style. Plunderlust has a pretty unique look for a card game, though it’ll be familiar to fans of the Vast Grimm TTRPG. Note that the early copies of the card game we were sent did bear the Vast Grimm branding, but this won’t be on the final product.
It’s worth noting that there are a selection of faction decks available for the game; though we were only able to take the Revenants Raider deck for a spin, there are six different factions on offer, and some were set to be available as Stretch Goals for reaching certain funding milestones. All but one have already been unlocked, however, as has a co-operative mode, so you can plunder the dark recesses of the universe alongside a friend if you choose.
Though compact in nature, given that it’s just a deck of cards, Plunderlust does require extra components to be fully playable. A deck per player is needed, as are polyhedral dice and a way to track HP and Volts, both of which you’ll need to be able to mark on individual cards (our solution? More dice!). That said, who among us doesn’t have piles of polyhedral dice that sit around waiting for a reason to be used? Well, dice stash, your time has come.
Simple deckbuilding rules also mean that you can, if you have more than one deck, customize the selection of cards you use to tackle Plunderlust, adding another layer of value to the game.
How Can I Get My Own Copy Of Plunderlust?
The Plunderlust Kickstarter campaign is live now, and runs until the 1st of November. Pledge levels include all sorts of fancy add-ons, including play mats, dice, and multiple decks, but if you’re just after a solo deck to tackle the grim, acid-colored universe of Plunderlust alone, you can do so without using too much of your loot. The delivery estimate for the game is June, 2025, but please note that this can’t be guaranteed, as unforeseen circumstances around production are always a possibility.
You can back Plunderlust on Kickstarter here, choosing whichever pledge level suits your space pirating needs. One thing’s for sure; after trying Plunderlust out for ourselves, we can’t wait to explore more of its dangerous deep space locations when the final decks reach shelves in mid-2025.
