Ib: The First City tells the story of a civilization founded around a cosmic Seed—not to flourish, but to be harvested. Players guide its eerie growth through shifting ages, shaping its fate with each decision. As the city ascends, so does the mystery of its true purpose.

Gameplay

Rotate the ring and play cards. Play cards to gain or trade resources - Life, Sanity and Shell. It’s a roguelike deckbuilder… of sorts.

How to Win

Reach maximum Ascension. Kill monsters to take their souls and turn them into your Power. Use Power to perform Rituals that unlock new cards. Use the new cards to gain Ascension.

How to Lose

Getting any resource (Life, Sanity, Shell) to 0 will spawn a Doom card. If a End of Age card is played while Doom is present, it’s game over. The game is also pretty fragile controls-wise, so please don’t madly spam all the keys or it will break :D.

Inspiration

As a big fan of Ring of Pain (the GOAT!) and Lovercraftian mythos, I always wanted to replicate the mechanics and put an eldritch spin on the card-choosing approach. My goal for this jam was to prepare a working base to check if this idea even makes sense. I believe it does, but needs way more thinking and balancing.

Theme

The theme was not particularly respected, except for the fact that the city is supposed to be placed in some ‘depths’. The big idea was that the Star Seed lands on the surface with enough force to stop only deep underground - then as the City grows, it digs itself out. Little has remained of this ambitious plan.