LINCHPIN

LINCHPIN is a solo journaling deckbuilder. Each round you draft two cards from a regular deck of playing cards, decide what to keep and what to cut, and slowly assemble a Rig of parts that has to work together — writing what the build becomes, round by round, in the Draft Log. It's a game about construction rather than exploration: the finished thing is the diary of what you built, and whether it held.

You can only hold so many parts at once, so keeping a new card usually means cutting one you already have. And one part — the one you name your Linchpin — is the piece the whole build depends on. Lose it and the run is over, no matter how much Strain you had left. If you like the draft-cut-combo tension of Slay the Spire, Balatro or Inscryption, this is that feeling in pencil.

What you need: a standard 52-card deck, one six-sided die, a pencil, and about 30–60 minutes per run. The deck resets clean every time — build and lose as many Rigs as you like.

Inside the 16-page book — laid out as a machine-parts catalogue, with technical linework and a bolt circle that gains a part with every section:

- The full rules for drafting, cutting, and combining parts into Matched Pairs

- Four starting archetypes with their own bias and a once-per-run ability

- A System table and a Complication table driven by the cards you draw

- How your Rig's slot limit grows over a run, journal prompts, and a one-page quick reference

- Four printable sheets, reusable forever: a Rig Sheet, the Draft Log, a Fallen Rigs Ledger for every build you've ever attempted, and a Workshop Track where failed Rigs still leave a permanent perk behind

You get the same book as two PDFs, one laid out for A4 and one for US Letter, so it prints correctly wherever you are — or reads comfortably on a tablet.