Pocket Dungeon: Taking Soltura Offline

While Soltura was built for the speed and flow-state of screens and gamepads, its DNA will always belong to the physical tabletop. There is something uniquely satisfying about sliding a physical Diamond weapon across a table to clash against a King of Spades, or feeling the tension as the draw pile dwindles ever emptier next to you.

Whether you are travelling without internet, taking a screen break, or just craving the tactile snap of real cardstock, here is everything you need to run Soltura offline anywhere in the world.

Prepping Your Deck: 'The Great Cut'

You can play Soltura with any standard 54-card deck sitting in your drawer. Before you shuffle, perform The Great Cut:

• Remove all Red Court Cards: Discard the Jacks, Queens, and Kings of Hearts (♥) and Diamonds (♦).


• Remove all Red Aces: Discard the Ace of Hearts (♥) and Ace of Diamonds (♦).


• Keep the Jokers: Designate one as the Benevolent Joker and one as the Mischievous Joker (e.g. Colour vs. Black & White).

This leaves a lean, lethal 46-card dungeon (44 suit cards + 2 Jokers). Spades and Clubs represent Monsters, Diamonds are Weapons, Hearts are Potions, and Jokers remain your wildcards.

Upgrading Your Tabletop Gear

While a standard Bicycle deck gets the job done, managing red card cuts and squinting at small pips can slow down your momentum.

For the authentic offline experience, you can now pick up the official Soltura Card Deck on Make Playing Cards. Printed on premium linen cardstock, it features our high-visibility Crawler creature silhouettes and neon border design, ready to play right out of the box with no card sorting required.

Tracking your starting 21 Health Points with pen and paper can also clutter the table. To keep your runs fast and clean, we recommend grabbing a Single Numbered D21 Die from Impact Miniatures.

Set the die to 21 at the start of your descent, and simply rotate its numbers down as you absorb barehanded blows, or up when drinking a Heart potion.

How to Play Offline: Step-by-Step

1. Tabletop Setup

• The Room: Deal 4 cards face-up in a row at the top of your table.


• The Dungeon Deck: Place the remaining draw pile face-down to your left.


• HP Tracker: Set your D21 die to 21 (or use a pad and pen) at the top right.

2. Resolving the Room

To progress, you must resolve at least 3 cards from the active 4-card room. "Resolving" simply means interacting with a card:

• Drink a Potion (♥): Heal your HP by the card's rank (max 21 HP), then discard it. (Limit: 1 potion per room).


• Equip a Weapon (♦): Place it into your weapon slot. Any previous weapon and its defeated monster chain are sent to the discard pile.


• Fight Barehanded (♣/♠): Take damage directly to your HP equal to the monster's rank, then add the monster to your score pile.


• Fight With an Equipped Weapon (♣/♠): Mitigate the monster's damage using combat math:

(Example: Fighting an 8 Monster with a 5 Weapon means you only take 3 damage).

3. Weapon Chaining

You can defeat multiple monsters with a single equipped weapon, provided each subsequent monster is of equal or lower value than the last one defeated. Place each defeated monster on top of your weapon in a cascading stack.

• 5 Cards: +5 pts


• 10 Cards: +15 pts


• 15 Cards: +35 pts


• 20 Cards: +65 pts


• 26 Cards: +100 pts

4. The 'Bubble-Up'

Once only one card remains in the room, deal 3 fresh cards from the deck alongside it to refill the room to 4. That 4th card has successfully "bubbled up" into the next encounter.

5. Special Cards: The Jokers (★)

When a Joker is revealed in the room, choose exactly one action:

• Benevolent Joker:

1. Buff Weapon: Add a permanent +1 power to your equipped Diamond.
2. Heal: Discard to immediately restore 3 HP (bypassing the 1-potion limit).
3. Preview: Peek at the top 3 cards of the face-down dungeon deck.

• Mischievous Joker:

1. Flee: Shuffle current room cards back into the deck, taking 1 damage.
2. Blind Bet: Instantly draw and play the unseen top card of the deck.
3. Swap: Trade a room monster with the top card of the deck.

Scoring: Competitive vs. Pure Survival

The Full Roguelite Score (Competitive)

If you are tracking high scores:

• Victory: Clear all 46 cards. Add your Remaining HP + Points from Barehanded Kills + Chain Milestone Bonuses + Remaining Loot Value (unspent potions/weapons) + Escorted Joker Bonuses (+14/+28).


• Defeat: If your HP drops to 0, subtract the combined rank value of ALL remaining monsters in the room and the deck from your score as a death penalty.

Pure Survival Mode (Casual)

Don't feel like tracking math and point tallies? Ignore the score sheet entirely!

Play Soltura as a pure survival puzzle: grab your deck, set your die to 21, and see if your tactical decisions can guide you to the bottom of the deck before your health hits zero.

Grab a deck, set your die to 21, and take the crawl into the physical realm.