Cleanse your village of evil with Tarot cards in this delightfully grim strategy game.

If you handed me a deck of revolting Tarot cards and told me to heal a bunch of sickly, deranged medieval peasants, I would probably attempt to sew the cards together into bandages. Perhaps I would offer the nicer ones to children instead of lollipops, to distract them while I apply the leeches (lollipops did exist in the Middle Ages, I’m shocked to discover, but mostly in noble circles). Bloodletter has grander ambitions.

In this whispery, crazy-eyed deckbuilder, you’ll play Tarot-style cards to purge foul spirits who are seeking to possess and kill your neighbours. “Evil entities have crept into the hearts of the common folk, who teeter upon the brink of madness and death,” the developers explain. “Only thy bathhouse stands as a bastion against the creeping corruption.” It sounds like a mixture of Pathologic and Black Book and Pentiment. Here be’est the trailer.

In Bloodletter you play a “barber-surgeon”. As stipulated, you operate out of a bathhouse, making you a barber-surgeon…pool attendant? A barber-surgeon-masseuse? And that’s before we get to “bloodletter”, which very much sounds like it should be a distinct vocation. I write all this in almost total ignorance of how medieval society defined and distinguished caring roles.

In any case, everything you do is handled via the medium of cards. There are over 80, with gloriously unpleasant hand drawn art, plus six especially powerful blessing and curse cards. You will use them to safeguard ten villagers “with their own talents, oddities, and eerie animations” from four “dreadful entities”. One of the latter lives in a statue and invades people’s dreams. I’m trying to work out which Tarot cards I’d prescribe for that. Perhaps the Nine of Swords followed by Strength?

I think this could be either a miasmatic delight, or an exercise in gradual disappointment as you realise that there are more familiar card game mechanics and synergies lurking beneath the grotty woodcut illustrations. It’ll be a while before we know for sure – the game launches in 2026. Read more on Steam. If you need to get your ghastly cardgame fix sooner, maybe try the demo for Roots Devour. There’s also the recently released Lovecraftian doctor sim Do No Harm.