Under Gaslight

The gas is low, the fog is thick, and something is watching from the dark.

  • 260 painted cards
  • 10 Leaders
  • Nine chapters
  • Free to play, no ads

In development · Coming soon

A collectible card game for iPhone, from the great Gothic novels of the Victorian age.

A Gothic collectible card game

The great Gothic novels, dealt into your hand

Build a deck around a Leader, hunt your rival through the districts of a fog-bound city, and play the stories of Dracula, Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, Carmilla and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Every character is drawn from the books themselves, and the game plays entirely on your device.

Mina Harker: your Investigate action costs 1 less Castle Dracula, a Location Carmilla: Fearsome, Lurk 3 Edward Hyde: Swift, Fearsome, Lurk 3 Dorian Gray: at the end of your turn, heal all damage from Dorian Gray

How a night is played

Investigate. Hide. Strike.

Each match is a single night in the city. Two Leaders fight for three Districts, and the first to break the other's Resolve wins.

A match in progress: Abraham Van Helsing against Count Dracula
Van Helsing against the Count, recorded in the game
SocietyReputation protects. Hold it for an extra Influence.
StreetsThe only road to the rival Leader.
ShadowsWhere Characters lurk and Secrets are set.
  • Lurk and set Secrets. Characters can hide face down in the Shadows, and traps wait face down until the worst moment for your rival.
  • Find them with Clues. Investigate a hidden card until its Clues reach its Depth, and it is exposed before it can strike.
  • Watch your Dread. Monstrous cards heap it on, and at three or more your Influence runs short.
  • Some things change. Dr. Jekyll becomes Edward Hyde. A portrait is unveiled. Some forms turn back, and some never do.
  • Solve a Case. Play an objective into your Casebook, meet it, and claim its reward.

Act I · Series 1

The Count Abroad

from Dracula by Bram Stoker

Boxes of earth go missing from a ruined chapel, a ship runs aground in a storm at Whitby, and the Crew of Light race the Count home to his castle before the last sunset.

106 cards · 4 packs · 4 Leaders

  1. Chapter 1The Chapel at Carfax
  2. Chapter 2Whitby, August
  3. Chapter 3The Last Sunset

Act II · Series 2

Forbidden Science

from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

A creature wakes on a dreary night of November, a maker is made to listen on the sea of ice, and a locked cabinet in Soho holds a doctor with two natures.

74 cards · 4 packs · 3 Leaders

  1. Chapter 4A Dreary Night of November
  2. Chapter 5The Sea of Ice
  3. Chapter 6The Last Night

Act III · Series 3

The Haunted Salon

from Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

A carriage overturns at a Styrian castle and leaves a guest behind, a general opens a tomb at Karnstein, and in a London studio a portrait keeps its secret.

80 cards · 4 packs · 3 Leaders

  1. Chapter 7An Overturned Carriage
  2. Chapter 8The Opening of the Tomb
  3. Chapter 9The Picture Unveiled

Choose your Leader

Ten Leaders, two Domains each

Every Leader has a power of their own and a starter deck you can play the moment you begin, before you own a single card.

Abraham Van HelsingProfessor of AmsterdamInvestigation · Science
Count DraculaBoyar of the CarpathiansMonstrous · Occult
Mina HarkerSecretary of the CommitteeInvestigation · Society
The ArchivistKeeper of AccountsSociety · Occult
Victor FrankensteinThe Modern PrometheusScience · Society
The CreatureAdam of Your LaboursMonstrous · Science
Dr. Henry JekyllOf Cavendish SquareScience · Investigation
CarmillaOf Many NamesMonstrous · Society
General SpielsdorfThe Hunter of KarnsteinInvestigation · Occult
Dorian GrayWho Does Not AgeSociety · Occult
“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” Count Dracula

Learn from the Count

Your host will teach you himself

Count Dracula teaches the game in seven short, voiced lessons and a practice duel, and gives you a free pack when you finish. A narrator reads every story chapter aloud, and the quoted lines on cards and Leaders can be heard in their characters' own voices.

  • The Districts, and why the Streets matter
  • Hidden cards, Clues and Depth
  • Dread, Cases, and a duel to finish
Count Dracula, in the pose he takes when he offers you a lesson

Open packs, fill the Archive

Break the seal

Choose a pack from the rack, break its seal, and turn your cards one at a time. Every card you find is filed in the Archive.

The Crew of Light
The Count Abroad
Storm over Whitby
The Sealed Archive
The Galvanist
The Creature's Flight
Soho by Night
The Arctic Pursuit
Schloss in Styria
The Hunting of Mircalla
The Studio
The London Season
  • Twelve packsFour for each Series, each with its own art and its own odds, shown before you open.
  • The ArchiveRecords every card you have seen. Search it, filter it, and hear each card's quotation.
  • InkSpare copies become Ink, which records a card you are missing.
A Legendary card revealed from a pack
A pack of The Crew of Light, opened in the game

260 cards across three Series

Every card, a painting

Characters, Schemes, Relics, Locations, Afflictions and Cases, each painted in the gaslight and each quoting, where it can, the book it came from.

Jonathan Harker Quincey P. Morris The Borgo Pass Spring-Heeled Jack The Wild Hunt The Creature at the Cottage The Modern Prometheus Dr. Henry Jekyll Lord Henry Wotton The Picture The Lady in Black Velvet The Haunted Salon
  • Investigation
  • Society
  • Science
  • Occult
  • Monstrous

Captured in the game

A night in the city

The title screen, with the Count's Lessons and the story
The title and the story
A narrated story scene before a chapter
A narrated scene
The Count's Lessons
The Count's Lessons
A card inspected in the Archive
A card in the Archive
The Archive
The Archive

Fair by design

Every card can be earned by playing

  • Free to play. A free pack every 12 hours, plus pack progress from every battle and chapter.
  • Duplicate protection. No repeat Legendary while you are missing one, a card you need is twice as likely, and every 10th pack of a kind is guaranteed a Legendary.
  • Odds in the open. Optional packs can be bought. They are identical to free packs, with the same odds, and every pack's contents and odds are shown before you buy.
  • No ads, no account, no tracking. It plays offline. Your collection stays on your device, with an optional backup to your own iCloud.

In development · Coming soon to the App Store

Questions, or want to hear when it opens? Write to rob@stoutsoundanddesign.com.