articles: 64

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id	title	slug	url	content_type	category	shelf	is_headline	description	published_date	updated_at	sort_order	hero_painting	body_markdown
64	Strange Library	strange-library	/projects/strange-library	project		Creative Systems	1	A deckbuilder where every card is a real book. You're the new librarian at a small, forgotten private collection. The previous librarian left detailed note		2026-04-26 22:44:56.649339+00:00	0		A deckbuilder where every card is a real book. You're the new librarian at a small, forgotten private collection. The previous librarian left detailed notes, a locked room, and a community of collectors who expect things that aren't in any job description. Books are your cards. The library is your collection. Your deck fights their deck. You build a 30-card deck from real historical texts — the Picatrix, the Voynich Manuscript, Newton's Principia, Fibonacci's Liber Abaci. Each book has Attack, Health, a Study Points cost, tags, a physical format, and abilities grounded in the actual content of the text. The Picatrix does not shoot fireballs. It does what the Picatrix does. Seven classes — Researcher, Classicist, Occultist, Archivist, Cryptographer, Conservator, Detective — each with a unique hero power and class-specific cards. Seven locations — flea markets, antiquarian shops, rare book shows, estate sales, night markets, private collections — with eight opponents and a boss at each. 63 encounters total. Hearthstone-style SP mana from 1 to 10. Five book formats function as tribal synergies: Pamphlet, Paperback, Hardback, Folio, Manuscript. Eight editions modify runs: Annotated, First Edition, Illuminated, Signed, Foxed, Counterfeit, Gilded. 600+ cards, all real books. Between runs, you explore the Harlan Collection in first person. Browse shelves. Check the mail. Subscribe to a Rare Book Club. Bid at auctions. Buy blind lots at garage sales. Talk to visitors. Search for the previous librarian's hidden notes. The Ashworth Manuscript is the central mystery — a 19th-century predictive methodology in five fragments, scattered across bosses. It is not supernatural or encoded. It is worse than that: it works. Everyone wants it. Four endings determine what you do with it: keep it, publish it, sell it, or burn it. No magic. No monsters. Just knowledge that should not be possible, and people who will do anything for it. Engine: Unity Platform: Steam (PC, Steam Deck) Status: Pre-production. 600+ cards designed. Full GDD complete. 217 wiki documents. [GitHub](https://github.com/Beach-Bum/strangelibrary-game)