• Game Concepts

Cosmic Horrors Jam IV

• Created 08 October 2025
• Updated 11 October 2025

This game is for the Cosmic Horrors Jam IV! I’m writing this before the jam starts as I’ve already got an idea in mind that should be easy to develop, and let me flex some art skills along the way.

The Plan

I’d like to create a game heavily inspired by Happy Little Dinosaurs, a very simple boardgame where you take your dinosaur character from one end of the board to the other, each turn facing a different disaster, and you use items to hopefully escape. I’ll do some research on Happy Little Dinosaurs, found here. Then I’ll lay out how this game rethemes it and differs.

Retheming

Disasters are Horrors, each a style of horror found in the cosmic horror genre.

Player characters are human, each representing a character within your typical film-noir story

Point cards will be reflavored as Actions.

Rules

There are two decks, an Action Deck and a Horror Deck

The Action Deck contains 21 cards: a set of 7 point cards ranging from 1-7, 3 each. The Horror Deck contains 20 cards:

• 6 Arcane Horrors
• 6 Anomaly Horrors
• 6 Monstrosity Horrors
• 2 Cosmic Horrors (Which count as Arcane, Anomaly and Monstrosity)

There are three Roles players can choose from:

• Detective: +1 to Monstrosity Horrors, -1 to Anomaly Horrors
• Scientist: +1 to Arcane Horrors, -1 to Monstrosity Horrors
• Cultist: +1 to Anomaly Horrors, -1 to Arcane Horrors

At the beginning of the game, each player chooses a role and draws 3 cards.

At the beginning of a turn, a horror card is drawn from the horror deck and revealed to all players. Each player plays a card from their hand face down. Drawing a card to replace the card played. When all players have played their cards, they’re flipped simultaneously, and the player with the lowest points takes the horror card.

Scoring: Each action card has a value associated with it ranging from 1-7, the player who played the card may also have a score adjustment based on their role. For example if a Detective is playing an action of 4 against a monstrosity horror, their total score is 5 due to the +1 to monstrosity detective has.

If two players tie for lowest score, they play a second card and score those as well. (Drawing to replace the card played as well). They repeat this step until the time is broken.

If any player collects 3 of the same type of horror, they lose the game.

To win, you must be the last player in the game.

Content

Horrors

• Arcane (Knowledge based) Blue
• Anomaly (Reality based) Purple
• Monstrosity (Creature based) Red

Characters

Actions

Technical

flowchart TD
menu[Main Menu]
start_game[Each player chooses a role]
start_turn[Each player chooses an action card in their hand, and draw to replace it]
scoring[Each player reveals their chosen card, and compares the score]

tie[Tied players choose another card in their hand, and draw to replace it]

loser_found[The player with the lowest score keeps the horror card, if they have 3 horrors of the same type, they're removed from the game.]

winner_found[The last remaining player is declared the winner]

menu -- start --> start_game
start_game --> start_turn
start_turn --> scoring

scoring -- players have tied for last --> tie
tie -- repeat the turn with the tied players --> scoring

scoring -- a player has the lowest score --> loser_found
loser_found -- if there are 2 or more players remaining --> start_turn
loser_found -- if there is only one remaining player --> winner_found

Classes

Game State

Properties

• Players
• Current Player
• Horror Deck
• Action Deck

Player

Properties

• Hand
• Horror Cards

Horror Card

Properties

• Texture
• Name
• Type

Action Card

• Properties
• Value
• Name
• Description
• Texture