How to Play
Everything that decides a battle, in one place.
Play the 60-second tutorialBattle basics
Reduce your opponent's HP to zero. Each turn both players secretly pick an action; they resolve at the same time. You have 30 seconds — miss it and you auto-defend.
- You bring 3 movie cards (a bench). When one is knocked out, the next steps in.
- With more cards still alive, your crew passive hits harder (fatigue scaling).
- The match ends when one player's whole bench is knocked out.
- Ranked only: win matches back-to-back for a growing Stardust bonus (up to +100 ✦). A loss resets the streak.
Actions
Every turn you choose attack, defend, or special. Outcomes follow this matrix.
Read as your damage × / their damage ×. Attack beats special; special beats defend; defending halves an incoming attack.
Type advantage
Each card has a type from its genre. Attacking into a type you beat deals 1.5× damage; attacking a type that resists you deals less.
strong against (1.5× damage) · weak against (×0.75, or ×0.5 if it resists hard)
Where do types come from?
Crew roles
Your one crew card grants a passive that shapes your whole strategy.
- Director — Signature Style. +15% Impact to all Movie Cards from their filmography
- Composer — Score Boost. +10 Defend to all Movie Cards while active
- Cinematographer — Visual Language. +10 Defend to all Movie Cards
- Editor — Rhythm Cut. Once per match, skip the opponent's action entirely
- Producer — Box Office Pull. Raises rarity tier of all Movie Cards by one step
Synergy
Pair cast cards with movies from their filmography for bonuses.
- Chemistry: a cast card on a movie it appeared in adds +10 Impact.
- Ensemble bonus: if all 3 lanes have a chemistry pairing, your whole deck gets +5% Impact and Defend.
Battle modifiers
Two situational effects to watch for.
- Typecast penalty: repeating the same type matchup turn after turn erodes its advantage (−10% of the bonus each repeat).
- Opening Night (turn 1): a high-rarity card gets +25% Impact (Opening Weekend); a low-rarity card takes 40% less damage (Sleeper Hit).
Box Office Wager
Once per match, either player may raise the stakes. The other player then has 30 seconds to accept or walk out.
- Ranked: an accepted raise pays the winner 100 Credits instead of 50; the loser pays 50 instead of the small consolation payout you'd otherwise get for a loss.
- Vs CPU: an accepted raise pays 50 instead of 25 on a win — but on a loss you pay 25 instead of nothing. The Critic only pays out the raised bonus up to 3 times a day.
- Walking out costs 10 Credits and only half the usual rating change before turn 5 — from turn 5 on it counts as a full loss. Letting the timer run out counts as a walk-out.
- Cut to Credits: you can retreat from an active match at any time. Turns 1–2 cost a flat 5 Credits; turns 3–4 cost half whatever Credits are at risk from an accepted raise; turn 5 onward costs all of it — though the fee never drops below the flat 5, so an un-raised retreat always costs just 5. Like walking out, your rating change is halved before turn 5 and full from then on.
- Forfeit and walk-out wins pay out at most 5 times a day.
Currencies
Two currencies, two jobs.
- Credits — earned from battles, weekly quests, and the daily login bonus. Spend on claiming searched cards and buying extra daily packs.
- Stardust — earned from duplicate pack pulls and ranked win streaks. Spend on foil, holofoil, and animated card upgrades.
Stat glossary
- HP
- How much damage a movie card can take before it is knocked out. Scales with popularity.
- Impact
- Attacking power. Scales with the movie's average rating.
- Defend
- Damage reduction when defending. Scales with vote count; franchises get a bonus.
- Charisma
- Cast-card stat. Adds a flat Impact bonus to its movie (+1 per 10 charisma).
- Range
- How many distinct genres a person has worked across.
- Oeuvre
- A crew member's career size. Scales their passive's strength.