Back of Beyond

Back of Beyond is an occult strategy card game with roguelite elements. Players grow a secret cult in Mist Town by recruiting animal townsfolk, each with their own motives, such as housewives seeking redemption, farmers preaching the apocalypse, and scholars seeking forbidden knowledge. Cultist cards belong to four species: Avians, Felines, Canines, and Ursines, and there are dozens to collect.

The core loop combines deck building with facility placement. Follower cards generate Faith, while facilities placed on a grid, ranging from churches and banks to abyssal caverns, resonate with adjacent followers to generate Devotion. Players combine Faith and Devotion to forge Eldritch Power. Rifts in time and space release Eldritch Gods onto the town, and players have only a few turns to prepare before using that power to repel incursions from creatures such as Gnophkehs and Formless Spawn and to defend the cult’s sanctuary.

The game features a cast of characters including an enigmatic secretary, a relentless investigator, and an elusive tycoon, and player decisions driven by dogma, morality, or greed can shape the cult’s fate. Each run, including those that end in defeat, unlocks new cultist cards, facilities, and relics. Across runs, players piece together the history of the pact between Mist Town and the true deities.