Buenos Aires, 1925 / Coming soon to Steam
The city is dead. The dance is not.
A roguelike deckbuilder of knives, poisoned kisses and one more impossible night. Every card is a step. Make yours count.
Noir, blood & a Spanish deck
An unexplained epidemic has turned the people of Buenos Aires into zombies. You survive as a tango dancer, armed with a deck of Spanish-suited cards and a city’s worth of dangerous habits. The cabaret, the rain and the bandoneon are not a backdrop for a heroic fantasy: they are the texture of a night that keeps demanding another decision.
Choose a route through combat, elite enemies, events, shops and rest stops. Rewards reshape the deck you carry into the next encounter. The strongest card on offer is not always the one your run needs: energy, draw, defence and lasting damage all compete for room in the same hand.
Every card, a step of tango.
Official Steam screenshots
A look at the combat interface, character encounters and impact effects, taken from the official store gallery. Read your hand, watch the enemy’s intent and follow the result of every play.
Four acts / Four identities
The campaign evolves through El Malevo, La Milonguera, El Bandoneonista and La Femme Fatale. Each brings a different balance of health, energy and combat identity. These are the four archetypes of a continuing journey, not four identical portraits with a different name.
ACT 01The first act begins with the knife and the heart. El Malevo anchors the opening expedition with a direct fighting identity: learn the enemy’s intent, protect your life and build the foundation of a deck that can survive the next district.
ACT 02La Milonguera brings more starting energy and less base health. Extra actions open longer sequences, but a careless turn can be costly. Her arrival changes how you weigh an offensive opportunity against the protection you need before ending the turn.
ACT 03The soul of the bellows carries the highest base health of the four archetypes. El Bandoneonista favours plans that gain strength over time. Surviving the opening pressure gives a developing combination space to become the centre of the fight.
ACT 04Poison and bleed shape the final transformation. La Femme Fatale has four starting energy and the lowest base health: apply lasting pressure, preserve a defensive escape and make the enemy pay for every extra turn.
The hand you build
Swords, cups, coins and clubs form the visual language of the deck. Individual cards define what actually happens: damage, protection, healing, poison, bleed, weakening, extra draws or energy. Read their effects together. A draw effect matters when you have energy to spend; a finishing blow matters when the earlier cards have prepared its condition.
Enemies announce their next action. Compare the incoming pressure with the defence in your hand before committing all your energy to damage. A surviving enemy still gets a turn.
Some effects reward chains or a required combo count. Others spend health, exhaust after use or finish a weakened target. The order of your plays can matter as much as their total cost.
Use rewards, the shop and rest opportunities to strengthen a plan. Card removal and forging let you shape the deck instead of only making it larger. Relics add persistent effects that change the value of future choices.
A city with rules of its own
The first act draws on thirty named places, from La Boca to Plaza de Mayo. Different district rules change the risk of an encounter or the value of a reward. This is the game’s supernatural Buenos Aires, with deliberately stylized imagery and a horror interpretation of its landmarks.
The map is a choice of encounters. The city gives each choice a different weight.
The journey opens among working docks and corrugated conventillos. Here, enemies begin combat with bleed. The district teaches you to read damage that persists beyond a single card rather than looking only at the biggest immediate hit.
Markets and the city’s musical memory meet a practical combat advantage: one extra energy on the first turn. Think about which card prepares the next play, and which one only looks strong in isolation.
Literary cafés and neighbourhood politics give way to a more frequent elite presence. An attractive reward needs to be weighed against the condition of your deck and the resources left for the next encounter.
Cemetery shadows and railway workshops frame a district where enemies hit harder. Recovery, defence and a reliable plan matter more than chasing another expensive card you may never draw in time.
The docks offer 20% more gold, but enemies deal 10% more damage. This is a clear risk-and-reward district: extra buying power is useful only if you leave with enough life to spend it.
Political power, rain-soaked façades and a harder enemy damage rule converge at the end of the first district sequence. The campaign continues through later acts, so reaching the plaza is a milestone within a longer night.
Meet the other guests
An infected paperboy, a rotten office worker, a cursed priest and the city’s most dangerous bosses each carry a piece of Buenos Aires into the fight. Their intentions mix attacks, protection and status effects. Learn the kind of threat in front of you rather than treating every silhouette as another health bar.
A zombie office worker who reeks of yesterday’s stew and blood.
He used to sell newspapers on Corrientes. Now he deals in bites.
An elite priest who celebrated the last mass in San Telmo. It ended badly.
The tango mafia’s boss. His knife never rests.
Seven things worth keeping
Relics remain with your run and change its economy, survivability or tempo. A small effect repeated across many turns can matter more than one spectacular attack. Their names carry the city’s intimate history: a flower, an old rosary, an inherited knife.
Gain +1 max energy.
The carnation of the poet who died on the corner.
Gain 5 Block at the start of each combat.
Its beads are worn smooth. It prays alone.
Draw 1 extra card at the start of each turn.
Unfinished verses, scrawled in blood.
Gain +10 max HP.
His father's. And his father's father's.
Heal 6 HP at the start of combat.
Mate heals. Or at least keeps you occupied.
Your attacks deal +1 damage.
Five notches mark the handle. No one asks why anymore.
All damage taken is reduced by 1.
An old stitch, but it holds.
The sound of the night
Hear three excerpts taken from the game’s own music files. The menu sets the mood; La Boca and San Telmo carry it into combat. Each preview lasts thirty seconds, and playing a new track pauses the previous one.
Original game artwork
Art Deco geometry, crimson curtains, stained glass and neon give the same cursed city different faces. These illustrations and wallpapers belong to the project’s visual collection; they are artwork rather than gameplay screenshots. Open an image for a closer look.
Before the curtain rises
A single-player roguelike deckbuilder with turn-based combat, a Spanish-suited card deck and a horror-noir interpretation of Buenos Aires in 1925. You build a run through combat, events, shops, rest stops and bosses.
The tango theme shapes the atmosphere and vocabulary, but combat is turn-based card strategy. The challenge is choosing cards, spending energy and responding to enemy intentions, rather than hitting notes against a timer.
The current design has four acts of 30 floors each, for 120 story floors. Archetypes evolve across the acts. An endless mode extends play beyond the story structure. Floors are progression steps, not a promise of 120 distinct neighbourhoods.
The current live card catalogue contains 339 IDs, including starter copies and generated variants. This website’s card collection presents 149 individually authored reward cards without repeating starter copies. Experimental cards outside the live pool are not presented as available rewards.
The official Steam page is the destination for wishlisting, platform information and current release announcements. The listing is currently marked Coming Soon.
Your seat is waiting
Follow Tango Mortal on Steam for the current release information. Created by Dero Lavigne and published by Martinez AI Studios.
