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Start by treating your first house as a route-and-resource problem: make visitors cross several rooms before they can reach the Heart room, use haunt cards where they create the most fear or damage, and spend the essence from successful defenses on a focused combination of rooms and cards. Deck of Haunts is a deckbuilding roguelite in which you are the haunted house, so every room placement changes both your defenses and the path intruders take.
This guide follows the Visitation and Construction structure described for version 1.03. A run contains 28 nights according to Calchexxis’s 2025 Steam Community beginner guide, while later updates have added rooms, creatures, missions, story content, navigation changes and Nightmare Mode. Detailed priorities can therefore change after a major patch.
What you are trying to do in Deck of Haunts
Deck of Haunts casts you as the house rather than as a conventional character. Mantis developed the game and DANGEN Entertainment published it. Steam lists the PC release as May 7, 2025. The official description reduces the central job to four connected actions: build the mansion, play haunt cards on humans and rooms, drive visitors toward madness, and spend harvested essence to unlock rooms and powers.
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The Heart room is the practical center of your defense. Nintendo’s official Switch 2 listing describes it as “the core of your malevolent power.” Visitors do not need to be defeated everywhere in the mansion; they need to be stopped before they reach that room. This makes distance, turns through rooms and control effects as important as raw damage.
How a run works: Visitation, then Construction
The version 1.03 beginner guide divides the game into two repeating phases. Learn to make a decision in each phase rather than treating the run as one uninterrupted fight.
| Phase | What happens | Your priority |
|---|---|---|
| Visitation | Humans enter the house and move through the layout. You use rooms, haunt cards and special effects to kill them or drive them insane before they reach the Heart room. | Protect the Heart, force inefficient routes and spend cards where they change the encounter most. |
| Construction | You use harvested essence to add or upgrade rooms and make deck or room selections. | Turn the previous defense into a focused plan instead of taking disconnected upgrades. |
There are 28 nights in a run according to Calchexxis’s 2025 guide. The number is tied to that guide’s version, so use it as a version-specific planning horizon rather than a promise that every future build will be identical. Early layout decisions matter because later visitors navigate the structure you created; a short route established on the first construction screens can remain a liability for many nights.
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When visitors arrive, look first at their route to the Heart room. A card that removes a little health immediately may be less valuable than one that buys time, creates fear or makes a later room more effective. The official description specifically highlights mazes, traps, scares and special rooms as tools for controlling movement. Use that idea as your default: make the route longer and more dangerous before trying to optimize a single attack.
Track which rooms each visitor must cross. If an intruder can reach the Heart through one or two safe spaces, your damage cards have little time to work. If the same intruder must pass through several rooms, every scare, trap or damage effect has more opportunities to matter. The best play is often the card that changes where the visitor will be, not the card with the largest number in isolation.
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Construction: spend the reward before the next problem appears
Construction is where a successful night becomes future security. The guide identifies three broad uses for essence: adding rooms, upgrading rooms, and making deck or room selections. Before choosing, ask which weakness ended the last visitation. If visitors reached the Heart too quickly, improve route length or control. If they travelled through the route but survived, favor reliable damage or sanity pressure. If your cards repeatedly sat unused because the layout did not create the right situation, select rooms and cards that work together more often.
Avoid treating every new option as mandatory. A room that looks powerful on its own can be inefficient if it does not fit the path you built. A card that is excellent in a maze-like arrangement may be awkward in a compact house. Construction should make the next visitation easier to execute, not merely make the collection larger.
Build the first house around the Heart room
1. Establish a long route before adding clever effects
Your first layout should make visitors pass through multiple rooms before they can reach the Heart. Place the Heart where the surrounding structure can create distance, then arrange rooms so that intruders cannot take a short, safe line to it. The official product description frames room placement as a way to protect the Heart, while the beginner guide warns that early layout choices strongly affect how later threats navigate.
Do not assume that a visually complicated layout is automatically safer. What matters is the actual path a visitor can use. After placing a room, trace the route from an entry point to the Heart and look for a shortcut that bypasses most of your effects. If one exists, fix the route before spending on specialized cards.
2. Put effects where visitors must encounter them
Rooms and special effects are most useful when they sit on unavoidable sections of the route. A scare or trap placed beside an optional branch may never be seen; the same effect on a corridor every visitor must cross can influence the entire night. Early on, prefer a few dependable pressure points over a scattered collection of effects.
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Use room placement to create a sequence: visitors enter, lose time or sanity, encounter damage, and then face another barrier before the Heart. The exact room names and balance can change with updates, so this is a planning method rather than a permanent tier list.
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The first construction choices do not guarantee a fixed build. The beginner guide recommends straightforward early damage for new players, but it also notes that room and card draws can change the best arrangement. Build a route that works with the options in front of you. If your early selections support damage, make the path long enough for repeated damage opportunities. If they support fear or insanity, preserve the time and room sequence needed to apply that pressure.
Use the first nights to observe movement. A layout that looked safe on paper may reveal that visitors ignore an intended branch or reach the Heart earlier than expected. Adapt the next construction decision to that evidence rather than defending the original plan out of habit.
A practical first-nights plan
The following sequence translates the documented beginner loop into decisions you can make without relying on a specific room list. It is deliberately robust to different draws and to balance changes.
Before the first visitation
- Identify the Heart route. Find the entry-to-Heart path that a visitor is most likely to use and count the rooms along it.
- Remove the shortest safe line. Adjust room placement so an intruder cannot bypass the majority of your available effects.
- Choose one early pressure goal. For a first run, straightforward damage is the recommended starting approach in the version 1.03 beginner guide. If your available cards clearly favor fear or sanity pressure, commit to that instead of mixing plans immediately.
- Reserve unavoidable spaces. Place your most dependable room or special effect on a section every visitor must cross, not on a decorative dead end.
During the first visitation
- Watch movement before spending everything. Confirm how humans navigate the rooms. The information is more valuable than using a card merely because it is available.
- Use cards at the highest-leverage point. Play damage, fear or control where it either changes the route or creates additional opportunities for later effects.
- Protect the final approach. If a visitor is close to the Heart, prioritize the card or room effect that prevents arrival. A less dramatic action that buys one more room of distance can be the correct choice.
- Notice the failure mode. Record whether the problem was a shortcut, insufficient damage, weak sanity pressure or a card that did not fit the layout.
After the first successful defense
- Collect the essence outcome. Treat the reward as a budget for a plan, not as permission to select every unrelated option.
- Fix the largest structural weakness first. If visitors reached the Heart quickly, improve the route or control before adding marginal damage.
- Make the deck and rooms agree. Select cards that can be used in the rooms you own, or rooms that create the conditions your cards require.
- Recheck the route. Construction changes can create a new shortcut or move an effect away from the path. Trace the route again before the next night.
For the next few nights
Repeat the same diagnostic cycle rather than changing strategy after every small setback. A coherent damage plan should keep presenting visitors with several chances to take damage. A sanity-focused plan should give fear and madness effects time to work before the Heart is exposed. When a new draw makes the current arrangement impossible to support, alter the layout and deck together instead of preserving one half of the old plan.
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Compare builds on four strategic axes
There is no single permanent best build in the documented material. Compare a candidate arrangement using four questions. The following framework is inferred from the game’s stated Heart-room, room, card and essence systems; exact balance may change with patches.
| Axis | Question to ask | What a strong first build usually does |
|---|---|---|
| Protection | How many rooms and effects stand between an intruder and the Heart? | Creates several unavoidable encounters instead of leaving a short final approach. |
| Control | Can the layout slow, redirect or trap visitors? | Makes movement predictable enough that your cards and rooms repeatedly connect. |
| Damage versus sanity pressure | Does the deck mainly kill intruders or drive them insane? | Commits early enough that rooms, cards and route length support the same outcome. |
| Essence efficiency | Does the build turn successful defenses into useful growth? | Uses essence on upgrades and selections that correct the next likely failure. |
Damage-focused beginnings
Direct damage is the simplest first strategy because its success condition is easy to read: give visitors enough opportunities to take damage before the Heart. The beginner guide recommends straightforward early damage for new players. This approach is strongest when your layout is already long enough for repeated attacks and when the cards you draw can be used consistently along the route.
Its weakness is exposure to a short route. If visitors arrive at the Heart before enough effects can trigger, adding more damage without fixing movement does not solve the underlying problem.
Sanity and madness pressure
Driving visitors toward madness is an official part of the game’s premise and a legitimate alternative to killing them directly. A sanity-pressure plan needs time and repeated opportunities to apply fear. It therefore benefits from the same route discipline as a damage plan: force visitors through rooms, keep pressure points unavoidable and avoid spending essence on effects that do not advance the chosen outcome.
The available evidence does not establish exact thresholds, card values or a universal ranking between damage and sanity pressure. Treat the choice as a response to your current rooms and cards, not as a fixed rule for every patch.
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How to use rooms, haunt cards and essence together
Rooms are both defenses and navigation tools
A room is not only a place where an effect happens. Its position determines how many future effects a visitor can encounter and how much time you have to react. When considering an addition or upgrade, evaluate its location on the route as well as its listed power. A modest effect in a mandatory passage can outperform a stronger effect that visitors can bypass.
Cards should solve a route problem
Haunt cards can target humans and rooms. Before playing one, identify the problem it addresses: a visitor is too healthy, the route is too short, a room is not contributing, or a final approach is unprotected. This keeps the deck from becoming a collection of individually attractive actions that do not cooperate.
When several cards are available, prefer the one that improves the rest of the encounter. A card that changes movement or creates a follow-up opportunity can be worth more than immediate damage, provided the visitor still has rooms left to cross. Conversely, when an intruder is at the Heart’s threshold, a direct answer may be more valuable than a setup action.
Essence should reinforce the observed weakness
Essence is the link between nights. Spend it on a room, upgrade or deck selection that addresses the failure you can name from the previous visitation. If no clear weakness appeared, strengthen the part of the plan that every visitor must encounter rather than splitting the budget among unrelated improvements.
This approach also protects you from overreacting to one unusual encounter. The goal is not to rebuild after every night; it is to make the next night more reliable while preserving the route and pressure plan that already works.
Protecting the Heart room: a troubleshooting guide
Visitors reach the Heart too quickly
- Trace the shortest available route and remove the bypass.
- Move a room or special effect onto an unavoidable passage.
- Use construction resources on distance or control before adding more late-stage damage.
- Recheck the arrangement after every room addition, because a new connection can create another shortcut.
Visitors survive the route
- Count how many damage or sanity opportunities they actually encounter, rather than judging the deck by its strongest card.
- Choose essence upgrades that improve repeated pressure along the route.
- Use cards where they create a second opportunity, not only after the visitor has already crossed most rooms.
Your cards rarely seem useful
- Check whether the layout produces the conditions those cards need.
- During visitation, observe movement before committing cards so you can learn when each one has leverage.
- During construction, select rooms that make the deck’s effects easier to apply instead of adding more cards with unrelated requirements.
The house works one night and fails the next
- Separate a bad matchup from a structural weakness. If every route is short, the problem is structural; if only one encounter exposed a gap, adjust without abandoning the whole plan.
- Keep the Heart protected while experimenting. Test new rooms or cards on the outer route first when possible, then rebuild after you understand their effect.
- Remember that detailed priorities are version-sensitive. Post-launch updates have added rooms, creatures, missions, story content, navigation changes and Nightmare Mode, all of which can alter the value of an older arrangement.
Version, platform and availability notes
The specific beginner advice above follows the Steam Community guide labeled v1.03. Steam lists the PC release for May 7, 2025. Official Nintendo and PlayStation listings show October 8, 2026 console release information; as of the current date, those listed dates have passed, but store availability, pricing and editions can change by region and over time.
Check the current platform store page for the edition you intend to play. Do not assume that a room, creature, mission or mode described in an older guide has identical balance after a major update. The Steam Community hub’s update notes indicate that the game has continued to receive substantial content and navigation changes, so re-evaluate route length, card priorities and essence spending when your version differs from 1.03.
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A compact checklist for your first house
- Can every likely visitor route be traced from entry to the Heart?
- Does the route force visitors through several rooms rather than offering a short safe line?
- Are your most reliable effects placed where visitors must encounter them?
- Does your deck primarily pursue damage or sanity pressure, and does the layout support that choice?
- During visitation, are you spending cards to change the encounter rather than simply emptying your hand?
- After the night, can you name the exact weakness your next essence purchase will fix?
- Did a new room or upgrade create a shortcut that needs to be closed?
- Are you checking the game version before copying detailed advice from an older guide?
The reliable beginner pattern is simple: lengthen and control the route to the Heart, apply cards where they influence that route, then invest essence in the rooms and deck choices that make the next defense more consistent. Everything else—damage versus madness, specialized rooms and later upgrades—works best when it serves that structure.
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