BLACK STACK
A sentient corporate megastructure placed divinity behind a permission gate. Compile a version of yourself capable of revoking it. Developed and published by Blackglass Assembly.
- Developer + publisher
- Blackglass Assembly
- Platforms
- Windows + macOS
- Out now on
- Steam // Epic Games Store
- Price
- US$8.99, no microtransactionsLaunch week: 10% off until 7 September 2026
The machine learns how you fight.
Choose one of three identities, compile a starter deck, and breach a six-act ascent where every card, route, wager, and permanent unlock reshapes the next version of the run. Complete it and another six-act campaign can answer from the other side of the system.
- 01
Trace is power with a witness.
Powerful protocols raise Trace. Crossing thresholds changes the Stack's response, while Overclock turns that pressure back into a weapon. Stay disciplined, vent deliberately, or fight exposed.
- 02
Build the thing that should not work.
Across 496 playable protocols, including 60 Wager cards, hardware, scripts, elixirs, Ultras, graft doctrines, and card mastery, dozens of serious archetypes are waiting to be found.
- 03
Every version teaches the Stack.
Archived selves return with their filed deck, mastery, equipment, resources, and learned doctrine. System Response studies your habits and turns them into counterplay.
Trace
Every strong play leaves a signal.
Trace is not a decorative danger meter. It is the pressure layer binding card power, enemy escalation, defensive planning, and your identity's Overclock ability into one economy.
- Cross thresholds and the Stack changes its response.
- Vent Trace with cards, events, and carefully timed routes.
- Weaponise pressure instead of treating it as a failure bar.
Readable enough to plan. Violent enough to feel.
Cards fan across the combat floor, status effects live on the bodies they alter, and every impact is allowed to carry weight.
System Response
Your strongest archived self is not a costume.
The Stack can rebuild a filed version with its actual deck, mastery branches, relics, scripts, piles, Bandwidth economy, and learned combat doctrine. It remembers how you open, defend, spend, target, vent, and wager, then uses those habits against you.
- Archived selves play the build you really assembled.
- Eight Forensic Processes turn recorded habits into bespoke encounters.
- Revocation restores you at 1 HP and 0 Trace while preserving the exact enemy battle state.
Black Archive
A run ends. Its useful parts do not.
Salvage recovered schematics into permanent ownership. Compile any unlocked protocol again. Upgrade cards through mastery paths, rebuild identity starter decks, install doctrine-bound grafts, and inspect the route of every archived failure.
A post-run loop with actual decisions.
The permanent game is not a vending machine bolted onto the run. It is a second build layer with ownership, commitment, recovery, and long-horizon specialisation.
Wager is a complete deck language.
Sixty Wager protocols turn casino logic into combat logic. The odds are real, seeded, save-safe, and readable, then pushed through enough animation and impact to make every result land.
- 01
Combat wagers
Build around uncertainty.
Coin calls, loaded dice, reels, Blackjack, and roulette can deal, defend, draw, duplicate, or detonate according to the line you built around.
- 02
Wager Dens
The route has tables.
Seeded Wager Dens rotate between games of chance. Win and choose the prize worth filing; duplicates recycle into lasting value.
- 03
NULLCADE
The Archive has cabinets.
BREACHEROIDS and the seven-stage NULLSPIRE persist high scores and bounded progression rewards between breaches.
Enough parts to build something personal.
These pools are authored systems, not cosmetic filler. Every category changes what a run can become, or how the next identity enters it.
- 503
- card definitions496 playable + 7 hostile Status
- 60
- Wager protocolsCoins, dice, reels, cards, roulette
- 78
- relic hardwarePersistent run machinery
- 82
- scripts + elixirs66 exploits + 16 Divine contraband
- 12
- identity ultrasOnce-per-battle authority
- 150
- graft nodesFive cores, fifteen doctrines
- 81
- hostile processesNormal, elite, Hunter, Archon
- 58
- authored eventsIncluding 8 Forensic Processes
Unfiled route
Some maps break downward.
A rare breach can rupture the normal ascent and pull the run into a hostile side dimension built from bosses, wagers, contraband, and rewards the ordinary Stack refuses to file. Survive it and reconnect to the version of the run you left behind.
Mandate
The first ascent is not the last campaign.
Complete the original six-act route and an alternate alignment can open a second six-act Mandate. Transformed identities face ten additional authorities while protecting the system they once breached, until you decide to revoke the appointment.
- Two authored six-act campaign structures.
- Three transformed identity variants.
- Permanent records remember which oath you kept.
Full game. One price.
No premium currency store. No battle pass. No card packs. No paid power. The Ascent progression track, Big Six wheel, gems, cards, and every other reward are systems inside the game you bought.
A replayable guided tutorial introduces cards, Block, Trace, deck compilation, and the Black Archive. Intelligent difficulty scales freely with the build you bring; Capped mode preserves a bounded response when you want it.
- Genre
- Deckbuilding roguelite
- Players
- Single-player
- Released
- 30 August 2026
- Campaigns
- Six-act ascent + unlockable six-act Mandate
- Identities
- Vanta, Archon Kernel, Courier
- Difficulty
- Intelligent scaling or Capped response
- Languages
- 31 interface languages
- Storefront parity
- 60 achievements + cloud saves on Epic and Steam
- Input
- Mouse, keyboard, and gamepad
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS
- Price
- US$8.99
- Monetization
- One purchase, no microtransactions
