The Collector
A man drowning in grief, anxiety, and obsessive focus. Cards become the one ritual that feels stable, understandable, and safe. Through the tournament week, he treats that fragile structure like survival itself.
Clockwork Collector
The Collector can't let go.
A psychological card-based roguelike following The Collector, a man lost in the aftermath of being left by his wife. What used to be a hobby has become the one thing that never left his side: cards.
Core Premise
A week-long tournament seen through a mind under pressure.
Over the span of a single week, The Collector plays through a tournament. In reality, he still goes to work, moves through daily life, and remains surrounded by ordinary routines. But the player only experiences the card battles and his thoughts, because that is where his mind is trapped. Cards are no longer just a pastime. They are the only thing he feels he still has control over.
World Perception
The tournament appears enormous and terrifying. Opponents seem like towering black ghostly figures. The matches feel as if they are held inside a cathedral. In reality, it is just the back room of a game store. The horror is the way anxiety and stress bend the size and meaning of everything.
Deck Philosophy
The game rewards building a balanced deck rather than blindly chasing the strongest meta choices. It still draws on the Dominance & Cast framework from Marionette, and during the story the tournament becomes more punishing if the player tries to force purely meta play over balance, identity, and adaptation.
Meet the Characters
People behind the cards
The Collector is not alone, even when he feels like he is.
The Opponents
Not monsters in truth, but ordinary people warped by his stress. They feel huge, severe, and ghostlike because the world itself has become intimidating under pressure.
The Friends
A quiet but vital emotional truth in the story. The Collector feels abandoned, but he is not forgotten. His friends still care, even if life has kept them busy and separate for a while.
The Cards
Cards draw from the whole Clockwork universe, including Marla, Avaline, Patches, and The Director. Booster packs can also contain vague lore cards that make more sense only once the story reaches its end.
Psych Files
Pressure seen from the inside
Clockwork Collector is about distorted perception, not empty spectacle.
Psych File • The Collector
Obsessive focus as self-preservation
The Collector does not cling to cards because they are trivial. He clings to them because they are structured, readable, collectible, and reliable. In a week where his emotional world feels unstable, cards become the only thing that seems to stay where he puts it.
Psych File • The Tournament
Anxiety turns small rooms into cathedrals
The game store is ordinary. His perception is not. Stress magnifies scale, judgment, silence, and stakes. Clockwork Collector captures the feeling that the world becomes too large when your mind no longer trusts itself.
Psych File • The Ending
Isolation was never the whole truth
By the end of the week, win or lose, The Collector steps outside and finds his friends there for him. The game ends not on conquest, but on a quieter realization: he felt alone, but he was not abandoned.