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	Late PoSI Contentand Onwards
	Hearts’ Game Summary
—
Limited-Length Activity
Setup	Progress
1/5A	7+ A
Progress Details	Raise Poisoner’s Progress to 8 before Elusiveness of your Target. Same payout, win/lose.
\| Items Inputs/Outputs \| \| Boosting \| \| - Dangerous Gains 20 - Shadowy Gains 20 - Persuasive Gains 20 - Watchful Gains 20 \| \| Outputs \| \| - Bessemer Steel Ingot - Salt Steppe Atlas - Puzzling Map - Partial Map - Map Scrap - Intriguer’s Compendium - Leviathan Frame - Elemental Secret - Starstone Demark - Brass Ring - Whirring Contraption - Scrap of Ivory Organza \|
—
Raw EPA	4.73
Hearts’ Game is a murder-themed, Knife-and-Candle-adjacent pastime for high-level players. The first component was released on April 13, 2023. Play involves managing a team of miscreants with murder-monikers to poison a chosen target, with a number of restrictions to ensure good sportsmanship and fair hunting.
Because of the nature of Hearts Game, Any generalisation in this guide should be taken to include “Unless otherwise stated” given the frequency of exceptions. This is to clarify the core mechanics of the game and to make the exceptions more prominent .
Current Season: Excess

1Getting Started
2Mechanics
2.1Qualities
2.1.1 Poisoner’s Progress
2.1.2 Poisonous Preparation
2.1.3 Elusiveness of your Target
2.1.4 Poison Tolerance of Your Target
2.1.5 Counterplay
2.2Action Types
2.2.1Basic Actions
2.2.2Advanced Actions
2.3Accomplices
2.4Class generalisations
3Rewards
3.1Exploits for the Page of Quills
3.1.1Items which can only be claimed once
3.1.2Items continuously available
3.2Victories
4General Strategies
4.1Drafting Tips
4.2Accomplice Roles
4.2.1Example Builds
4.3Outfit Preparations
4.4Playing The Game
5Strategies for Distinctions

Getting Startededit

To be eligible, a player must first become a Tier 2 PoSI and reach 200 Dangerous (with equipment). The card to gain entrance to the activity will be drawn immediately, and succeeding in a Watchful check at Watchmaker’s Hill lead you to The Gamekeeper’s Cottage, Renovated in Watchmaker’s Hill. Your first Round is a tutorial, with a smaller set of available Accomplices and a lower requirement for victory. With some luck and planning you should be able to win the first round.

Mechanicsedit

First, you assemble a team of Accomplices (three, unless you recruit the King of Motley). The Accomplices you may choose from are determined by the RNG, using card mechanics. The cards you draw cannot be discarded, so you must pick one of the Accomplices presented. Your hand is discarded after each choice, so your decision should not be influenced by which other cards you have drawn. Lodgings do not affect hand size here, which is limited to four cards at a time. After you choose your team, you begin a Round. During a Round, you cannot leave The Alleyways of London and cannot change equipment. A Round will probably take between ten and twenty actions; due to the progress of Elusiveness of your Target, the longest possible Round is probably around 25 actions. During a Round, you play Cards that are unlocked by your Accomplices and attempt to reach 8 Poisoner’s Progress either before or on the same action that you reach 8 Elusiveness of your Target. When at least one of these qualities reaches 8, the Round ends. You may keep the team of Accomplices that you have selected for up to ten consecutive Rounds, which is called a Run. Winning at least 7 Rounds out of 10 in a Run earns a Trophy. Wins are also grouped by Seasons, and some equipment from the Page of Quills cannot be purchased without at least 7 victories within the current Season. While aborting a Round that is still in session is possible, it will be counted as a loss and will not allow you to pick a different team. To do so you need to reach the conclusion of a Round by raising either of its progress qualities to 8 and choose to Separate from your accomplices. You will also be forced to assemble a team again after a Run ends. You also cannot pick a different team if you choose to take a break after a Round, since doing so will only allow you to resume play when you return. The Season changes every month, on the first Tuesday of the month. When the season changes, your current run will be stopped prematurely, so be careful starting runs late in the season!

Qualitiesedit

In Hearts’ Game, the progression of a Round is influenced by two positive and three negative qualities:

Poisoner’s Progressedit

Progress tracks how close you are to winning the round. You win when Progress reaches level 8 (36 CP). Generated by offensive actions and reduced by the current level of Tolerance to a minimum of 1. Maximising this quality is your goal in Hearts Game.

Poisonous Preparationedit

Preparation is gained from support actions and are a requirement for advanced actions. Some of these options require only 1 level of Preparation; others require as much as 8. Preparations are not consumed and can be considered an investment towards more powerful Progress in later rounds.

Elusiveness of your Targetedit

Elusiveness tracks how close you are to losing the Round. You lose if Elusiveness reaches level 8 (36 CP) before Progress does. Elusiveness does not decrease and can be considered the round’s ticking clock. From the third turn onwards, all actions have a chance to increase Elusiveness by 3 CP with the probability resulting from the following equation: (turn number - 2) / 7. As such, on average Elusiveness will end the game after 17 ±3 rounds as shown in the graph below.

Elusiveness of your Target Chance per Turn

Turn

Chance %

Graph of likely Elusiveness value in CP per turn

—

Elusiveness of your Target Chance per Turn
Turn
Chance %
Graph of likely Elusiveness value in CP per turn
—

Poison Tolerance of Your Targetedit

Tolerance is a building resistance to your Poisoner’s Progress, reducing Progress value by the Tolerance level to a minimum of 1. After the first turn, each action you take has a chance to increase Tolerance by 2 CP with probability resulting from the following equation: (turn number - 1) / 12. Most actions that generate Progress CP have their effectiveness reduced by Tolerance. Some actions are guaranteed to increase Tolerance, and only one accomplice can decrease it.

Poison Tolerance of Your Target Chance per Turn

Turn

Chance %

Graph of likely Tolerance Level per turn

—

Poison Tolerance of Your Target Chance per Turn
Turn
Chance %
Graph of likely Tolerance Level per turn
—

Counterplayedit

Counterplay adds negative autofire cards to your deck. Offensive Basic actions and Failures on Advanced Actions grant 0–1 Counterplay, which are “cashed out” on negative autofire cards. These cards decrease Progress, increase Elusiveness and Tolerance, and, at high enough levels, can give An Overplayed Hand, a Burden which will make winning significantly harder. Counterplay events do not count towards turn count and can be considered to happen between turns.

Action Typesedit

Each Accomplice unlocks two cards, and each card has an Basic Action and an Advanced Action.

Basic Actionsedit

Require no Preparation
Require no Stat Challenge
When raising Preparation raise it by 1
When raising Progress raises Counterplay.

Advanced Actionsedit

Require Preparation
Require a Stat Challenge
When raising Preparation raise it by 2
Always raises Counterplay on a failure. Both cards for an Accomplice test against the same quality. With a few exceptions, challenges against Main Stats have a Broad difficulty of 200 and challenges against Advanced Skills have a Narrow difficulty of 12.

Accomplicesedit

Class generalisationsedit

See the General Strategies section below for discussion on accomplice roles and individual accomplices. However, in general,

Pages Pages generate some Progress without requiring much Preparation. They do not generate Preparation.- Knights Knights generate Preparation. With Preparation, Knights can generate Progress or decrease Tolerance. The Knight of Nobility also allows two other Knights to check Glasswork.- Queens Queens are primarily for support, combining giving preparations with other varied mechanics, such as clearing a hand or granting a multi-purpose Boon.- Kings Kings generate Progress. Some Kings can generate Progress without Preparation, but all Kings have options require Preparation that generate much Progress. Some Kings can generate Preparation, as well.- Priests Priests provide a Boon which can make other Accomplices more effective. They can also generate Preparation, Progress, and clear hands.- Fools There is only one Fool and it is a rat in a Master’s cloak. It behaves similarly to a Knight, but is affected by all Priest Boons.

Rewardsedit

Exploits for the Page of Quillsedit

Every action in the Alleyways gains one Hearts’ Game: Exploits, which can be spent with the Page of Quills. Exploits are worth between 4 and 5. Some options only become available with certain amounts of Gains.

Items which can only be claimed onceedit

Action	Item	Cost (Exploits)	Value	Value / Action
The large wooden box	Soothe & Cooper Long-Box	11	62.5 1	5.20 EPA
The imposing metal meathook	Honest Butcher’s Tool	602	3
The ampoule of thick black liquid	Ichorous Alarm	602	4
A nod from Mr Hearts	A Silent Nod of Acknowledgement from Mr Hearts	5005	6
The blood-coloured sapling	Heart-Caught Sapling	5007	8
The book in charred and blackened leather	The Black Book of Hearts	5009	310
95. ↑Alternatively can be sold for 50 + 3 x Favours: The Docks
96. ↑ 2.02.1Also requires Hearts’ Game: Wins this Season 7
97. ↑ 3.03.1Shared Best-in-Slot Kataleptic Toxicology Weapon
98. ↑Home Comfort which reduces Wounds gain
99. ↑Also requires Distinctions for winning Runs under various conditions
100. ↑Affiliation which grants Insubstantial and reduces Suspicion gain
101. ↑Also requires winning a Run in every Season
102. ↑Home Comfort of unknown distinction.
103. ↑Also requires previous two rewards
104. ↑Grants Inerrant

Items continuously availableedit

Action	Item	Cost (Exploits)	Value (	Value / Action
The assemblage of ticking brass	- Brass Ring - Whirring Contraption	5	18.5	3.08 EPA1
A consignment of steel	100 x Bessemer Steel Ingot	14	(50)2	6.67 BSI/A
An illicit secret	Mortification of a Great Power	18	(62.5)2	(3.25 EPA)3
The dusty book	- Salt Steppe Atlas - 4 x Puzzling Map - 4 x Partial Map - 5 x Map Scrap	25–324	- 123 - 142.23 w/ Crackling Trade	- 3.73–4.73 EPA - 4.18–5.26 w/ Crackling Trade
- The curious antique book - Dangerous Gains 20	Intriguer’s Compendium	65	312.5	4.73 EPA
- The huge fossil ribcage - Shadowy Gains 20	Leviathan Frame	65	(312.5)5	4.73 EPA
- The battered journal - Persuasive Gains 20	Elemental Secret	65	312.5	4.73 EPA
- The Correspondence-marked stone - Watchful Gains 20	Starstone Demark	65	312.5	4.73 EPA
An antique scarf	Scrap of Ivory Organza	80	312.5 / 4000	3.85 EPA / 48.7 RPA
107. ↑A good source for grinding Whirring Contraption
108. ↑ 2.02.1Assumed value
109. ↑Only repeatable use is when constructing Cover Identities
110. ↑ Cost scales with Gains qualities, starting at 32 exploits going down to 25 at 40 total Gains (acrossallfourqualities)
111. ↑Assumed value, can be boosted with an optimal Zoological Mania value

Victoriesedit

Winning a Run (by winning at least 7 Rounds out of 10) earns a Trophy, a vanity Curiosity item with no uses beyond showing off on your profile mantelpiece. Claiming the Honest Butcher’s Tool or the Ichorous Alarm requires both Victories and Exploits, where in this case victories are counted over the course of an entire season as opposed to over the course of a single run.

General Strategiesedit

Drafting Tipsedit

First and most importantly: drafting is random. Do not come in with a specific idea of what build you would like to have. If you are looking for a specific team (for example for Distinctions), accept that you may have to draft, fail, play one round with the team, and then disband it. The good news is that bad RNG has no effect on profit, so the only thing you lose here is a handful of actions. If you’re looking to get a Trophy in a given season, you may have to draft a non-optimal team, try them for a round, and then disband and try again. I do recommend actually giving a shot during your one required round though: you may find an unexpected strategy! There are a few things to keep in mind when doing your gacha pulls for Accomplices: 118. Skill and outfit management. This will be explained more in its own section. 119. Flexibility. Especially for your first draft, try to keep your options open. You want to pick characters with Supportive options first. 120. Utility. An important thing to realise is that you do not have to fully utilise every part of a character’s kit just because they’re on your team. It is extremely viable to only use some of a character’s options and never play others in a given run. 121. Strategy and role. The game divides characters in terms of the classes of Page, Knight, King, Queen, Priest, and Fool, but this can actually be unhelpful for our purposes. Instead it’s more useful to think of accomplices as fitting in three different roles: Progressers, Supports, and Synergists.

Accomplice Rolesedit

In terms of drafting, it helps to think in terms of the metagame roles for Accomplices:

Progressers are Accomplices which directly make Progress. The Page of Roots is a good example: his cards do nothing other than increase Poisoner’s Progress.
Supports are Accomplices which don’t deal damage directly, but enable others to do so. There are two subtypes:
Prep supports, who build Preparations to allow other accomplices to use their stronger options. The Knight of Skin is the archetypal example here, able to build multiple Preparations in a single action or make progress at the same time.
Deck supports, who help you manage the cards in your hand. The Queen of Loins is the archetypal Deck Support character, unable to make real progress herself but able to clear your hand and help with Preparations.

Synergists open up team archetypes that are otherwise not viable on their own. The Accomplice: Knight of Nobility is a good example, as she turns two other Accomplices, the Knight of Disintegrities and the Knight of Talons, into Glasswork users, opening up an entirely new skill to the game. These classifications are not 1:1 to the actual game: the Page of Lures, for example, can act as both a Progresser and a Synergist since he consumes Preparations. These are not classes which characters fall into: rather, they are roles a character can fulfill on your team. Here are a handful of generic team archetypes that it can help to keep in mind during drafts.

Archetype	Roles	Strategy
Dual-Damage	- Progresser - Progresser - Support	Generally the goal here is straightforward: use the Support to build Preparations, and then use the other cards to attack the enemy. Usually one or both Progressers will be Pages since they can get away with only a small number of Preparations.
Hybrid Damage	- Progresser - Progresser/Support Hybrid - Support	Similar to the dual-damage comp, some accomplices can both build Preparations and deal respectable damage. Usually the hybrid damage-dealer will be a Knight, but not always.
Carry	- Progresser - Support - Support	The preferred setup for many Kings, this is a backloaded setup where two units set up for a much stronger unit to win the game in just a few heavy hits.
Hyper Offense	- Progresser - Progresser - Progresser	This one is a strange build and will be smacked around by Counterplay quite a bit: extremely not recommended for Embalming runs. But certain combinations can actually make respectable progress with no Preparations and no skill checks whatsoever. It doesn’t matter if you get hit with that nasty Burden if you were never rolling against your skills anyway, after all!
Wildcard	- Synergist - Synergist - Support	Some builds rely on one character’s unique gimmick very heavily and are built around it. You may be collecting Priests for the Fool of Audacities or collecting Boons for King of Ambivalences.
Example team strategies that follow these archetypes are provided in a subpage of the guide.
Here is a cheat sheet for what each Accomplice can offer in terms of archetypes for when you are drafting. Remember: it is not necessary to fully utilise every Accomplice’s kit. It is perfectly viable to, for example, take a King solely for their ability to build Preparations and never actually use their damage-dealing options.
Accomplice	Stat	Max Prep
—	—	—
Page of Lures	Watchful	2
Page of Papers	Persuasive	3
Page of Roots	Kataleptic Toxicology	3
Page of Teeth	Dangerous	2
Page of Inversions	Shapeling Arts	2
Page of Gambits	Shadowy	3
Knight of Flames	Watchful	2
Knight of Livers	Shadowy	4
Knight of Ribs	Dangerous	4
Knight of Skin	Watchful	3
Knight of Talons	Kataleptic Toxicology	4
Knight of Disintegrities	Shapeling Arts	4
Knight of Nobility	Glasswork	4
Queen of Loins	None.	None.
Queen of Cod	Shadowy	2
King of Knuckles	Dangerous	5
King of Roses	Persuasive	6
King of Spines	Shadowy	7
King of Tallow	Kataleptic Toxicology	8
King of Ambivalences	Shapeling Arts	5
King of Motley	Persuasive	7
Priest of Briars	Persuasive	2
Priest of Magpies	Watchful	4
Priest of Smiths	Dangerous	3
Fool of Audacities	Persuasive	4

↑Many RPGs refer to their damage-dealers as DPS, which stands for “damage per second”. If you think this term doesn’t really apply to Fallen London as a turn-based browser game, take it up with the Treachery of Clocks.
↑Note that currently Inversions is strictly worse than Teeth in terms of progress, but this may be fixed in a future update.

Example Buildsedit

See Hearts’ Game (Guide)/Example Builds for a list.

Outfit Preparationsedit

It can be useful to maintain a dedicated “flex” outfit slot for Heart’s Game. After you have drafted your team but before you begin your first round, take a moment to consider. Whose attribute check options are you actually planning on using to inflict damage? These are the ones whose attributes you should prioritise, since you will be playing their cards the most. Try not to have more than one or two of these on a team or you will spread yourself very thin. This is obvious but it bears making explicit: Failing skill checks in Hearts’ Game increases your chance of losing, though it’s important to stress you make the same profit regardless. You can recover from a handful of failures without too much difficulty, but the clock is against you: you will accumulate Counterplay from your failure and Elusiveness and Poison Tolerance will accrue without you having made corresponding progress. In order to try to be consistent, try to keep your main accomplice’s skill checks at or above 90%, and 70-80% is acceptable for the others. These are just tips, though: Hearts’ Game is about experimentation and you may find different outfits schemes work better for you, so this is just provide as a rule of thumb to start out with. Other important considerations:

Highway stat checks generally require 334 points to succeed. You will likely not be able to hit this for two stats, but depending on your gear you may be able to hit around 300 for two which is 90%, an acceptable level of risk.
For Pages, the Priest of Magpies reduces the maximum to 300.
Heart’s Game is a great use for Second Chances in the endgame; you will rarely encounter skill checks more difficult than these. A 70% chance to succeed with a Second Chance is equivalent to a 90% chance to succeed without one. This should only be done with options you only plan on playing a few times, such as A duel in the old style, as otherwise it gets expensive quickly.
Advanced Skills require reaching 17 in the skill to maximise (19 with Embalmer’s Mark) to guarantee. They hit 90% at 16 (18). That likely means using almost all of your equipment slots for this one stat, and may be fully impossible for newer players of the game.
For Pages, the Priest of Magpies reduces the guaranteed breakpoint by 2 points to 15.
Even if you cannot consistently pass Advanced Skill checks, these accomplices can still be useful, albeit not as a main Progresser. The advanced skill Kings and Knights can all provide Prep support, the Page of Inversions can give you a nice checkless head start on Progress, and the Page of Roots can help push you over the finish line since his checkless options are unaffected by Poison Tolerance.

Playing The Gameedit

Now that you’ve drafted your Accomplices and adjusted your outfit, it’s time to actually play! Here’s some general play tips:

Your base deck has six cards in it, five if you’re running with the Queen of Cod. Counterplay cards are slowly added in as Counterplay increases and are about half as likely to be drawn as a standard card in your deck.
This means that effectively, you only ever have to actually play four cards in your deck, because you can hold two in your hand and draw. Thus, the general strategy is to figure out what the two worst cards in your deck are at the point in the game you’re at, and hold them in your hand. Play your other cards one at a time. As a rule of thumb:
Early on, hold damaging cards in your hand and draw for Supports to build required Preparations, gather Aces, and so on. Then you can fire a large opening volley as soon as you hit the necessary threshold.
Later, hold the Support cards in your hand. This way when you draw you will draw the Progress cards over and over again.
If you have them, play hand-clearing cards as soon as your hand has two other junk cards for maximum efficiency.
Some builds may occasionally end up with three undesirable cards in their hand. This isn’t a big deal if it happens a couple times in a run, but if you find yourself losing multiple Rounds because of it, you should rethink your strategy and perhaps draft new Accomplices.
If you have to play an undesirable card, the checkless option is likely better than risking a failure on the check option, but be wary of Counterplay.
Tips for managing Hearts’ Game: Counterplay:
Counterplay accrues from two main sources: checkless progress options and failures. Avoid playing the former unnecessarily and avoid the latter with proper outfit management, and you can mitigate much of your risk.
Don’t underestimate it. The Counterplay autofire cards only adjust the qualities a marginal amount, but while that isn’t a big deal with Elusive or Poisoner’s Progress an increase in Poison Tolerance early on can make a round unwinnable.
Try to avoid hitting Counterplay 5 if possible, as An Overplayed Hand can be a very nasty burden to deal with. It’s not a death sentence to your run by any means, but it does make defeat more likely.
Hand management strategies for dealing with Counterplay:
Instead of holding two cards in your hand, instead when you draw you should play everything in your hand that doesn’t give you Counterplay before you draw again (though don’t play Preparations options if you don’t actually need them, as then you’re just running out the clock with no benefit). This maximises your chance of drawing non-Counterplay cards because of how deck math works.
If you already have some Counterplay and want to avoid hitting 5, draw cards one at a time until you get a few Counterplays, which will reduce it with the more manageable tweaks to Elusiveness and Tolerance. Obviously, be sure to avoid playing options which give more Counterplay!

Strategies for Distinctionsedit

See Hearts’ Game (Guide)/Distinctions for in-depth strategic discussion. Retrieved from “https://fallenlondon.wiki/w/index.php?title=Hearts%27_Game_(Guide)&oldid=1285562"Categories: - Guides needing work

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Clear cache To be eligible, a player must first become a Tier 2 PoSI and reach 200 Dangerous (with equipment). The card to gain entrance to the activity will be drawn immediately, and succeeding in a Watchful check at Watchmaker’s Hill lead you to The Gamekeeper’s Cottage, Renovated in Watchmaker’s Hill. Your first Round is a tutorial, with a smaller set of available Accomplices and a lower requirement for victory. With some luck and planning you should be able to win the first round.