Excisa

Excisa is a first-person occult horror roguelite about summoning an Angel that answers one question with the absolute truth. Anna performs the ritual to learn what happened to her brother, who vanished years ago. After Anna, you take your place at the séance table with your own question and try to reach the Angel inside the House.

The ritual

Every action uses a turn. When you summon, you choose one of three tarot cards drawn from the Major Arcana. Each card indicates what it may grant if your roll succeeds and what may answer if it fails. You then choose how many dice to roll:

• One or two dice: may bring money, healing, blessings or ritual tools. These results help you prepare, but cannot complete the ritual.
• Three dice: the only way to reach the Angel. Only the highest possible roll advances the ritual; any other result brings silence or something worse.

Rolling makes noise, and the more dice you use, the more the House notices you.

The guests

Your calls reach the Angel and eleven distinct nightmares, each with its own rules, behavior and weaknesses. Some bite every turn, copy themselves, move only when you reach for the Angel, or call another guest to the table. You must work out which guest has appeared and how to banish it.

Supplies and signs

There is no traditional HUD: the room shows your condition. Blood on your hand and color draining from the room signal that your body is weakening; burning candles mark the time you have left; and your heartbeat warns when fear is about to overwhelm you.

You can order holy water, salt, iron nails and other ritual tools through a disconnected phone. No one answers, but moments later a portal opens above the table and delivers what you requested. Blessings bend fate in your favor, while cursed items poison every roll in exchange for power. You can keep a cursed item and accept its bargain, or spend a turn surrendering it to the bowl. The bowl can also take blood in exchange for better odds.

Descend through six depths

The ritual takes you through six depths, each adding a new twist while retaining everything introduced before it. The flames burn lower, near-misses leave their mark and the House grows louder.

Leave or continue

Between depths, you choose whether to stand up or stay seated. Standing banks your score and ends your time at the table; staying lets you continue with what you have gained, along with every curse still in play. If you die before standing up, you lose the progress of the entire session.