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Watch trailer on Steam ↗Borrow or Rob
Pirates of Wall street · Published by Pirates of Wall street
Last updated 29 Sept 2026
The Pantheon sends armies back from the future; humanity has never won. Now you fight backwards too. Two agents: one fights Phase 1 forward, the other refights it in reverse, where your past agent returns as a hologram to strike with you: the TEMPORAL PINCER. A retro future roguelike deckbuilder.
Indie, Strategy · 2026 · More free games
About this game
[A world ruled by machines. An enemy attacking from the future, against the flow of time.]
The artificial intelligence Pantheon judged humanity to be meaningless — and perfected the technology to move against the flow of time.
No matter how flawless the resistance's plan, it changed nothing. Pantheon lives through the battle once, then sends its forces back from the future into the past. The enemy that arrives has already fought you, and it comes holding the answer.
Humanity has never won. Not once.
[Seize the machine that travels back through time. Strike back.]
Descendants from the future stole Pantheon's technology and sent it back to the past. The machine is called BORROW or ROB.
At last, humanity can enter the battle against the flow of time.
Boss battles are split into two phases.
PHASE 1 — FORWARD. You fight normally, along the flow of time. Every action you take is recorded to the Timeline.
PHASE 2 — TIME INVERSION. You retrace the same battle backwards. The cards you played in Phase 1 begin to replay in reverse.
This is not a simple rewind. The whole battle becomes a single structure that locks front to back.
Every boss fights in its own way. One retraces its position, another the order of its bombardment, another its splitting and merging. Phase 1 is your time to read those rules.
[Two agents. The Temporal Pincer.]
You deploy two agents to a single battle: one to fight along the flow of time, and one to be sent into the battle that runs against it.
The record left by your Phase 1 agent returns to the Phase 2 battlefield as a hologram. The moment you attack, the agent from the past retraces that attack and strikes down alongside you.
This is the TEMPORAL PINCER.
Step onto the square where the past agent stands — BORROW triggers. You inherit the Block and buffs that agent built up, exactly as they were.
Attack the same position as the past agent, and a crack in time tears open for an instant, letting you choose a Temporal Pincer maneuver.
What you did in the past decides what you can do as you move back through time.
[Reactive turn-based card combat]
The instant the pincer attack lands, the reversed clock begins to turn — and you must input as the hand reaches twelve.
Your judgment decides how powerful and how high a grade of Temporal Pincer maneuver you can choose. Between the card you played in the past and the card you play now, nearly 100 different maneuvers are on offer.
[Roguelike deckbuilding with limitless possibility]
Every agent differs in everything — the color and concept of the cards they wield, their equipment, their Temporal Pincer maneuvers. (Close-quarters destruction, corrosion, data manipulation, defense, and more.)
Which two agents will you pair to plan your pincer operation? A roguelike deckbuilder where the combination opens up endless variety in cards, equipment, and skill builds.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Processor: Dual-core 2.0 GHz (Intel Core i3 / AMD equivalent)
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 3.3 compatible GPU with 1 GB VRAM (Intel HD 4000 / equivalent)
- Storage: 1 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card
- Additional Notes: Requires a GPU supporting OpenGL 3.3. 1920×1080 display recommended.
Recommended
- OS: Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
- Processor: Quad-core 2.5 GHz (Intel Core i5 / AMD equivalent)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Dedicated GPU with 2 GB VRAM (OpenGL 3.3+)
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card
- Additional Notes: 1920×1080 display recommended for best experience.
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
AnnouncementsOfficial
Pathc 1.1.02 - Living Battlegrounds
Battlefields are alive now. Combat backdrop is a layered, animated environment instead of a static painting.Skies that move — suns arc and set, moons rise, clouds drift, storms and auroras roll overhead.Weather and hazards — desert haze, falling cavern rubble that shatters on impact, toxic miasma, ember storms, sweeping searchlights.The world runs backwards in Rewind Battle — rubble surges back to the ceiling, embers collapse into sparks, meteors climb into the sky, the sun un-sets.Skies follow your turns — celestial motion advances with the battle and unwinds as you fight backwards through it.Every location and boss gets its own stage — City, Nature, and Underground each have bespoke treatments, and major bosses fight in dedicated arenas.Read full article on Community Announcements (ssj24680)AnnouncementsOfficial
Temporal Pincer Judgment Rewards
Temporal Pincer Judgment Rewards⏱ New — Temporal Pincer Judgment RewardsLand a pincer in Phase 2 and the world freezes — then pick one of three rewards.Strike the enemy standing on a red crack and land a judgment of GOOD or better: time stops, and three reward cards rise out of the time crack. The reward you choose immediately strikes the enemy from that very crack, as part of this pincer.54 rewards in total — instant strikes, resource refunds, status effects, executions, summons, trap placement, and moreYour judgment sets what's on offer — on PERFECT, one of 10 PERFECT-exclusive rewards is guaranteed to appearBoss-specific and agent-specific rewards now join the pool🎴 The cards you played decide the rewardsRewards aren't rolled blindly. The game reads the card that created the crack in Phase 1 and the card that triggered the pincer in Phase 2 together.Two-axis matching — color + keyword. Rewards are drawn to match those two cards' colors (red / green / blue / yellow) and keywords (CQC, Ranged, Corrosion, Thorns, AoE…). A melee deck pulls melee rewards; a corrosion deck pulls corrosion rewards. However you build your deck, your pincers strike back in kind.Rarity carries over. The higher the average rarity of those two cards, the rarer the rewards you're offered. A pincer built out of rare cards sharply raises the odds of rare rewards.Conditional rewards. Execute (target under 10% HP), Infinite Corrosion (an already-corroded target), and others only enter the pool once their condition is met.🎯 Clearer pincer trigger conditionsPreviously, playing any attack card on a turn with a red crack would open the judgment — which could set off a crack on a tile that had nothing to do with your actual target.Now a pincer triggers only when you aimed at the enemy on the crack, or actually dealt damage to it.✨ PresentationTime crack portal — on a successful judgment, a dimensional gateway opens where the crack stood, and your reward pours out of it.Every reward has its own effect ...Read full article on Community Announcements (ssj24680)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch 1.1.01 released!
🕓 Major Update — Time Inversion (Phase 2) Comes AliveThe heart of this update is a complete overhaul of Phase 2 (Time Inversion). Your hologram is no longer just a marker — it's now an active unit that replays the cards you used in Phase 1, in reverse.■ BORROW Rework — The Hologram Replays Your Phase 1 Cards· Attacks reverse → boss Glitch: Attacks you threw in Phase 1 now rewind onto the boss as Glitch damage-over-time, which naturally pierces the boss's Block.· Defense/buffs/healing reverse → BORROW pickups: Block, buff, and heal cards float above the hologram's head as ghost icons on a constellation arc. Stand on the hologram's slot to BORROW them and inherit that Block/buff/healing (effect lasts that one turn).· Full mirror replay: Every card's motion, VFX, and SFX play back perfectly in reverse — projectile recall volleys, reverse shield-slams, AMR sniper-round recall, even reversed CQC punches.· Every card color audited: We combed through the reverse-replay presentation of every red, green, and yellow card. Teleports now rewind as a reverse blink (not a backwards walk), and escalating attacks rewind with decreasing damage.■ Making Time Inversion Visible· Hologram v2 'Ghost Signal': Redesigned from a flat cyan silhouette into a see-through original sprite with glitch, chromatic aberration, and CRT scanlines.· Reversed board objects: Traps and falling objects consumed in Phase 1 re-materialize on the same slot in Phase 2 — the inverse of destruction is emergence.· Persistent Phase 2 inversion filter, plus a bullet-time flourish when an attack begins rewinding.· "Time Crack" telegraph v2: A radial fracture with spatial distortion foreshadows the next inversion point.■ Big Combat VFX Upgrade· Status readability: Corrosion and Glitch now display simultaneously. Corrosion shows liquid drips scaled to stacks; Glitch spreads as stack-scaled scatter patches.· Boss Glitch coverage overlay: A purple corruption creeps across the boss's body as Glitch stacks build.· Fist of...Read full article on Community Announcements (ssj24680)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch note 1.1.0
BORROW or ROB — Update 1.1.0 (July 15, 2026)Content-and-polish update: BORROW promoted to a core mechanic, a redesigned enemy intent system, a full visual pass, and a long list of fixes.🌟 New ContentWARD's 40 new cards — the yellow defensive/Thorns specialist is now fully unlocked and playable, full rework of her VFX, SFX, and assets: Magnetic Pull, Taunt, Counter Strike, bunker & sky-drop deployables, and 16 new equipment.some of the New Cards — Thornfury — a yellow skill that converts your Thorns into Power.New starting loadout — Ward begins with the Vengeful Fortress relic.⚔️ BORROW is now a core mechanicBORROW is available on every difficulty — no longer difficulty gated. Only ROB now unlocks at higher difficulty. Difficulty names were reworked accordingly (Normal → Borrow / or Rob).New Echo core — "Echo Lens" — the hologram's BORROW icon now reveals the illustration and name of the exact card you'll receive this turn.The borrowed card is now locked in at the start of the turn (no more re-rolling on contact), and a dedicated in-run ADA briefing introduces BORROW the first time it's relevant.🎯 Redesigned Enemy Intent SystemAll-new intent icons driven by a central model (attack / block / card / move / hidden).3-stage timing markers so you can read when an intent lands — \ / preparing soon / persistent.Move telegraphs are now always shown on an enemy's move turn (fixes silent approaches from bulwark drones and capturers).Enemy reinforcement briefings no longer spoil exact stat numbers.🎨 Visual & AudioNew combat backgrounds in a "fallen retro-future" tone, differentiated by region and time of day; boss cutscene art refreshed.Contact-shadow system — grounded shadows for ground units, flying enemies, structures, and board-spawned objects, with stage vignette for depth.Boss meter HUD redesign — the pixel "Ledger book" is now a de-pixelated Vault Terminal.Full de-pixel font pass — legacy pixel fonts replaced with Chakra Petch across narrative and boss UI.VFX reworks — B...Read full article on Community Announcements (ssj24680)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch 1.0 released!
Ward boasts high armor stats and can acquire "Thorns" buffs—which counterattack whenever he takes damage—through various paths. Defense = AttackBut he doesn't just sit there and take hits. He can accumulate these Thorns buffs and detonate them all at once to deal massive damage to all enemies.Don't just wait around after getting your Thorns buffs! TauntWard can cancel an enemy’s intended action and taunt them into striking him multiple times. Maximize your Thorns buffs and turn them against your foes!Activate \Ward isn't just a punching bag. If an enemy attacks and reduces his armor to exactly 0, he unleashes a relentless barrage of powerful counterattacks against every enemy that struck him at the end of the turn.Reinforcement from aboveAs the leader of the Ghost team, Ward can also signal the command center to deploy powerful structures onto the battlefield. You can drop disruptive structures to block enemy movement, or crash them directly onto their heads for devastating damage.Additionally, he can summon a Bunker onto the field to protect allies and grant various buffs to the agents inside.Combine Ward’s diverse card pool with other agents to seize control of the battlefield!Read full article on Community Announcements (ssj24680)
