Vice Versa is a minimalist, strategic card-stacking game. Play solo or cooperate online with up to five players, placing your entire deck onto ascending and descending stacks before you run out of legal moves. One mistake, one unlucky hand or one hesitation can end the run.
Colors Mode uses cards 1 through 10 in four colors. Matching colors reset a stack, letting you bend the numbering rules to keep the run alive.
Tens Mode is the harder one: 100 cards, four stacks, and a reset rule based on jumping exactly ten numbers up or down, which allows dramatic reversals that can save the group or sink it.
Development
Vice Versa is built on CardEngine, a small reusable card layer I wrote in Unity for draggable cards, hands, stacks and data-driven decks. The engine started as a card-feel prototype in 2024, and Vice Versa's main development ran from September 2025 to its March 2026 release.
Online co-op runs on Fishagon.Steamworks, my in-house wrapper around Steamworks.NET, using Steam lobbies and Steam's own networking rather than a third-party netcode library.
Host-Run Online Co-op
The host shuffles turn order, deals opening hands and validates each turn hand-off
Nine typed, byte-serialized network messages routed to game events
Quick-match, private lobbies with copyable codes, and Steam overlay invites
Shared Shuffle Seed
Every client derives the same deck order from the lobby and game count, so the deck never has to be sent over the network
Rules as Pure Functions
Colors and Tens are each a self-contained rules class, swapped in by the lobby’s mode setting
Solo and group play change hand size and cards per turn
Data-Driven Cards
Cards and decks are ScriptableObject assets: 40 colored cards and a 100-card Tens deck
Each player sees themselves in the local seat with up to four others in turn order
Full Controller Support
Card selection and play through Input System actions