Sauna Grudge

WELCOME TO THE FINNISH SAUNA TOURNAMENT

Sauna is normally a place to relax. This was considered insufficiently competitive.

Sauna Grudge  is a roguelike deckbuilder about sitting in a hot room until everyone else leaves. Build a deck, watch what your rivals are planning, and tour Finland in pursuit of the highest possible honour: being the last sweaty person on a wooden bench.

LOSE IN TWO CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE WAYS

Every competitor has Sisu, their physical endurance, and Häpy, their social dignity. Empty either bar and they leave. This is useful because some Finns fear public embarrassment more than organ failure.

Your own meters are under attack too. Recover, retaliate, or pretend everything is fine while quietly moving to the lower bench.

THE BENCH IS A CLASS SYSTEM

The upper bench is hotter, stronger, and respectable. The lower bench is safer, humiliating, and available to cowards with excellent survival instincts. Change position at the right moment, force rivals into worse seats, and decide what remains of your pride is worth.

BUILD A DECK, THEN RUIN IT

Throw löyly. Swing the vihta. Drink something restorative. Open the forbidden door. Add cards, improve them, and collect relics until your sensible little deck becomes a machine for producing steam and personal problems.

Heat also adds bad sauna cards to your deck. Apparently sweating into your eyes needed mechanical representation.

Opponents show their intentions before acting, so you can make a thoughtful tactical decision and still discover it was wrong. Some encounters put several sauna specialists on the benches at once, all of them confident that you are the problem.

PERKELE IS A MECHANIC

PERKELE sits outside your deck. It is a limited emergency action for the moment when planning, dignity, and indoor voices have all failed. You do not get many uses. This is balance.

TOUR FINLAND WITHOUT LEAVING THE SAUNA

Visit ten Finnish destinations with their own saunas, rivals, and questionable local events.

Play as Pekka, Sandra, or Jarmo, each with different stats, starting cards, and preferred methods of suffering.

Find cards and relics during a run, then spend Sausage Points on permanent upgrades. It made sense at the time.

Unlock Ascended and Godlike difficulties when Normal stops being sufficiently hostile.

Enjoy Finnish and Finglish voice barks, adult humour, and several cultural references that will not be explained to foreigners.

MADE IN FINLAND, MORE OR LESS

Sauna Grudge started as a Finnish joke project. Regrettably, it developed progression systems.

The artwork is AI-assisted. We know you can tell, and pretending otherwise would be more embarrassing than the lower bench. Behind it is an actual game about deckbuilding, risk, positioning, and deciding whether shouting is now the optimal move.

Finns may recognize things they wish had remained private. Everyone else is welcome to treat the game as a cultural exchange program with more sweating.