Tararot: Prototyping a Tarot-Based Card Game in Base44

Over the past few months, I’ve been developing a narrative card game called Tararot. It began as a richly layered storytelling concept—with roleplaying elements, petitioners, quests, and a court of palace figures loosely mapped to the Major and Minor Arcana—but I recently found a breakthrough by going in the opposite direction.

Instead of trying to build the whole mythology-heavy version first, I created a lightweight, fully playable prototype using tarot cards in place of a traditional Mille Bornes deck.

It works.

This new version strips the game down to its core mechanics: movement, blocks, recovery, and strategy—reimagined through the symbolic language of the tarot. I mapped cards from the Minor and Major Arcana to Mille Bornes equivalents (hazards, remedies, safeties, mileage), and rebalanced the system so it could be played with a standard tarot deck.

I built the whole thing in Base44, my go-to digital environment for playtesting and systems prototyping. It let me quickly model turn logic, hand size, card effects, and win conditions—all using the symbolic structure I’d already defined in the Tararot world.

What surprised me most was how intuitive it felt. If you already know tarot, you already know how to play. The cards themselves carry meaning: The Chariot accelerates. The Tower disrupts. The Fool skips gleefully past logic. I didn’t have to explain much—the archetypes do the work.

This prototype gave me exactly what I needed: a playable loop. It proves that Tararot can work as a game—before the storytelling layers are added, before the binder inserts or digital expansions or RPG systems. It’s fun, fast, and symbolically rich.

From here, I can build out:

  • Printable decks with custom iconography
  • Scorecards and player mats
  • Catchphrase cards (already in development)
  • Optional narrative overlays for more immersive play

Sometimes the best way to make progress on a complex system is to make a simple one first. This version of Tararot is my minimum viable magic.

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