Unicorn: The Startup Card Game

UNICORN: The Startup Card Game

Our Website: https://unicorn-game.yvs272.workers.dev/

Build a billion-dollar startup. Betray your friends along the way.

UNICORN is a competitive startup card game for 3–5 players. Build your company in the open, keep your intentions hidden, and be the first to reach a $1 billion valuation.

About 45 minutes is the design target. Only one player wins.

Big ambitions. Small cards.

Hire talent, launch products, and make your company worth taking. When your friends get too successful, steal the card they needed, reveal their hand, or stop their next turn.

No startup experience required. Just friends with suspiciously good timing.

Draw 1 card. Play up to 2: bank a card face-up for its valuation, or use its effect. Add your visible values, subtract penalties, and pass.

Choose 1 of 3 startups, begin at $50M, and start with 5 hidden cards. Keep no more than 7 cards in your hand. Reach $1B or more at the end of your own completed turn, after reactions resolve, to win.

You’re sitting at $975M. A rival plays Poach and takes your $100M Rockstar CTO. Now you’re at $875M, and they gain the value you just lost.

That is an example of a UNICORN table moment. Your plan can be one card away from working, and one friend away from falling apart.

Tested on real friendships

These are real people playing early UNICORN prototypes. We’ve brought the game to different tables to try the cards, watch what players do, and improve the next version.

The photos and footage show earlier prototypes. The current rules and artwork are shown in the card examples below.
 

Build your startup

Chief Scientist adds $125M. Viral Launch adds $125M. Major Funding Round adds $150M.

Your valuable cards sit face-up in your startup, where everyone can see what is worth stealing.

Ruin their next move

Founder Scandal lets you privately see a rival’s entire hand and choose 1 card to steal. Patent Lawsuit makes them miss their next whole turn. Cease & Desist returns a Growth card to their hand, removing its valuation until they bank it again.

Poach takes a banked card. PR Crisis leaves a visible $75M penalty until removed. Different attacks create different problems.

Golden Handcuffs cancels Poach and can reverse Ditch against you. Best Lawyers in Town blocks Patent Lawsuit, Steal Customer, or Cease & Desist. Crisis PR Team blocks Founder Scandal or PR Crisis, and can clear an active PR Crisis with a card play.

Keep defenses in your hidden hand for immediate reactions. Bank one for its small printed valuation instead, and its defense effect is unavailable.
 

Work together. Win alone.

Strategic Alliance requires both players to agree. You can trade 1 hand card each on the offering player’s turn; both agree to the specific cards, and the completed trade uses 1 of that player’s two plays. A declined invitation or trade costs nothing.

You can defend each other, but you never have to. Your startup cards and valuations stay separate.

Ditch takes 1 banked card from your ally and ends the alliance. Golden Handcuffs can reverse the theft, letting the defender choose 1 of the attacker’s banked cards instead. Your ally never shares your win.

Race to $1 billion.

Everyone can see who is closest to becoming a Unicorn. A stolen Employee, a returned Growth card, or a well-timed defense can change the race.

Valuation is the only score. Your face-up cards carry the accounting, so you can spend your attention on the people across the table.
 

The $35 reward is the physical UNICORN card game. The current set contains 118 cards: 98 gameplay cards, 15 Startup cards, and 5 Reference cards.

The card mix and artwork may be refined during final playtesting and production. See the reward details for shipping information.

Your next game night
 

For startup people who want to sabotage some due diligence. For card game people who enjoy simple turns with competitive decisions. For friend groups who can handle a little betrayal.

Players stay in the game through setbacks. Nobody is eliminated before the winner is decided.

Meet Yash and Manav

We’re Yash and Manav, the co-creators of UNICORN. Before our first playtest, we made the cards ourselves, cutting out the prototype by hand.

We wanted startup ambition, alliances, and betrayal at the same table. Your backing helps us turn those handmade cards into the first printed run.

The handmade prototype lets us change a card and try it again. The product render shows the direction for the printed deck, rather than a manufactured sample.

Backing helps take UNICORN from an early game on the table to a checked, printed production run.

Help put it on the table

The campaign is intended to fund final playtesting, finished card design and instructions, a physical production sample, card manufacturing, and packing and fulfillment.

We’ll review the sample before committing to the full run. Production quantities and delivery planning will be based on supplier quotes.

The sequence is campaign, final playtesting and production artwork, sample approval, manufacturing, and fulfillment.

Manufacturing and shipping estimates are not confirmed yet. We’ll share delivery estimates once those quotes are in place and keep backers informed about changes.

Back the $35 card game reward and help make the first printed run happen. Build a startup, betray your friends, and become the first $1 billion Unicorn.