Rules handbook
What is the Palworld TCG?
2 min read Source: CR §1, Play Guide Updated 1 August 2026
The Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME is a two-player duelling card game built on the world of Palworld. You take the role of a Pal tamer: you deploy Pals to a base, put up structures, hand out gear, spend resources, and send the whole operation at the person sitting opposite you. The comprehensive rules are written for exactly two players — anything with three or more is a house format, not a supported one.
How a game is won#
Each player starts on 10 life. You win when your opponent can no longer keep playing, and there are two ordinary ways to make that happen:
Reduce their life to 0. Life is lost when your Pals connect with the opposing player rather than with their board. A Pal's strike value is how much damage it does to a player.
Empty their deck. A player whose deck hits zero cards loses. Deck-out is not a curiosity in this game: the damage system itself burns cards off the top of the defending player's deck, so a long game can end this way without anyone planning it.
Both of these are checked by the rules engine rather than announced by a player. The moment a losing condition is true, the game ends — you do not get to finish resolving whatever you were in the middle of.
A few less common endings exist too. Either player may concede at any time and loses immediately; nothing can stop a concession or force one. If both players would lose at the same instant, the game is a draw. And some cards say outright that a player wins or loses — those resolve as written, no state check required.
What makes it feel like Palworld#
Three things carry the video game across:
Work suitability. Pals are not only fighters. Their work icons — mining, crafting, transporting, and so on — matter to structures that put them to work.
Materials and ingredients. Building and cooking are modelled as two counted resources you spend, not as cards.
Night. The game has a named state that some cards switch on, and other cards get stronger while it lasts.
None of that is decoration; each one is a real subsystem with its own page in this handbook.
Source: Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 (30 July 2026) §1 “Overview of the Game”, and the Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME Play Guide.
Unofficial summary. Official sources are linked from the handbook index.