Haimrik
Haimrik
Game
Game2023
Cardboard Town
Developer Stratera Games, cukuto
Cardboard Town is a city-building card game. Manage your resources, obtain upgrades, draw your cards and thrive! Random events, quest cards, and game modes make each run different. From the Steam store page
202 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
64
Fresh
121 positive · 68 negative
95% range 57–71%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 121 | 68 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 2 | 0 | 11 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
446 of 637 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
64% recommend · 119 yes, 66 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 185 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (1,859 of 2,332 positive).
Others criticize poor balance, lack of deck management, and unclear mechanics. [1][2][3]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
Really stretching the definition of roguelike deck builder here. The game is a placement puzzle game. there not really meta progression or deck alteration. you are forced to add cards to your deck via "themed" packs, they could have something useful or fullstop unplayable at a certain point in your run. if you like puzzle style "make it work with what youre given" and managing the placement of buildings and what not …
- [2]
Looks good but is poorly balanced/designed. You end up with lots of cards in your hand that you can't use or discard, specially early game. It's a resource management game with too much RNG and almost no strategic depth and flexibility. It didn't flow. I played for one hour and It appears I played more than most who bought it.
- [12]
Honest Review (7 Hours Played) If you enjoy deck-building and cute aesthetics, this game is worth a look. For the average player, though, it’s a harder sell. The game has solid potential but needs better balance and clearer systems. It often feels designed around harder difficulties, with upgrades and mechanics focused more on managing negatives than enabling fun or distinct builds. Many upgrades feel underwhelming …
- [10]
A city builder that isn't built around grinding for more resources and waiting as your city grows. It's really amazing - I'm not even 2 hours in and I really like the games idea. All of your city is based on random cards which gets drawn from the deck, you have to make the best use of what's available and try to survive as long as you can. The idea that your city won't live forever is great, I personally get too …
- [4]
The graphic design and soundtrack is good enough to attract the players to the game. Resource management and game mechanics are designed well and provides a fine balanced and immersive gaming experience.However, difficulty of redesign the town and disasters leads to a sudden lose and and disappointment.
Summarised from 34 of the 199 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Cardboard Town talk about unique and charming cardboard aesthetic; those who didn't talk about poor balance and excessive randomness. Which matters more to you?
Reactions
60 of 202 · most liked firstI played this game for about 4 or 5 days and I really like the artstyle and mechanics, the game is really easy to learn, you have some cards that costs money and some money based on your population, your goal is grow up your town, and because of that it entertains you too much. But at the current state I can't recommend buying it because of the missing content/bugs. At least for me, I have some cards and mechanics without description, the game misses a bigger goal to win and apparently this is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Really stretching the definition of roguelike deck builder here. The game is a placement puzzle game. there not really meta progression or deck alteration. you are forced to add cards to your deck via "themed" packs, they could have something useful or fullstop unplayable at a certain point in your run. if you like puzzle style "make it work with what youre given" and managing the placement of buildings and what not for bonuses, than this is for you, if youre a slay the spire, or TCG player…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I feel so bad leaving a negative review here, because I'm loving the game, but some things are just too bad for me to give a good review. It's a cool concept, where it's basically a city builder but done in a puzzle format, as a few other devs have been doing lately (ex. Islanders). There are resources you have to keep up, or you lose. There's difficult cards you need to play, or you lose. You have to try and complete quests (cool idea) in order to get the cards that will progress you towards…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great core idea, but big mistakes in execution: - I closed the game with "save and exit", but when I reopened it I found that my progress was reverted around 15 minutes of playtime. No crash or anything. No warning that I should wait for a certain checkpoint. - The game is not transparent at all. The cards have extra effects that are not indicated on the cards (like red/blue tiles). Some cards add other cards in your hand, that are not described. You can only guess by the name maybe, but…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First off I would like to say this game is a bit misleading with its name and tags. Its not primarily a city builder, but a puzzle game. You will not be neatly arranging your city to make it pretty and fulfill certain functions like in the screenshots, but rather fighting the constant resource imbalance, debuffs, card availability to try to fulfill certain objectives and amass as many votes (based of off population) as possible (your score opens new maps and buildings for other runs) and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honest Review (7 Hours Played) If you enjoy deck-building and cute aesthetics, this game is worth a look. For the average player, though, it’s a harder sell. The game has solid potential but needs better balance and clearer systems. It often feels designed around harder difficulties, with upgrades and mechanics focused more on managing negatives than enabling fun or distinct builds. Many upgrades feel underwhelming or don’t meaningfully change how you play. The red buildings/disaster…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cool ideas for a city builder, I love the attempt at trying a new method for the city building and the art but the strategy elements don't feel like they mesh well. I don't feel like I get into a flow and some of the systems just don't feel like they work well together. Along with some unclear rules at times and sometimes feeling like 'every card I have is just going to make things worse and I don't really have any other options'. So on a perfect run this game could feel kinda good but too…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Looks good but is poorly balanced/designed. You end up with lots of cards in your hand that you can't use or discard, specially early game. It's a resource management game with too much RNG and almost no strategic depth and flexibility. It didn't flow. I played for one hour and It appears I played more than most who bought it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wish I could do mixed on this. The concept is great. As others have said the execution is awful. No way to adjust your deck or remove cards forever from your deck that is super bloated with basically garbage most of the time or some cards are way to expensive and you will never be able to play them. I love city builders and I love card games so I seem like the target audience but sadly its a big no.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Deckbuilder made by people who don't play deckbuilders. The entire experience of this game is bloating your deck with cards you cant play, with basically no options to craft it to have synergies or efficiencies. i bought this at steep discount, put 5 hours into thinking it would become more clear. It did not and regret even the small amount of money i spent on this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Steam Board Game Fest is hereee! ✨ And we are so excited to say 🏗️ Cardboard Town ( 80% OFF ) 🎲 Dice & Fold ( 50% OFF ) are part of the line up with deep discounts! #indiegamedev #indiegames #Steam #turnbased
neutral · AI labelView post →The graphic design and soundtrack is good enough to attract the players to the game. Resource management and game mechanics are designed well and provides a fine balanced and immersive gaming experience.However, difficulty of redesign the town and disasters leads to a sudden lose and and disappointment.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cardboard Town can be fun, it has a really cool art style but suffers from balancing issues. Usually deck building games give you tools to manage your deck, by either giving you ways to remove cards or giving bonuses and benefits for having a bloated deck. Here, you get neither. Sure, there are some cards that remove cards, but it is always through the addition of more cards. There are only negatives to having a bloated deck, and every game I played there were so many useless cards in my deck…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This review breaks my heart to write, because I love this game, on the surface it's everything I could want in a rogue lite deck & resource management game. I played the demo years ago and wanted to wait until these issues were fixed, I regularly checked in on discussions surrounding feedback and only bought it on steep discount since it seemed devs were largely abandoning basic fixes and just throwing in new features in hopes of more balance. I can never understand why new items are being…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this on the steam summer sale for $3.99 and honestly I wouldn't pay anymore for this. I was shocked to see so many negative reviews. Overall I liked this game. I played and failed a couple of times before I finally won one and for $4 bucks I think 5 hours of playtime is fair. I wouldn't play again due to the very repetitive nature of the game. I was disappointed to see how little variation was in the challenges and cards themselves. It left a lot to be desired. If the game had included…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wadahell is going on with these reviews? This game is fun, unique, and easily good enough to keep you hooked for hours. Feels like some people are trying way too hard to be professional critics. Just try it, it’s really fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A city builder that isn't built around grinding for more resources and waiting as your city grows. It's really amazing - I'm not even 2 hours in and I really like the games idea. All of your city is based on random cards which gets drawn from the deck, you have to make the best use of what's available and try to survive as long as you can. The idea that your city won't live forever is great, I personally get too attached to my builds and don't want to re-do a lot of the things. Cardboard town…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cardboard Town is a combination deckbuilder and citybuilder. Players build their city using a deck of cards, with the deck being frequently augmented with new cards and new abilities. Each card builds a particular building or completes a particular action. These buildings, in turn, require and provide resources, with the town’s continued survival being reliant on a steady positive flow of resources. Run out of too many resources or fail too many challenges, and the town self-implodes, ending…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can't really recommend it. It's a cute concept and all, but for me absolutely fails at the "cozy game" mission statement. The deckbuilding aspect feels weird and the fact that you retain your hand and just draw one card (or pay 4 to draw a second) makes the whole gameplay feel super clunky. High cost cards just sit in your hand, especially the red ones. Since you don't draw a lot of cards you hit a drought of cards to increase your population, which in turn lets you sit at the same amount…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfortunately I have no idea if this is a good game or not because the graphics were so messed up on loading the game I had to quit. There's this flickering and a blue box that overlays everything when you pause that's so distracting I couldn't really even play the game. I'm running on Fedora 44, which I understand most games won't optimize for Linux, but most game do just work through proton. This one is unfortunately just so distractedly bad with a graphic flicker over the grass that it…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is challenging the first few times as you explore dynamics, but after winning my first on normal mode I managed to win easily on expert using the techniques I learnt along the way. It is not good for someone who can't handle failure and expects it to be cozy/easy. It requires planning and forethought. I really enjoy it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →game is fun for a bit but after a few runs ending in the same dead ends it loses its luster. great concept but poor execution, half the cards are either useless or you will never have a large enough starting amount to use them. You'll fill up your deck, not have enough roads, and be stuck hitting next day until the game ends. Strategies will be abruptly shut down because of the sheer amount of useless cards and upgrades offered, few perk synergies that can counter the crushing red card…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I returned this. And I grant that I never mastered the nuances of this game. But if you were hoping for a deck-builder with the same degree of polish as Slay the Spire and other classics, this game just isn't quite optimized enough. I kept ending up with HUGE hands of cards and never enough money to play more than a card or two. I understood that I needed to focus more on population and leveling up my town. But I think the learning curve was just too steep for someone like myself. Toeing that…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Coziest roguelike deckbuilder around As avid roguelike deckbuilder (RLDB), i always hunt for any game that can teased my brain. Something about combining puzzles solving and dopamine hit from slot machine that make me craving in multiple games. However, this not like the traditional RLDB where you can specific curate a perfect deck for your run. The game is pretty much a resource management game, where if too many go into negative, you will lose the run. The gameplay is kinda similar to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is beautiful but it's infuriating to play. You are given very little control over what cards you take and how many. This means you can't really build for anything in particular, and the game forces you into a huge mess of a deck. Surviving becomes very RNG heavy, and you can easily end up in a situation where you go 10-20 turns without being able to draw the one thing you need to avoid failure.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very promising game but lack of onboarding or even tooltips (or explaining what constitutes a card since they call some things cards and it doesn't actually count as one / has a special rule OR something isn't a card but it still blocks certain mechanics). Overall, I see why it deserves the initial negative review and hope to see it get better. EDIT: It does get better when you get used to things but there's a lot of stuff I'd like... maybe a reminder/info UI for like handsize vs max hand and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Developer and artist have left this game under the care of the publisher. It's playable and quite enjoyable, but has some flaws which will not be resolved.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not a long lived game, but has interesting systems to learn.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →propaganda. why is "communist strike" a negative thing. shallow. clearly you have little understanding of the political party. i would suggest reading a book.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Definitley recommend! It was a bit of a learning curve as there is no specific tutorial (just pop ups as you unlock new concepts) but outside of that I've really enjoyed it! My suggestions for new players: Focus on town growth from the beginning (many of the star quests utilize this concept.) Explore the new cards and try out all the packs to see what you like. Overall its a greatly developed game and I would 100% suggest if you are looking for a game similar to stacklands but without the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →like the idea of the game, but so many bugs regarding card function. will change to a positive review when the bugs are fixed.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has alot of strategic depth while keeping the mechanics relatively simple. It's very well done for that in my opinion
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played once and didn't feel the need to revisit. You're dropped into your first game with very little initial tutorial--if you're familiar with city-builders you'll be fine, but otherwise I guess you just have to figure it out? The run I played was either super buggy or super nerfed by debuffs that weren't sufficiently telegraphed (again, possibly because there was not enough tutorial to point me where I should be looking for my debuffs, or up-front info on how long they lasted... is "can't…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is missing some QOL and gameplay features that don't make it fun for me and instead just make it very annoying and bloated to play.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Maybe worth $5 at most. But it's an unfinished game and it is very user unfriendly. Great concept, poor execution.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's allright. It just needs some more tidying up, and also, it is quite repetitive. The game feels unbalanced as well. Great potential, just a bit boring is all.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm a gamedev myself, and that's what I think Worth highlighting (what is unique) * Interesting key concept of combining roguelike with city builder * Visual style is awesome Overall rating 2/10 I like the concept, but implementation is far from ideal. There are no “builds,” so to speak. Despite being roguelike, your runs would be close to identical. There is no such thing as “I want to make an industrial city with lots of production” or “I want to make a rural town,” nothing. Cards just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfortunately I have to say Do Not Buy. The game itself is really cool and a fresh idea, but there's cards that straight up don't work and it doesn't look like there's going to be an update anytime soon. Upon A Star doesn't do anything but clear itself from your hand, despite having two effects listed, any card that intends to increase your available money just doesn't for some reason, and the game can't recognize when one of your optional resources runs out. You'll still get a game over for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You will like our game if you enjoyed: 🏘Cardboard Town 🐀Ratropolis 🚶Stacklands #cozygames #turnbasedthursday
neutral · AI labelView post →For the discounted price, it's definitely worth it. The art style is unique, and the cardboard aesthetic totally has its own charm. The combination of city-building and card mechanics (it kind of reminds me of Monopoly) feels fresh and surprisingly fun. It's simple to pick up, but it still keeps you thinking about your next move... until you realize your luck absolutely sucks lol😭 I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it, especially if you can grab it on sale.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's a fun concept, but this heavy of RNG doesn't really make for a good city builder. The game relies on randomized card draws which goes against the core of a city builder - strategic planning.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't think this game is made to be understood.. I mean i played it a little and i understood nothing. But it's cute.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i like it but it gets to a point where it starts to get meaningless and theres no end game content
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has a downward slope of enjoyment. When you first begin playing, it seems cutesy, calm, relaxing. Then it gets stressful (in a good way) where you have to carefully place your buildings and manage your resources meticulously. However, in the endgame, when one finally manages to begin their final projects you realize that this game, albeit overall good, has a few major flaws that make it thoroughly unenjoyable. One such bug being filling 3 alerts out of nowhere causing your run to end…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm trying out the city builder game Cardboard Town! Come build a city out of boxes with me! twitch.tv/FenwickAlcester #ENVtuber #Vtuber #VtuberUprising
neutral · AI labelView post →Howdy yall! For today's stream this bear is gonna be building some cities in Cardboard Town! This is a city-builder card game I've been meaning to try for a while now! 🐻🏗️ www.twitch.tv/bartjunior
neutral · AI labelView post →i buy it when discount. it's very fun to manage town. love it!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I see where all the other reviews are coming from regarding the lack of explanation about the game. Even the game's tutorial doesn't really give much details on some of its mechanics... but I don't really think it made the game unplayable. The game is definitely fun and challenging, I would still recommend every roguelike lovers to try this game out despite how the game can be confusing to others. At the moment, I've only played one classic run and won the game. There's like 8 other different…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What's this? A town-builder woefully underpopulated by mediocre deck-building mechanics? Adding some uncompelling card gimmicks oughta put a stop to that. Enjoy being starved for road cards and having no creative control over how your town looks. Relish the same four buildings over and over, along with the limited options for where to place them. Bask in the paint-dryingly slow pace of the game and the 9-coin cards that will sit in your hand for 26 turns before you finally have enough coins to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is very complicated game and despite the explanations not everything is clear. If you expect a city builder, this is not it. It plays purely as strategical resource management and domino game, city is just a theme. Addicting but incredibly frustrating at the same time just because it gets complicated very quickly. This game is for hardcore board game strategists and time sink at that.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really wanted to like this game, but I found it too challenging (maybe a skill issue) and not very fun. I think the art is just okay, and I didn't really feel for my city somehow. Am dropping this game since it's not fun- can't say I didn't give it a fair shake. I think it's ok for people who like city builders x card games. It can be quite interesting but it's not pretty and interesting enough for me!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Cardboard Town" beaten. Cute little game. Feel like its very easy to just brick and lose out of nowhere, and there's not a lot you can do in terms of like, getting a build going. You just kinda get what you're dealt and make the most of it. But its nice building a lil town, and I still had fun.
neutral · AI labelView post →Cozy rougelite deckbuilding city builder. Now I saw everything.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not a bad little game, just missing a lot of polish features, for example, why no tooltips? Why cant i see the 'grid size' of cards before i select that i want them? There is a ton of missed oppertunity for informational UI. If it was still being improved I would give it a hearty dwarvern recommendation, but i read the developers left the company and its in the final state. 6.3/10 I got 4 hours out of it but they were enjoyable
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Worth buying. Lots of different scenarios (including sandbox) to unlock. Every city is unique so its not like a lot of games where 12 hours and you are done. Its fun, challenging, and I really love when you step away and come back to a screen zoomed in on the inhabitants moving around the city.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →very good at being constantly irritating
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →weirdly fun, and addictiong. love seeing cars jump over eachother...
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can not close pop up tutorial windows while running this on steamdeck. It is NOT playable.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A Humble, cozy and extremely charming city builder with you building your city and combating challenges with a deck of cards. It's challenging in the right way and also rewarding in the right ways. All in all, definitely would recc, as i personally have played multiple sessions of the game after my purchase in different times just cuz i wanted to. Wishing the Devs the best.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A decent game you can sink hours into. I play it in short bursts, but you could easily spend a whole evening on one playthrough. It looks simple, yet beautiful. I'd recommend it twice if I could.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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