In Utu Studio’s debut game, My Card is Better Than Your Card, you step into the shoes of a child challenging the neighborhood children in a competitive card game. With a fully customizable deck in hand, it will take a combination of luck and skill to snag a victory.

The game’s tutorial sets things up fairly simply: candy is the game’s stamina meter and what allows you to put cards down during each turn. No candy and you’ll be forced to end your turn; more candy, and it can provide fuel to play much more powerful cards.

Whoever has the most stars by the end of the game wins. Though the game seems simple on the surface, I was surprised to see how much challenge this presented. I also didn’t expect to become so obsessed with paving my way to card-playing conquest.

Cute Cards, Even Cuter Characters 

The game’s visuals are something straight out of a children’s cartoon and are sure to charm even the grumpiest of gamers with a single glance. The art style is effortlessly adorable with a crayon drawing aesthetic that fits the young and playful atmosphere. Many character designs consist of massive, hopeful eyes, blush and colorful t-shirts straight out of a picture book.

The main menu’s craft screen, with its clutter of stickers, glitter glue, tape and safety scissors, radiates childhood nostalgia.

Even during gameplay, the effects add an extra pizazz. The battles play out with the card effects being represented with a splash of colorful effects: fish swim back and forth, bugs skitter across the screen, and snakes coil around the fever bar. This could easily be written off as visual clutter, but My Card Is Better Than Your Card makes these additional visual cues essential to progressing. The understandable visual cues provide all the hints you need about what card would be wisest to play next. Soon enough, you’ll be decorating your screen with more bugs and snakes, oftentimes evening the score in the process.

Playground Games For Grown Ups (And Kids)

Throughout the game you work your way down a short calendar, challenging opponents that come with their own unique set of cards. You spend the time in between buying perks-that being stickers-and building up a sustainable deck for the next game.

As a roguelike, many of the elements and perks your opponents have will be randomized, forcing you to think on your toes with each round.

This goes to show that even with its display of childish innocence that My Card Is Better Than Your Card will only reward the most patient and focused of players. While sweet on the surface, there can be some genuinely suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat action once the chips are down and a single choice can clench your victory or seal your demise.

A Sticky Situation 

Beyond the simplicity of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, crafting has never been my specialty. But in My Card Is Better Than Your Card, crafting is not only majorly beneficial but a test of balancing stats and buffs. Crafting is a game of mixing and matching stickers and seeing how you can combine their powers. Nothing quite beats the satisfaction of compiling just the right combination that gives you an advantage in a game. Once you leave the crafting table, you get the satisfaction of pulling out a particularly powerful card at just the right moment. A smartly designed combo of buffs and the score can be flipped in your favor.

Once I educated myself on the game’s crafting, I not only understood the mechanics but actively looked forward to it. Soon enough you’ll be memorizing certain stats just from their design of the sticker alone and find your go-to combinations like the sloth and the poop or the dragon and horseshoe.

You really can’t go wrong with a lot of them and it really is a matter of how much stamina you’re willing to risk if you ever want to use your more powerful cards. A card packed to the gills with an otter, an exploding galaxy, and some four-leaf clovers can be just the upper hand you need to gurantee a win.

An Innocent Adventure 

My Card Is Better Than Your Card is cute fun that doesn’t shy away from its challenging mechanics. Both casual and competitive players who have always had a fondness for deck building in games like Balatro will appreciate this innovative take on the formula.

What sells it for me is the in-universe explanation of this being a harmless card game among the neighborhood kids. While undeniably competitive, what drives the characters to play is to show off their incredibly cool collection of nifty cards. Each draw, be it an advantage on your side or the opponent’s, is met with starry-eyed amazement. Such a simple detail further emphasizes the sheer joy and curiosity of the whole affair. Something about this vibe is weirdly infectious, inspiring me not to hold too much malice on the off chance I lost a game.

It really goes to show how accessible My Card Is Better Than Your Card is if someone like me, someone who hadn’t the slightest clue what was happening when my brother played rounds of Gwent in The Witcher 3, can not only get the hang of it but have a blast figuring out how to improve.

With its toy box color palette and exciting options, you get an excellent demo that’s not only impressive on a visual feat but a technical one. If you’re looking for a fresh new take on the deckbuilder genre, you’ll find that My Card Is Better Than Your Card is fun, refreshing, and memorable.

My Card Is Better Than Your Card is a roguelike deckbuilder by Utu Studios with a playable demo now available for Steam’s June Next Fest.