PB& Games

Press kit

Cardboard Conquest: Deckbuilding Autobattler

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Download the pictures (24 MB) Clips, part 1 (21 MB) Clips, part 2 (9.7 MB) Fact sheet as plain text

The pictures zip holds the screenshots, character art, logos, key art and the fact sheet. The two clips zips hold every gameplay clip as an MP4: battles, the draft, events and emotes in the first, the paper flourishes in the second.

Fact sheet

Title
Cardboard Conquest: Deckbuilding Autobattler
Developer
Paul Booth
Publisher
PB& Games (self-published)
Studio size
One person
Founded
2026
Release
Steam Early Access, March 2027. A playtest build is live on itch.io now.
Platforms
Windows, macOS, Linux (SteamOS / Steam Deck supported)
Price
To be announced. The itch.io playtest build is free.
Genre
Roguelite deckbuilder / autobattler / strategy
Players
Single player, and online co-op for 2 to 4
Engine
Godot
Languages
11, including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean and both Chinese scripts
Controller
Full controller support

Description

Short (the store's own)

Every card is an army in a beautiful papercraft world full of surprises. Choose from slimes, ghosts, a bug hivemind, giants, and more, across 22 distinct packs with unique playstyles. Earn the cardboard crown solo or online with up to three friends.

Medium (one paragraph)

Cardboard Conquest is a roguelite deckbuilder-autobattler set in a papercraft world, made by one developer who has hidden a surprise in almost every corner. Wally, the friendliest guy in town, fights you in a sunny village until the moon comes up, and then his villagers turn into werewolves and his theme song tears from 1960s radio pop into garage rock. When Rex Mortifer dies, the whole board drops through the table into the underworld for his last stand. Bring down the Brass Colossus and his claw reaches out and cracks your screen. Then the foundry rebuilds him bigger, and the whole arena turns into a robot around the board. The camera can zoom out of any fight and keep going: off the desk, out of the window, past the planet and the stars, and back round through an atom into the paper. Each run starts with you picking three of 22 themed packs, from splitting slimes to a bug hivemind, and you can play solo or in online co-op for up to 4 players. A free playtest is on itch.io now.

Long

You do not play cards into a lane. You put an army on the ground. Drop a card and a squad of soldiers springs to life exactly where it landed. Wall a chokepoint, screen your archers, flank the line, then commit and watch it play out in real time.

Draft your whole identity. Every run starts by picking three of 22 themed packs: armored legions, spider broods, walking bombs, con artists, love sorcery, splitting slimes, rising ghosts. Those packs are your entire card pool, and your commander is assembled from them too, so no two runs build alike.

Stack the odds. Spells and statuses turn a losing clash. Rain meteors on a packed line, then stack Poison, Bleed, Fragile and Charm until the enemy melts. 281 pins and a 34-potion belt bend the rules further, every run.

Break the bosses. Each of the 8 act bosses hides a signature phase that flips the fight. Cut Rex Mortifer to half health and the dead rise. 43 named lords in total bar the road, each with bespoke units, tactics and taunts.

Tempt fate. 133 hand-written events sit between the battles: haunted shrines, crooked gamblers, going-away gifts from Uncle Jim, and a wheel of fate that can crown you or curse you.

Poke at everything. The title sign swings when you hit it, and a letter burns up in your hands when you close it. Screens leave the desk the way paper would: the spoils get crumpled into a ball and tossed, and the map falls back like a drawbridge. Kill Rex Mortifer and the whole board drops through the table into the underworld for his last stand.

March as a war council. Online co-op for two to 4. Everyone drafts their own packs and plays their own hand, but you share one battlefield, one map and one fate. The clash begins when every crown is ready.

At a glance

969Cards
22Draftable packs
43Enemy lords
8Act bosses
281Pins
34Potions
133Written events
16Playable warlords
100Achievements
80Soundtrack tracks

These are read out of the shipping build by a script (tools/DumpSiteFacts.tscn), so they are correct as of the last deploy rather than as of the last press release.

Trailer

The trailer, 1 minute 41 seconds, 1280×720 H.264. Download the file (23 MB), or watch it on the Steam store page. A 1080p master is available on request, and its thumbnail is with the key art below.

Gameplay clips

Short silent loops of the game as it looks now. Each one is a 1280×720 MP4, and most are a GIF as well. Press play to watch one here, or take all of them in two zips: part 1 (21 MB) and part 2 (9.7 MB).

The clash Two paper armies meet on one road of the board and the melee grinds. MP4 · 1280×720 · 2.1 MB GIF · 720×406 · 14 MB
Summoning Three cards are played from the hand onto the board and each unfolds into a squad. MP4 · 1280×720 · 1.0 MB GIF · 720×406 · 3.5 MB
A spell A giant foot comes down on a knot of enemy units: the Colossal Stomp spell. MP4 · 1280×720 · 698 KB GIF · 720×406 · 1.8 MB
The pack draft Three packs are picked, and each one dresses a piece of the warlord. MP4 · 1280×720 · 1.2 MB GIF · 720×406 · 2.9 MB
A boss's last stand Verdy B. Queen takes her final form, and the desk and the back wall bloom. MP4 · 1280×720 · 5.2 MB GIF · 720×406 · 16 MB
The enemy lords One lord after another, each under its own name sign. MP4 · 1280×720 · 6.7 MB GIF · 720×406 · 7.3 MB
Co-op A friend's arrow on the field, their squad, your card beside it, their laser. MP4 · 1280×720 · 824 KB GIF · 720×406 · 2.3 MB
Events and minigames The wheel of fate lands, then knucklebones, the trolls' rope and the mason's crane. MP4 · 1280×720 · 1.0 MB GIF · 720×406 · 4.6 MB
Emotes A warlord opens the emote wheel four times and bounces, laughs, rages and cheers, each with its line. MP4 · 1280×720 · 2.2 MB GIF · 720×406 · 8.8 MB
The title sign and a letter The sign swings when it is struck, and the letter burns up when it is closed. MP4 · 1280×720 · 1.8 MB
Screens that leave like paper The spoils are crumpled into a ball and thrown, the map falls like a drawbridge, and a treasure room tears into confetti. MP4 · 1280×720 · 2.8 MB
An act turns, a board drops An act's page is sealed in wax and cracked open, then Rex Mortifer's board drops through the table. MP4 · 1280×720 · 3.0 MB
Two lords at once Their stages and name signs are taped together into one battle, and they fight side by side. MP4 · 1280×720 · 1.7 MB
An unlock A newly unlocked card is traced round its outline and burns into colour. MP4 · 1280×720 · 424 KB GIF · 720×406 · 1.9 MB

GIFs from a recent update

From 0.7.32, the update where the lord who beats you finishes your warlord in a way all their own, and every boss break changes the arena. Click a picture to open its GIF. The devlog has more like these.

A friendly man in a yellow raincoat with a watering can walks up waving to the queen. They shake hands while his flat black shadow rises off the board behind them into a tall wolf shape that leans over her. She falls flat on her back at his feet and he waves.
Wally's triumph GIF · 720×405 · 2.7 MB
A polar bear emperor with a fish-topped sceptre waddles across white ice to the queen. A ring of cracks opens around her and she drops into dark water up to her waist. He hooks her out on the sceptre, holds her up frozen pale blue, and flings her behind him onto the ice.
Calvin's triumph GIF · 720×405 · 3.1 MB
A big purple paper spider lowers herself on a silk thread to face the queen, holding a rolled newspaper in one leg. She swings it down and the queen is squashed flat on the board with her arms and legs spread, then the spider climbs back up out of the picture.
The Broodmother's triumph GIF · 720×405 · 3.7 MB
A small red devil carrying a huge iron candle snuffer runs a ring of flames around the queen and flicks a flame onto her head. She melts down shorter and shorter like a candle, the snuffer comes down over her, and when it lifts there is only a smoking black stub.
The Fire Devil's triumph GIF · 720×405 · 2.2 MB
The game board, a long road on a dark blue velvet mat, is covered from the top by a plain dark sheet that rolls down over it. A row of gravestones rises along the bottom, then Rex Mortifer, a crowned skeleton king in a purple robe holding a jewelled staff, rises into frame under a ribcage arch. The title The Dead Rise lands on a torn banner and a row of skulls and bony hands comes up along the ground. The first part is slowed to a quarter speed.
Rex Mortifer: The Dead Rise GIF · 720×405 · 3.7 MB
A wide view of the Magma Magnate's mat with glowing tears already in the felt, under a painted dusk of a palace, a volcano and a factory. Fire runs across the backdrop card and burns it away to a black kiln wall with a glowing furnace mouth. Then the mat burns away from the Magnate's end, leaving a deep pit of cracked orange lava under the cardboard road, with cut paper flames standing along its edge.
The Magma Magnate: The Kiln Opens GIF · 720×405 · 3.8 MB
A close view of the Brass Colossus's corner of a blue blueprint mat, beside a column of small unit cards and a tall brass pipe with a red wheel. Lightning crackles over the board. Steel legs rise from the floor, a long belt with yellow and black hazard edges runs out along them, amber beacons light at both ends, and small brass parts ride the belt along.
The Brass Colossus: Foundry Override GIF · 720×405 · 3.5 MB
A close view of the edge of a green felt mat with a brown border band next to a dark green desk. A wavy crack runs along the border, the felt bulges and bursts open in pointed green wedges, and a thick brown paper root rises out of the hole and arches over the edge onto the desk, ending in a spray of twigs.
The Elder Treant's roots GIF · 720×406 · 482 KB
An autumn-coloured board on an orange felt mat below a paper forest backdrop. The board tears up out of the mat on a thick brown trunk, the box and desk drop away to show blue sky, branches reach up round the backdrop card and lift it, then layers of pale yellow and pink paper cloud rise past and cover everything, and the board comes out above the clouds in a crown of orange and red paper leaves with the card held above it.
The board lifted into the clouds GIF · 680×382 · 5.0 MB
A sheet of corrugated card seen from above with toys, gold coins, a blue flag on the left and a purple flag on the right. A blue crayon line is drawn across it, then a second with a loop in the middle, then a third. The lights dim, a red craft knife traces round the roads, and the card outside them drops away, leaving the roads standing as a cut-out board.
Crayon roads GIF · 720×405 · 2.5 MB

Screenshots

Click any shot for the 1920×1080 JPEG, or take the whole set from the zip at the top of this page.

Verdy B. Queen's last stand: her battlefield has burst into a meadow of paper flowers in every colour, a beehive hill on the backdrop behind it. Calvin, Emperor of the Floe: the bottom lane of his ice floe cracks away into a dark sea with wolves and brutes tumbling on its pieces, while penguins and paper armies fight down the other lanes and the paper polar bear watches from his berg. The fourth act's final fight, against a friend's warlord: a cardboard board floats in a sky of clouds, the player's giants and bugs circling it with paper wings and halos, Sam the Gunslinger at the far end and a hand of giants and fire below. A co-op battle on Wynken's floating islands: three warlords stand at one end of a shared cardboard board, their squads marching down its roads. The Magma Magnate's arena: the board sits in a pool of lava and the back wall has burned through to his cavern of demons. The vow room on the third visit: three vows of fate laid around a paper triangle, the land the first two vows built standing behind them, a castle and a giant crowned king, and a throne rising in a burst of light for the hovered Divine Right. A pop-up event page, Wheel of Seasons: a living wheel of woven branches in a forgotten grove, its quarters budding, blazing, fruiting and bare, the page pinned up in front of a cut-paper camp at dusk. A new card unlocked on the victory screen: Cupids, just burned into full colour, while the warlord and her squad celebrate beside it in front of a cheering paper capital, its castle and houses hung with bunting. Rex Mortifer's crossroads: slimes, ghosts and giants march into his skeletons on a midnight-blue board, a bone temple on the backdrop. Choose Your Warlord: paper warlords stand on a turntable at a fairground, a crash test dummy and a bride and groom among them, the Dragon at the front with his starting cards. Knucklebones with a Goblin: two dice tumble into a red felt tray while a grinning goblin leans over it. Assemble Your Arsenal: in a stone hall of arms the Dragon wears the two packs he has picked, the banner under his second still dyeing pink, while three more packs are offered under the arch. An ending in the pop-up book: the warlord on a gold throne as the Undying God-Emperor, gold colossi and temples standing up off the page, a crowd raising their arms, and the caption: Heaven never let you die. The Merchant's stall: cards, pins and paper potion bottles for sale, one card still a black silhouette, the hooded merchant beside a set of scales and a brazier for burning a card. The act map of the Bloomfields: roads wind past battles, events and a merchant, and two paper triangles mark the act's vow stops.

Character art

The sixteen playable warlords, each a PNG on a transparent background. They are drawn from the same paper parts the game loads, so they match what a player sees. Click one to download it.

The King: a bearded king in a gold crown, a blue tunic and an ermine-trimmed cloak.King511×1078 · 176 KB The Mummy: a mummy wrapped in bandages under a pharaoh's striped headdress.Mummy422×1028 · 214 KB The Spaceman: an astronaut in a white suit with a flag on the backpack.Spaceman717×1196 · 213 KB The Gunslinger: a gunslinger in a brown hat and a red neckerchief, a bandolier across the chest.Gunslinger544×1134 · 234 KB The Eternal: a blue-skinned elder with a white beard, a crown of gold points and a robe of stars.Eternal524×1183 · 255 KB The Boxer: a boxer in a red headband and red gloves, a champion's belt and a purple robe.Boxer501×1034 · 203 KB The Pirate: a pirate in a feathered tricorn and an eyepatch, a parrot on her shoulder.Pirate506×1187 · 271 KB The Witch: a green-skinned witch in a pointed purple hat, potions on her belt and a broom.Witch620×1228 · 249 KB The Viking: a viking in a winged helmet with a braided red beard and a round shield.Viking546×1194 · 302 KB The Ninja: a ninja in dark blue with a red headband and a sword across the back.Ninja654×1080 · 223 KB The Train Conductor: a train conductor in a navy uniform and cap, carrying a lantern.Train Conductor455×1055 · 176 KB The Explorer: an explorer in a pith helmet and khaki, holding a map.Explorer734×1109 · 251 KB The Dragon: a red dragon with curled horns, wings, a tail and a small gold crown.Dragon752×1133 · 377 KB The Cyborg: a cyborg in grey armour plates, half his face riveted steel with a glowing blue eye and a blue core set in his chest.Cyborg467×1018 · 166 KB
All fourteen warlords in two rows: the King, the Mummy, the Spaceman, the Gunslinger, the Eternal, the Boxer, the Pirate, the Witch, the Viking, the Ninja, the Train Conductor, the Explorer, the Dragon and the Cyborg.
All fourteen on one sheet. PNG · transparent · 4432×2490 · 3.4 MB

Every pack you draft dresses one part of your warlord, and every pack comes in three looks: battleworn, gilded and Ascendant. These sheets from the 0.7.16 post show all 22.

Six warlords in both of their body types, Type 1 beside Type 2: the King and Queen, the Witch, the Pirate, the Viking, the Eternal and the Boxer.
Two body types for every warlord JPEG · 1600×1286 · 419 KB
Eight warlords dressed by the packs they drafted, among them the King with a Pyromancy head, Steel Legion torso, Bug Hive arms and the Wild Pack monkey, the Mummy with a Final Rites skull and a Draw and Order trench coat, and the Viking with a Primordial Growth head and a Siege Works cannon.
Drafted mixes JPEG · 1600×1370 · 365 KB
Six packs worn whole on the King in their Battleworn, Gilded and Ascendant looks: Pyromancy, Slime Swarm, Steel Legion, Goblin Horde, Bloodletting and The Wasting.
Pack looks, 1 of 4 JPEG · 1600×1326 · 421 KB
Five packs in their Battleworn, Gilded and Ascendant looks: Spectral Host, Forbidden Lore, Giantkind, Pandemonium and Behind You!
Pack looks, 2 of 4 JPEG · 1600×1257 · 345 KB
Five packs in their Battleworn, Gilded and Ascendant looks: Bug Hive, Siege Works, Vanguard, Final Rites and Mutagenesis.
Pack looks, 3 of 4 JPEG · 1600×1289 · 356 KB
Five packs in their Battleworn, Gilded and Ascendant looks: Wild Pack with a great wolf standing behind, Primordial Growth, Heartbreakers in a drift of love letters, Draw and Order inside a ring of cards, and Trapper's Delight.
Pack looks, 4 of 4 JPEG · 1600×1293 · 384 KB

Key art

The store art with and without the title on it, and the trailer's thumbnail. The 16:9 cut leaves clear sky on the left for a headline. Click a picture for the full-size file.

Key art with no title on it: a flame-headed warlord stands beside his Ember Hounds card as three burning hounds run along a cardboard track at a crowned green Slime Lord and his slimes, under a night carnival.
Key art, 16:9, no title JPEG · 2560×1440 · 623 KB
Key art with the title: the name cut out of cardboard above the warlord's Ember Hounds charging the Slime Lord along a cardboard track.
Key art, titled JPEG · 1232×706 · 314 KB
The same battle cut very wide, with no title: the carnival and the purple mat on the left, and the warlord, his hounds and the Slime Lord on the right.
Key art, wide, no title JPEG · 3840×1240 · 1.3 MB
The trailer's thumbnail: slimes, pallbearers, ember hounds and ghosts charge Amanita's mushroom men and their stone giant on a cardboard road.
Trailer thumbnail JPEG · 1920×1080 · 565 KB
The vertical cover: the cardboard title above the Slime Lord on his court, with the flame-headed warlord, his card and his hounds on the track below him.
Vertical cover, titled JPEG · 748×896 · 239 KB

Logos and icons

The Cardboard Conquest logo: the name cut out of corrugated cardboard, with a strip of masking tape laid across the O.
The PB& Games mark, cut out of cardboard: a sandwich with the letters P, B and an ampersand as the filling.
Cardboard Conquest logoPNG · transparent · 2040×1190 · 3.5 MB PB& Games mark, cardboardPNG · transparent · 868×900 · 1.4 MB PB& Games mark, whitePNG · transparent · 442×466 · 44 KB Game iconPNG · 1024×1024 · 1.5 MB

Permission to use and monetise

You have blanket permission to record, stream, broadcast and monetise video and images of Cardboard Conquest, including on YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and anywhere else, for as long as you like. Ad revenue, sponsorships, memberships, all of it is yours. No revenue share, no content ID claims, no separate written agreement to sign. This paragraph is the agreement.

The assets on this page may be reproduced in articles, videos and store listings. Please do not alter the logos or use them to imply that PB& Games endorses a product.

The soundtrack was made for this game with AI music tools. It is cleared for use in videos of Cardboard Conquest; for any other use, ask first.

About PB& Games

PB& Games is a one-person studio founded in 2026 by Paul Booth. Design, code, balance, audio pipeline, store pages and website are all one pair of hands. Cardboard Conquest is its first game, built in Godot and made in public with playtesters feeding back from inside the build.

The name is a sandwich joke. Paul Booth &, with the blank reserved for whatever the studio makes next. The logo has a bite taken out of it every time the game boots.

Contact

Press, creator keys, review builds, interviews, anything:
[email protected]

Replies come from an actual human, usually within a day. Creator and press keys for the Early Access build are available on request. Say who you are and where you publish.

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