Become the coolest kid in the playground in the cutesy, colourful deck builder My Card Is Better Than Your Card!

Megan Bidmead, 15 September 2025

I've always been a sucker for stickers. I still remember the last pack of stickers I was given as a child, for my twelfth birthday: a selection of puffy Hello Kitty stickers, so adorable and tiny and perfect that I would slowly use them over the next few years, to stick onto my journals and my chunky flip phones. They were too special to put on just anything, you know? Stickers are meaningful when you're a kid, for rewards and for fun.

That's what My Card Is Better Than Your Card! captures for me. Yes, it's about cards, but it's really about the stickers and a childlike sense of fun. (At least that's what I took from it.) You play a child battling other children for dominance via the medium of card battles. Which cards are the coolest? You'll find out by throwing them out there and gathering points while your opponent shouts out 'wooooooow' intermittently. It's chaotic and fast-paced in a way that feels irresistibly childish. WONDERFUL! the game tells you in big letters when you finish a turn. And you think, wow, yes, this is wonderful actually. I am the ruler of this playground.

The battles themselves are pretty straightforward. You'll draw cards and place them down. Each card has a cost (represented by sweets) and actions. Actions trigger one at a time, and you can rack up some pretty good multipliers by deploying your best cards at the right moment. Once both you and your opponent have taken your turns, stars will fly up to the bar at the top, which acts as a kind of tug-of-war. Once you've gained enough stars, you'll tip the bar over the edge, and win the battle.

Battle mechanics become more complicated because of stickers (more on those in a moment), but that's the basic gist. Battles are just one part of each run, which takes place over a week, split into days. Days may include more than one battle, trips to stores and marketplaces, card swapping, and special events. They won't be in the same order each time. Special events can include digging in the sand for stickers, having water fights, or going on adventures in forests. Once a week has passed, you'll face a boss battle as the last item on your timetable. Win this, and you've won the run.

Let's talk about stickers, then. At the end of each day, you'll have the opportunity to customize your cards with stickers you have earned through battling, shopping, and events. You can drag and drop these stickers onto your cards as you please. Although the more stickers you put on, the more the cards will cost to play. So there's some sort of balance to be had. You can overload some of your cards with stickers, slapping them one on top of the other and racking up the cost, but you'll have to make sure you save some cheap ones to use on your low-sweet turns as well. Otherwise, you'll find yourself struggling.

There are over 200 stickers to attach to your cards, from otters to rainbows to bees. Each will change up the card in some way; everything from 'draw a card and get an extra sweet' to 'negate your opponent's next turn' can be used, depending on the stickers you've found. This means that My Card Is Better Than Your Card! evolves from being a simple deckbuilder to something more creative and expansive. You can create some really interesting combos in the demo, and I'm sure the full game will provide the opportunity to make some incredibly powerful cards. It reminds me of Inscryption, a little bit. Only much more colorful. And more whimsical. And less … intense.

The demo offers two starter decks, but the full game will have more, alongside booster packs and toys, which you can use to work in conjunction with your cards. I can see the potential for this to be a real time-suck of a game (I mean that as a compliment). If you have the kind of mind that enjoys figuring out the exact best combos for every scenario, you'll have plenty to sink your teeth into here. 

Meanwhile, if you like the whimsical feeling of being a kid, of immersing yourself in colors and cute things and fun characters, My Card is Better Than Your Card! will appeal to you too. The soundtrack is great, I enjoyed the variety of activities, and I love that you get to encounter all sorts of different kids on the playground. It enters early access soon, and I think it's just the thing to brighten up darker days as we leave the summer behind. Just be warned that you might want to buy a bunch of stickers for yourself after playing.