0.7.14: the Eternal picks his inheritance
The Eternal picks his inheritance in a papercraft void, a new Stacker minigame, a hatchling pick for the Mysterious Egg, and nearly every unit drawn again.
PB& Games · Development notes
The Cardboard Conquest devlog
Every version of Cardboard Conquest ships with a post about what changed and why it changed. Written for the people playing it, roughly weekly, by the one person building it. No roadmap slides, no teasers for things that do not exist yet: only what is in the build you can download today.
19 posts, newest first
0.7.13: every starter drawn again
Every warlord's starter units drawn again by hand in flat paper, standees at full height, flat-paper stages, a brighter battlefield and new wagers.
0.7.12: every unit reprinted in flat paper
Every unit, commander and spell icon reprinted in flat paper, screens that crumple, pleat and burn, and bosses that burn the box and dim the lights.
0.7.8: every card gets somewhere to stand
Every card in the game gets a place to stand: each pack, each warlord's starters and each card type now has a backdrop cut from paper instead of a recoloured template, alongside twenty-nine new arena back walls, Motley Jack's relic chain, and an event that rolls a real twenty-sided die.
0.7.9: the moon comes up red and never sets
Wally's last stand. Kill him and the sky reverses: the moon comes back up red and never sets, a black wood grows in around the board, and the thing that stands up in it is not Wally.
0.7.7: a lair for every lord, and the box gets its depth back
Forty-two enemy lairs cut from paper, a diorama round where half the changes were sent back with a line each, a boss's own cast of curios, and a battlefield you can grab and drag.
0.7.5: a new title theme, and Uncle Jim cut from paper
A menu theme written for the game's name, Uncle Jim re-cut from paper like every other hero, and Ascension 9 becomes the fused fight.
0.7.3: less lag, on the desk and on the phone
Where a frame goes on a phone, why a big enough crowd dragged the desk down to 4 fps, and the ladder the battle now climbs to shed work.
Every unit on the board, redrawn
594 unit sprites redrawn in one week, an Act 0 that belongs to Uncle Jim, three clips of your run you can send someone, and an empty balance desk.
Every commander gets a stage of their own
Forty-two enemy commanders, forty-two hand-drawn arenas, 485 icons that stopped standing in for the thing, and a browser build that finally runs.
0.7.0: Warlords is now Cardboard Conquest
The game has a new name and a new look, and they are the same decision: every soldier is a die-cut standee, every battlefield is kraft paper on a desk.
0.6.1: Spells fight the army
Spells stop touching commanders and go back to fighting the army. Plus the Brass Pilgrim chain, an upgrade preview on every card, and a camera with an eye.
0.6: the whole game, redrawn
Every card, arena, event and menu redrawn as one hand-drawn world. The photoreal look stays in the box as an option, and the muster becomes a wheel.
0.5.65: the battle builds itself in front of you
The loading screen is gone. Roads paint in, scenery drops onto its spots and the armies take their ground while you watch. Plus three events you play.
0.5.64: what the enemy pays
An enemy lord spends a purse each round exactly like you do, and the card shows it now. Its powers say what they do, in the plain words your cards use.
0.5.63: Forbidden Lore, and one look for the whole game
The Infernal Legion is gone and Forbidden Lore takes its place, with a keyword of its own. Every screen was rebuilt into a single design language.
0.5.62: the rosters get their retune, and it plays on a phone
Difficulty lives in the rosters now, so every lord's army was rebuilt around it. Plus the touch pass that makes the whole campaign playable on a phone.
0.5.58: the enemy stops hiding its numbers
The enemy used to get multipliers you were never shown. They are gone, and the difficulty now sits somewhere you can read it: the lord's own roster.
0.5.56: the fight looks like a fight now
What the battle looks like, what it sounds like, and how much of it you can read while it is happening. Five builds of work in one post.
Where else these go
The same notes, wherever you already read things.
Every post here goes out to the game's players on the day it is written. This is the copy that stays: itch and Steam both trim old posts out of view, and neither of them is a link you can send someone in two years.
If you would rather follow it somewhere else, all of these are the same posts:
- RSS — full text, no account, no algorithm.
- Steam news hub — follow the game and they arrive in your Steam client.
- itch.io devlog — the playtest build lives there too.
- Press kit — screenshots, logos and the fact sheet, free to use.
- Contact — the quill in game, or an email address.