Karboard Kings shines in its moments of mundanity

Kardboard Kings, from Australian indie developer Henry’s House, is a visual novel and shop simulation hybrid that puts you in the shoes of Harry, a young man who’s trying to take over his recently deceased father’s trading card shop. Though this is a very grounded premise on paper, the game almost immediately leans into the more magical side of its fiction (your co-owner is a talking bird named Giuseppe), embracing a vibe not unlike Yu-Gi-Oh in terms of the epic scales of its battles and special, earth shatteringly important artifacts. On a macro level, it’s these things that Kardboard Kings is focused on. But when you get down to it, the real strength of this game is in how it depicts the more mundane aspects of Harry’s life and personality. 

While technically focused on the huge scales of your dad’s ex-partner and the former world champion of the card game you sell trying to gather all the powerful McGuffins in the world by using you, most of this game’s best storytelling is in the quiet moments where Harry is trying to deal with his relationship to his father’s legacy, his ex, and his future. 

It’s almost easy to forget that the reason Harry is taking over this shop is because his father, a world champion himself at one point, has passed away. In small bits of dialogue, Harry expresses that he’s desperate for this shop to work out because it’s all he has left of his father. The store is a monument to the man’s love of this card game, and his impact on it. Harry wants to take good care of that, but his desire to do so doesn’t inherently make him a good businessman, or expert in the card game. 

The stress of his inexperience and desire to do well despite it is a core part of Harry’s story in Kardboard Kings, though it sits in the background of all the moving and shaking going on with the higher stakes macro plot. But for Harry, the card shop and its success ultimately are the highest stakes part of his life. It’s out of respect and care for the shop that Harry turns on a business partner who puts it at risk, and why he takes on the ex-world champ to try and protect it. 

Also in the background of Kardboard Kings is Harry’s ex and her new partner. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Harry didn’t exactly handle his emotions after his father’s death well, and that led to him more or less bailing on the relationship. His ex has moved on, but Harry clearly hasn’t. There are several awkward encounters between them in the shop where you’re given the option to be more or less of a jerk towards her new partner. These moments easily convey how much Harry still wants to try and win her back, how over it she is, and how awkward her new partner feels, despite trying to be nice and friendly. 

These smaller, more quiet moments are what make Kardboard Kings really shine. The high stakes and allusions to the card game media of millennials’ youth are fun, but it’s Harry’s struggle to just have a normal one in a world without his father that will stick with me when I look back on this game.

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