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App Army Assemble: Urban Cards - "Does the business theme help this roguelike deck-buidler stand out?"

We ask the App Army

App Army Assemble: Urban Cards - "Does the business theme help this roguelike deck-buidler stand out?"
|
iOS
| Urban Cards

Urban Cards is a roguelike deck-builder that sees you trying to make your way in the corporate world. Alongside building a deck to help make cash, you need to manage your employees and outsmart the competition. To see if this intriguing idea holds up, we handed the game over to our App Army members.

Here's what they said:

Jason Rosner

Urban Cards is a deck-building roguelike which translates to essentially a strategic card game. Right from the start you’ll notice how wonderfully crafted this game really is. I loved the cartoon-style art - taking the time to check out what each individual card looked like was not only a visual treat but also layered complexity to each one of my moves. The theme of the game is doing business in an unfair world. The goal is to attain a set amount of money faster than your opponent. You do this by hiring the likes of workers and investing in businesses represented by your cards.

On the flip side, you’ll use thieves and henchmen to do the dirty work of stealing assets. You’ll need to strategize along the way as you also have to watch your debt. If you hit too much, you lose. The music is great and the sound effects, along with some characters’ voices, really add a nice touch of realism bringing the game to life. There’s quite a challenge here, and you’ll need to closely pay attention to the moves you make. I can see myself improving each game I play, so there’s some real depth here if you’re willing to invest the time. If you’re looking for a new challenge this summer, check out Urban Cards as it’s free to start, and you can unlock the full game with a one-time IAP.

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Oksana Ryan

I found this game a little confusing. The object of the game is to use your cards to build businesses and protect them with henchmen against your opponent. I used the tutorial, but even then I found it difficult to follow and unlike any other card games I’ve played. I’m sure it must be easy when you get used to it but I found myself randomly placing cards in the hope of putting them where they would give me profit. The graphics were good but the sound and background music were repetitive and I switched them off. Unfortunately, after several tries at winning, I was no nearer to success and gave up.

Robert Maines

As the name suggests Urban Cards is a card battler set in the business world. Played on a grid you must use your cards to build businesses and use your henchmen to defend and attack your enemy's businesses and henchmen. As you progress you unlock more cards to add to your deck. It’s a good-looking game, but even with the tutorial, it took me a while to realise why I couldn’t move my henchmen to other parts of the grid. Not until I unlocked the teleport card did the penny drop. Anyway, it’s a complex game and doesn’t really bring anything new to this type of game. If you like card battlers then this might be right up your street I wasn’t that keen and got bored quickly.

What is the App Army?

The App Army is Pocket Gamer's lovely community of mobile game experts. As often as possible, we ask them for their thoughts on the latest games and share them with you.

To join, simply head over to either our Discord Channel or Facebook Group and request access by answering the three questions. We'll then get you in right away.

Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen brings both a love of games and a very formal-sounding journalism qualification to the Pocket Gamer team.