We love, love, love Tim Fowers’ deckbuilding take on the word-building genre Paperback, so we were overjoyed to hear the news that the designer is creating a follow-up to the card game with the perfect name: Hardback.
Hardback is technically a prequel to Paperback, as it’s set during the 19th century – the age of Austen, Dickens, Brontë, Byron and other names you’ve heard of and pretend you’ve read.
As in Paperback, the idea is to make words using the selection of letter cards in your hand. Only this time, there’s no central market from which you purchase cards. Instead, there’s a new push-your-luck mechanic involving the use of ‘ink’, which can be used to draw extra cards but stop players from spelling words if they overuse it. Another minor change is the decision to do away with wild cards and make every card a wild by placing it facedown.