title image

HardBack

Board

Ratings

Age

4+

Category

Board

Languages

English

Hardback is a word-building strategy game where players act as 19th-century authors. You start with a basic deck of letters and use them to spell words, which earns you coins and prestige. Coins allow you to buy better letters with powerful abilities. With four different genres to specialize in (Mystery, Horror, Romance, and Adventure), players can create unique card synergies to outwit their opponents and reach the prestige goal first.

Dinsun Expert Review

Our Expert Score

88/100

Hardback is the 'spiritual sequel' to Paperback, and it improves on the formula in almost every way. It’s a deck-building word game that feels like a cross between Scrabble and Dominion. The theme—19th-century novelists competing for fame—is charming and well-integrated. The genius of the game lies in the 'prestige' system and the ability to turn any card into a wildcard at the cost of its special ability.

This digital port is exceptionally well-handled. The UI is clear, making it easy to see what your opponents are building and what cards are available in the market. The AI is challenging enough to keep solo players engaged, but the asynchronous online multiplayer is where the game truly shines. It’s a sophisticated, intellectual game that rewards a large vocabulary without alienating casual players, thanks to its clever card mechanics.

Dinsun reviewed on: Wed Feb 25 2026

Features

1

Official digital port of the board game

2

Solo play vs multiple AI levels

3

Asynchronous online multiplayer

4

Customizable game rules and genre sets

Tips & Walkthrough

Gameplays

Screenshot

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Q&A

Yes, the game features a built-in dictionary to verify words and help suggest possibilities if you're stuck.

Ratings & Reviews

Very enjoyable
Wed Jul 11 2018 MikeMikeyMike

I love the physical game, and now I can play on my iPad! Easy to play with a good UI. Update: the latest release fixed the bug. Thanks for the quick response! ——- I’ve only played against the hard AI 1 bug and one request. Bug: If I had two Romance cards with the doubling effect it wouldn’t let me use it with both cards. It would warn me that I hadn’t used one of them when I tried to move on, but if I tap on the unused card, I couldn’t select either of the adjacent cards. This happened twice. Both times the card it wouldn’t let me use was a card with ink. No errors showed in the log. I can give more info if needed. It’s a repeatable error. Request: when playing against the AI, it would be nice to have a back button. I’d like to be able to re-do my word even after hitting submit.

Great deckbuilding word game
Fri Jul 06 2018 AmnonKrate

This is another take on their earlier game, Paperback. It adds several interesting complications and improvements. There is a new suit mechanic, where you want to collect cards that compound their scores when played together. Each suit also focuses on certain types of gameplay advantages, so there is more variation from game to game that depends on which suits you focused on collecting. There is a new wildcard mechanic, where any card can be used as wild by flipping it over. This greatly increases the number of words that can be made from any hand. Because wild cards do not score at all, you have an interesting puzzle to solve in deciding which cards to score and which cards to use as wild. It also has a new “push your luck” mechanism where you can draw extra cards, which you must play. If you can play the new cards, you can get a great score, but if you draw an unfortunate combination of letters you might get stuck. On the downside, it feels like there is some more luck to it. I have had games where I easily tripled the score of the robots on medium, and I have had other games where I couldn’t get started. Overall, I loved Paperback, and Hardback takes the same idea to another level.

Fun word building deck builder
Thu Jul 12 2018 Loganeer

I like it a lot more than Paperback. While Paperback is a fun and relaxing game, I felt myself getting bored halfway through. Hardback is full of interesting decisions. The categories add a whole new level and create chaining bonuses like in Star Realms. Buying and using ink is a key feature of Hardback since it’s the only way to draw cards, and adds a press your luck element to the game. The greatest part is that you can flip over cards to make them wild. This allows freedom to create tons of words while still considering the chaining abilities of the cards. There are also options to adjust the victory point goal for longer or shorter games.

Fan of physical, OS version could use work
Mon Sep 05 2022 Yatzin

Online issues still continued. I am unsure to add new friends when my list is empty. I just lost all my friends and all my open games. Same with other people I know. Something is broken as I can't add them back now. The UI feels clunky especially async online play. Dev should model this more after the old Carcassonne game where players can see the board even if it isn't their turn. You should have a bar along the bottom that displays players score and ink counts. All buttons should be more defined and identifiable. Would be great to be able to zoom and pan around the board to see details of cards. Play a sound with the notification so we get a buzz. Would love to see this game realize its full potential.

Hardback is great!
Wed Dec 06 2023 Jeffrey234

Hardback faithfully represents the board game. I haven't played with any of the optional additional mechanics, but a few comments for the developers: 1. You can quit on your turn, and some times you'll get a different hand of cards. This seems like a remediable cheating angle 2. You *have* to quit fairly frequently, because the game will get into a state where it won't accept taps, which is annoying. 3. I'm not a huge fan of how easy it is to accidentally move letters in your word into your letters you're not using. This wouldn't be a big deal if you didn't need to drag things so much, but I'd prefer a swipe-down or something to single tap dismissing a letter 4. It would be really nice if the keyboard worked, so if I typed letters, they'd just move from my list of letters up to the word (and keyboard shortcuts for pressing your luck would be nice, too)

Great game, great app
Sat Nov 10 2018 batmartin79

I would recommend this game, and this app, to players who are familiar with other "deck-building" strategy games, specifically ones such as Star Realms and Ascension. I think fans of deck-builders will like this even if they don't like other word games. I suspect, though I don't know, that word game players may find this game a little too heavy on the game and too light on the words. But it's worth a try, because it's a great game and a great app. Solid graphics, music, gameplay. Highly recommended!

Great multiplayer game for couples
Sat Jan 11 2020 WabbyTwax

There aren’t enough turn taking games like this made in such great quality. My wife and I love playing this game and we even bought the real life version. The tutorial is good but could be a little better. You need to read the rules to really understand what the abilities do. The online play is very solid but I’d prefer to stay in the game and play with my letters while waiting for my turn.

Very cool.
Wed Aug 08 2018 Louman333

This app taught me how to play the game. Very fun and very clean yet very rich visually. Make sure you put your log in info correctly at first as there is no way to change it in the app. I think this is a fine representation of the game. I own the game but for one reason or the other haven’t been able to get it to the table because my wife and daughter haven’t wanted to have to go through a rule book with me to learn a new game. Now I can just get it out and teach them. Good Job!

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