Hardback

76 reviews
Content rating
PEGI 3
1K+
Downloads
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About this game

Hardback is a deck-building word game, a prequel to Paperback. As an aspiring 19th-century novelist, you work to pen your next masterpiece, earning prestige along the way. Specialize your deck in certain genres to exploit card combinations, and press your luck to draw extra cards — but make sure you can still string a word together!

Players build a deck of letters with various powers and race to 60 fame points to win.

Features:
1-5 player hotseat and online async
3 levels of computer opponents to challenge you.

Gameplay
No wilds in your deck - any card can be wild.
Push your luck for more cards with the Ink system.
Match genre colors to gain bonus abilities on your cards.
Fight over the coveted award cards.
Timeless Classic cards stay in play, until someone uses them.
New hardcore mode - can't repeat a word!
Hardback is a deck-building word game, a prequel to Paperback.
Updated on
Apr 8, 2026

Data safety

Safety starts with understanding how developers collect and share your data. Data privacy and security practices may vary based on your use, region, and age. The developer provided this information and may update it over time.
  • No data shared with third parties
    Learn more about how developers declare sharing
  • No data collected
    Learn more about how developers declare collection
  • Data is encrypted in transit
  • You can request that data be deleted

Ratings and reviews

70 reviews
Jennifer Volk
December 28, 2025
Excellent game, fun, challenging and lovingly created with an historical aesthetic. You can play online with other humans [edit: this has stopped working] or against the computer, both modes are good. Only thing that is odd is some words are not allowed which I know are real words, and there is no way to suggest a word get added to the dictionary, that would be a nice feature.
17 people found this review helpful
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Con Cerned
November 12, 2021
I really, really adore this board game and its mechanics and gameplay. Unfortunately the app suffers from multiple bugs, typos and a poor AI system. Worse than those things though is the bizarre dictionary. Otherwise obvious words to English speakers aren't counted in favor of three different spellings of a form of Hindu ghost (true story). Maybe the developer ran out of funds to continue improvements, who knows? Oh, sometimes the game will also be completely unavailable online. So that's fun.
24 people found this review helpful
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A Google user
June 24, 2019
Great version of a great game, with only one small caveat keeping it from a perfect score in digital form. Both Paperback and Hardback A.I. use words that are not allowed by the human players. Proper nouns are the biggest problems. It accepts it for them, but not the player. My wife and I have even tried using words that we saw the computer use and get scored, and we are not allowed. Other than that, both of these games are absolutely fantastic, especially for multiplayer with other humans!
74 people found this review helpful
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What’s new

Fixed a Security Flaw.

App support

About the developer
FOWERS GAMES, INC.
tim@fowers.net
68 Bonita Way Centerville, UT 84014-1915 United States
+1 619-564-4327