This was weird to see no reviews on this game, since it was really popular on youtube in 2014-2016, but, I guess, only on Russian side. Now it's gaining popularity again since it's winter time, and some Russian fans started making a remake of Beneath the Cardboard after 10 years since original creator abandoned it. I hope more people outside of Russian community also notice it. Replaying this game about being a homeless child, all alone in big cold city in the middle of winter now feels nostalgic.

Beneath the Cardboard is a survival game that has really interesting concept with many little nuances that makes it pretty realistic. For example, you need to watch closely on the snowflakes to guess which way the wind is blowing to hide from it properly, keeping hands close to the body slightly boosts your temperature, sliding the matchsticks too fast breaks them, but sliding too slow will just consume their sulfur, don't overcook your food, stay out of clear ground... It's really fascinating for an indie game of that time!

The only big problems that I have is that it has no normal tutorial inside the game, all the main stuff you will get from the photos and txt-file inside the game's folder, you also can read the controls in-game holding the F1 button, but the text is long and font is bright read and really hard to read, and while you reading you can be killed since it's just an overlay. Oh also the game has no pause, Esc just jumps off to the main menu and your current game progress is erased. For such survival games with in-game clock going on, it's actually really stressful and confusing to not have any of the above being properly introduced & learned throughout the game with no pressure to do everything right here right now.

Thinking about it, maybe this actually makes sense in the game idea? Life comes with no pause, no instructions and no easy ways, it's complex and living as a homeless is really really hard, stressful and confusing, you need to think quick and consider each small nuance right here right now just to survive another day, you constantly dancing on an edge of life. No one is around to help you to escape this never ending spiral of hunger and cold. You're alone. And Beneath the Cardboard shows it just the right way.

Of course, there's many things that really need to be fixed and re-thinked, all of which we might see in the currently developing Beneath the Cardboard REMAKE, all we need to do is to wait.

gosh, i never wrote such long game reviews in my life ever. Thanks for reading throughout my 3 am ADHD rumblings, I hope you have a great rest of your day!! byeeee