HANDS ON - Cardboard Cowboy demands your best and revels in its humour
Darn tootin’ bandits.
By Jonathan Garrett
25/07/26
Previewed on PC.
Access via Steam Demo.
Cardboard Cowboy is a deceptively challenging shooter that rewards boldness and risk taking to secure points on the board. You’ll work your way through a map overworld not too dissimilar to Overcooked and other contemporaries, taking on increasingly difficult runs with optional modifiers, weapon purchases, and a cast of wooden foes designed to trip you up with their relentless aggression. It’s a trial and error FPS without the frustration.
Ded Dev Games are self professed guerrilla game devs, and our recent stream revealed an approach to design that was both transparent and unpretentious. They are embracing the competitive spirit of speedrunners while refusing to compromise on the acerbic nature of the games humour. Case in point: the opening narration was provided by Directing Designer Jay Soto!
The tutorial in the demo felt more like a formality as the mechanics are well communicated and easy to pick up. However, techniques requiring more nuance like bullet ricochets and alt fire modes were helpful to practice. It’s a game that encourages experimentation and momentum as you seek to shave off precious seconds amid ever more complex side goals. It can be overwhelming at times, but that’s clearly by design.
Repeat runs are basically guaranteed.
LOOKING GOOD?
At the bottom of every preview, we ask the question: Looking Good? And the answer is either “Yeah!” or “Nah”, followed by a comment that sums up how we feel at this early stage. In order to provide more information, we also have “And” or “But”, which follows up our take with further clarification, additional context for a game we already love, or perhaps a redeeming quality for a game we didn’t like at first glance.
YEAH!
Cardboard Cowboy looks set to be a refreshingly silly take on a genre that desperately needed a shot of levity.
AND
You can feel the genuine investment and passion emanating from every tumble weed.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
