Mr. Magpie's Harmless Card Game
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Mr Magpie's Harmless Card Game is a Roguelike Deckbuilder hosted by a deranged puppet.
Push your luck and use your wits to tilt the odds in your favor.
Exploit strange synergies to get filthy rich.
Make your quota before closing time and he won't have to kill you!
Looking for the web version?
For a while now, Mr. Magpie has been straining the limits of what's supported in one's web browser. We've now reached the point where we can no longer support it. We're just as sad about this as you. We simply ran up against the limits of what browsers can do. We are keeping the old version up on a separate page for folks who, for whatever reason, cannot download the game. https://giantlight.itch.io/magpies-classic-card-game.
If you don't like downloading games on itch, you can also play it through out playtest on Steam. Speaking of which...
Wishlist On Steam!
Streamer Kit
Credits
- Person: Matthew Brelsford
- Also Person: Ezra Szanton
- Puppet & 3D People: Shane Denhardt & Kiril Pashev of Evil Villain Games
- Card Art Person: Fergus Ferguson
- Sound Person: Chris Bolte
- Support and Love People: Everyone at Tiny Mass Games, PVGD, and Boston GameDev
Tiny Mass Games
Mr. Magpie's Harmless Card Game was created in association with Tiny Mass Games, a collective of small teams and solo developers based in Massachusetts(ish) who release a batch of hand crafted, artisanal, farm-to-table games each quarter. Check out our other work at tinymassgames.com
Disclaimer:
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Download
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Development log
- Small patch on a Sunday. Bug fixes and a cycle of common perks35 days ago
- SO MANY PERKS45 days ago
- Card Removal and Animations76 days ago
- Small balance patchSep 12, 2025
- Time Overhaul, Walkabout, New Perks, QoLSep 11, 2025
- Streamer Friendly Music!Aug 19, 2025
- Steam Beta!Aug 06, 2025
- The Deckbuilding Update!Jul 28, 2025
Comments
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No Jerrys, No Problems
Nice 😎
So, the last time I played there was a time limit as opposed to the "round limit". So far, I prefer the time limit WAY more. I just can't earn enough within the number of rounds provided.
The game has also gotten a lot harder since then (unrelated to the time / round thing), which might be affecting your experience of the game. I'm currently working on an update that will fix the difficulty.
is linux support planned at all ? i loveee this game but id like to keep up with it outside of the web version as well >.<
oh so sorry i just scrolled some more and saw your other reply abt this, thank you so much for your hard work :))
No problem, enjoy!
Yes
Does the browser version end? Ive gotten two promotions and it still hasents
Do I have to compleate the week? (This would be terrifying)
The ending of all current versions of the game is the same, and it is to beat Friday. Good luck! :D
360 Feeback + Queen of Pills + Corner Office
2 or more Global Reactivators, and you can generate over a million in cash.
Nice!
I think endless should be brought back, the bomb feels like too much of a hard cap on my score, it can get very high on a run but at a certain point you are forced to stop. Being able to buy more time for the exit cost could be a new dynamic way to introduce this feature. Also awesome game, can't wait for the full release :D
We will probably add back something like an endless mode at some point. Personally I don't really get the appeal of endless modes but I know that many people enjoy them. Glad you're enjoying the game!
So when is the update?
The PC and Mac versions are updated but we've stopped updating the browser version because we've reached the limits of what the browser will support. We are going to make a separate page for the web version soon to make that more clear.
fix ya hints.
Could you elaborate?
Every time I swear to god, the left right jerry hint just doesnt provide any valuable information whatsoever and sometimes even plain wrong. On web version this is worse. On the demo this still happens sometimes.
Everytime they give me equal left right jerry despite the hint I just rage quits. (And later return to play other rounds.)
We definitely need to clarify this one or replace it because many people have the same confusion about this as you. In the meantime, I'll explain for you so you don't have to be as frustrated while you wait for us to fix it. It refers to all the cards on the left and right sides of the board, not just in its row.
I hate the bomb feature and it SUCKS I WANT A BIG NUMBER NOT A BIG BOOM
What about the bomb do you dislike compared to the old clock?
i just want to keep playing, i like big number and dying if i try to keep playing is sad
also i'm new enough to your game that i don't know what you mean by the clock
Ah I see. The clock was what limited the time in the game before the bomb so when you said you hate the bomb feature I assumed you meant in relation to that older one. It sounds like mostly you feel frustrated that you can't get to the big numbers as often as you like? Is it that you get to 1000 and you want to keep going, or you're having trouble getting to 1000?
i want to keep going after getting to 1k. i can consistently get to it, and with really cool builds, but then i try to keep going and then explode
So you don't enjoy trying to win multiple days in a row, or you just prefer the high score chasing?
An “endless” mode would be fun.
i liked it so much! :D
Glad you liked it! :D
Wait why does he remind me of Sid the Kid??? lol
Because they're both so kind
Lolll
I noticed that pressing ‘r’ causes Mr. Magpie to move his hand over a card. Wondering what this does.
This was a thing we used to test the animation, and we didn't mean to make it public. Good find though!
Ah, that’s too bad. I was hoping it was some kind of hint or story hook.
When I saw the bomb feature, I was like, OH, I don't wanna play, actually.
What do you dislike about the bomb?
I would prefer a game mode where I don't have a turn limit.
Because you want to see how high of a score you can get?
I'm just not interested in the stress of the challenge.
There's got to be a way to get outrageous scores with all those retriggering effects
Oh yeah
when this game was still alot younger i cracked it open and had quite alot of fun, im really glad it got an update, also linux version when?
Linux version maybe, sometime :) (jokes aside, I will look into it but no promises)
well its on steam which is good enough i would say, proton exists and steam works wonderfully with it, also glad i spoke to you here too lol
I really felt powerful when I got to 26K $ this was fun!
Nice! Glad you enjoyed.
Before:
After:
Good stuff!
Great game, im not really into card games but a friend told me to try it and i loved the concept
Thanks for playing and sharing your video! I enjoyed your energetic style
Such a fun game!!!! Great work! I will continue a lil later for sure!
Thank you! Glad you like it :)
Hey, where is the Web version for the new update
I replied on your other comment on the update post but I will reply here as well so others can see.
Unfortunately, we have run into the barrier of what WebGL will allow to run in a browser. For this reason, we cannot update the web version anymore. We are in the process of moving the browser version to a separate itch page which will be called Mr Magpie's Classic Card Game to make this distinction less confusing. We are sad that we can't keep the web version up to date with the downloadable anymore because lots of people can only play the web version. It was always going to have to happen at some point though (as you could probably tell from the longer and longer load times)
I've been playing this for three hours straight
Did you enjoy those three hours or do you wish you hadn't played so much?
if gameplay persists for more than 4 hours, please consult a physician.
I just found a pretty niche interaction: a Loan with an Always Be Closing attached. This makes the base price 0$ (because -30 + 30 = 0), which increments to 10$ as soon as you buy it. Because the price is positive, the Loan’s 20% interest actually causes the perk to gain money each round. I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but if so, it was a neat find.
It is intentional! Nice find :)
Important question: when are we getting the bagels? Exploding will be so much better with bagels
What kind of bagel would you like?
An Infinity Bagel with a double activation sticker
Nice 😎
there should be variant modes, for example:
Default mode: standard experience
Dosage Mode: the old version with the location system
Extreme mode: your deck has twice the amount of JERRY
Roguelike mode: There is no time limit, instead the deck changes each round and every 5 rounds a JERRY is added, and instead of a money needed to leave you need to pass a certain amount of rounds
There is a sign in the room saying "Coming soon: Job Selection". Maybe this is something like your idea?
this could potentially be it, i meant more of a start screen selection before the run starts, not something seen in the room after the run begins tho
At some point, the room and the menu will probably merge into one thing. Thanks for the feedback!
Wondering if we could have the puppet model more involved with the game-play. Perhaps when Mr. Magpie is more focused on the board than on us, his head is angled to focus on certain cards as a vague clue. (perhaps even paired with his dialogue)
We've got plans ;)
I learned this tip the hard way:
"Churn" does indeed double the value of "Loan", however it does NOT "Sell" and remove it from your Perks.
I was hoping I could just eat the debt within the first few rounds and not have it accumulate.
I still managed to pay the 220$ dept off somehow.
Nice!
I am ashamed to admit that before playing this game I despised rouge like deck builders, after playing this game I spend most of my free time playing them trying to get the same brain scratch I get when I boot this up. Absolutely in love with this and I am so excited to see more from it. Great work!
That makes me really happy to hear! I love roguelike deckbuilders (clearly) and so it's wonderful to hear that they sparked that love for you as well. If you're looking for games that scratch a similar itch as Mr Magpie, the two biggest inspirations for us were Party House and Balatro. Balatro you've probably heard of and if not you could find it easily. Party House is one game in a collection of 50 games called UFO 50 - I highly recommend both! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1147860/UFO_50/
Another inspiration once we added the hints was this game called Dragonsweeper, if you want that logical deduction brainfeel. https://danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper
What if after you 'win' by accumulating all the time there's a cutscene of Jerry standing up and then he chases you around all the rooms and you have to find the exit in one of them to really escape while Jerry is taunting you the whole time through dialogue appearing on your screen (hopefully shaking or something) and then it's like a dystopian/utopian world (no clue which one would be better) and then it shows 'the end' and then, in like letters written in blood or something slowly writing out 'or is it?'
Sorry the idea is so unrefined. I think it does have potential though, and I would love to see it implemented :)
I'm interested in the feelings you have about the game which underly this suggestion. Is it some combination of wanting a more satisfying ending, wanting more interactions with Mr Magpie and wanting more lore about the world? Something else?
Mostly more lore.
and also to introduce some meaning into wandering across the room
That makes sense! Thanks for explaining. We do have plans to expand on the lore and give more meaning to wandering around the room.
very fun
Thanks!
Does anyone think I have enough cash to escape now?
I think you might
?!?!?!?!
I keep crashing my computer on startup, anyone else having this problem?
Yeah, my computer isn't crashing, but the game also just isnt loading
Hey thanks for the report! Are you playing the downloadable version, or the browser version?
Yeah that probably is the problem for me, browser.
On the browser, Thank You!
Ah, yeah that could be it. It might also be something to do with a corrupted save file. You might want to try the downloadable version and/or try clearing your cache in your web browser for itch.io.
I know we've added a lot of unperformant things recently, we will hopefully find the time to optimize them, but even then, dramatic lighting in a web browser is a pretty hard thing to pull off.
Really appreciate the bug report though! Thanks!
Totally in love with the concept of this game but is it ... winnable ? Must have played 100 games by now, closest I got to the goal is 500$. Either I don"t get it or it's extremely hard. I'm used to games like Balatro, Buckshot roulette etc and totally want to play this in the future... if it becomes more polished
I'm glad you're enjoying the game so far! You're right that it is quite difficult at the moment. It will be rebalanced to be less difficult in the future (or at least have a less difficult mode). There are some players in our discord who can beat the game consistently so if you want to hop in there I'm sure they'd be happy to give you advice but I completely understand if you'd rather come back later when the game is less difficult.
Are there other aspects of the game that you're wishing were more polished besides the difficulty?
Thanks for the reply Ezra ! I think that Balatro managed the difficulty quite well: starts off pretty easy and gets harder when you climb up the Antes. It adds replayability, doesn't frustrate new players while keeping them motivated to try new things and improve :)
I agree, I love Balatro!
Good game!!
Thank you!
....
Ooh nice group think!
If you sell stapler with the left or rightmost card already stapled naturally, the price adds but the effects don't.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing this bug. I'll put it on our backlog to fix.
Also I really think you should buff simplicity. maximum of four mult for a 99 dollar card is really bad.
Also I LOVE wandering around the room. Is there is a reason to do that or not?
Yes, Simplicity definitely needs a buff! It does give 2 mult per empty slot so it's a max of 8, but even then it's not very good for a Rare. I was just looking at some of the analytics today and it is the Rare with the least win rate in the game at the moment.
I'm glad you like wandering around the room! At the moment there is not a reason to do it or not. In the future we plan to put metagame stuff there. Things you unlock, achievement trophies etc (all subject to change, don't quote me on it, these are just our current plans)
I had a similar thought! The simplicity card feels underpowered for its cost. Maybe some tweaks in the next update will balance it out. Exploring the room is fun though—excited for metagame additions!
maybe you could make simplicity an exponential function affected by what round it is, like (1.2^empty spaces)*round number rounded to the nearest whole number. The reason I add the round number thing is because it's easier to get better cards lategame, and so smaller earlier boosts work fine.
also is it possible for the revolver to misfire?
Making Simplicity an uncommon would probably suffice.
Where can I find the discord server?
It's linked from the main menu of the game! We're trying not to post the link in other places so it's harder for bots to find it.
Good idea about hiding the link from non-players!