Comparison

Card Thief vs Uncommon Chess

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Card Thief

A solitaire-style stealth game where you play as a master thief. Sneak through darkness, steal treasure, and escape without getting caught. It offers deep strategy and roguelike replayability in short, engaging sessions.

Highlights
  • Solitaire-style stealth gameplay
  • 4 unique heists
  • Unlockable equipment cards
  • Hireable thieves with special rules
  • Mini deck-building mechanics
  • Daily Heist mode with leaderboards
  • Roguelike replayability
  • Offline play
Features
Read full description

Card Thief is a solitaire-style stealth card game that transforms your deck into a shadowy world of cunning heists and daring escapes. Sneak through the darkness as a master thief. Extinguish torches, pickpocket guards, and steal precious treasure without getting caught. Every card you flip is a calculated risk. Every move could be your last. From the makers of Card Crawl, the hit indie card dungeon crawler, Card Thief distills the tension of classic stealth games into a sleek, strategic card game you can play in minutes. Easy to learn, endlessly deep. Plan. Steal. Escape. Repeat. With a rich layer of tactical decision-making, risk/reward choices, and roguelike replayability, Card Thief is the perfect pick-up-and-play strategy card game for fans of stealth, puzzle games, and solo card games alike. Features - Solitaire-style stealth gameplay with no internet required - 4 unique heists with distinct enemies, traps, and obstacles - 12 unlockable and upgradable equipment cards with unique abilities - Hire 10 thieves, each with special gameplay rules - Mini deck-building mechanics for deep strategic customization - Daily Heist mode with global leaderboards - Roguelike replayability so every run plays differently - Perfect session length of 2 to 3 minutes per game - Offline play, great for travel

About

Uncommon Chess

Experience chess with unique animated duels for every capture. Learn the game with interactive tutorials, play against AI or friends, and explore fun novelty modes. Dive into a study of chess games with clear explanations.

Highlights
  • Animated capture duels
  • Interactive learning tutorials
  • AI and local multiplayer
  • Online 1v1 and 2v2 modes
  • Novelty game modes
  • Chess game study and analysis
Features
Read full description

Chess, but the pieces fight for the square. Every capture in Uncommon Chess is a hand-animated duel between two original characters — the ivory Bone Court against the blued iron of the Iron Court. Thirty-five of them, one for every attacker and defender pairing, each choreographed separately. A pawn taking a rook does not look like a queen taking a pawn. LEARN TO PLAY A whole screen for somebody who has never played. How each piece moves, shown on a real board, plus the rules that look like exceptions — check, checkmate, stalemate, castling, en passant, promotion. The diagrams are played by the game's own rules engine, so they cannot be wrong. SEE IT YOUR WAY Turn the board, tilt it, zoom in. Watch the fight from wherever you like. PLAY HOW YOU LIKE Against the computer at four strengths. Two players passing one device. Four players, two a side. Or online through Game Center — 1v1 and 2v2, with your turn waiting for you whenever you pick the phone up. FUN MODES Optional novelty rules for a single match. Anoint a Champion that survives the first attack on it, a Berserker that strikes twice, or a Phantom that slips through anything in its way. Strict chess is the default, is complete, and costs nothing. THE MATRIX A real study of 162,000 games between two engines, and — unusually — a plain explanation of what its numbers mean. What a margin of error is. Why more games help only slowly. What the experiment cannot tell you. Written for a child and true for everybody. No account. No subscription. No data collected.

Screenshots

Card Thief4 screens
Uncommon Chess4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Uncommon Chess at none against Card Thief's 1. Uncommon Chess also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 70%) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 4 months). Card Thief's advantage is ratings volume (997 vs 1) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Card Thief sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Uncommon Chess asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Uncommon Chess holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Card Thief has 997 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 70% of Card Thief's written reviews are positive against 100% of Uncommon Chess's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Card Thief ships an update every 4 months, Uncommon Chess every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Card Thief versus Uncommon Chess: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCard ThiefUncommon Chess
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (997 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews69.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings997 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsYesYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesAd-supported — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size161 MB35 MB
Age rating12+9+
DeveloperArnold RauersTAMAS HALASZ

Customer experience

Card Thief

All ratings981 ratings
Positive94.2%
Neutral1.3%
Negative4.5%
Written reviews478 reviews
Positive69.9%
Neutral9.4%
Negative20.7%

Uncommon Chess

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Card Thief

Reported bugs

9 issues
  • Crystals which you can get when playing are useless
  • Notch covers game information on iPhone X+
  • Ads error prevents chest opening
  • Hideout heists have unrealistically high scores
  • Can't open hideout, game crashes
Show 4 more
  • Crashes right after starting on M1 iPad Pro with iPadOS 14.7.1
  • Crashes all the time
  • Login screen freezes
  • Incompatible with older devices

Requested features

9 requests
  • More enemies or traps to deal with
  • More equipment to try out
  • 4x4 layout rather than 3x3
  • Endless mode
  • Multiplayer compatibility
Show 4 more
  • Sync game data between Android and iOS
  • Shop to use crystals
  • More levels, incentives, and variations in the Hideout games
  • Ability to cash in stolen goods for new tool cards or special cards

Uncommon Chess

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Card Thief

One-time1
  • Unlock Card Thief$4.99
None

Uncommon Chess

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Card Thief free?
Card Thief is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Uncommon Chess free?
Uncommon Chess is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Card Thief or Uncommon Chess?
Uncommon Chess is rated higher. Card Thief averages 4.7 out of 5 from 997 ratings, while Uncommon Chess averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Card Thief or Uncommon Chess have ads?
Both Card Thief and Uncommon Chess show ads.
Which is updated more often, Card Thief or Uncommon Chess?
Card Thief ships an update every 4 months, and Uncommon Chess every 2 weeks. Most recently, Card Thief was updated on October 29, 2026 and Uncommon Chess on October 24, 2026.

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