Star Realms vs Card Thief
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Star Realms
Engage in thrilling space combat with this popular deckbuilding game. Build your deck, outmaneuver opponents, and conquer the galaxy. Offers both single-player campaigns and multiplayer battles.
- Deckbuilding gameplay
- Player vs Player combat
- AI battles
- Campaign mode
- Online multiplayer
- Pass and Play mode
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Star Realms is a hugely popular space combat deckbuilding game. Download and play today to find out why Star Realms is the winner of SXSW 2014 Board Game of the Year, 7 Golden Geek Awards from BoardGameGeek, including Best Mobile Game, and 2 Dice Tower awards! Reviews: "My readers are going to have a seizure about how good Star Realms is." -Owen Faraday, pockettactics.com “Good on all levels, thumbs up!” -Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower “This game is superb! I think it’s a brilliant game. Beautiful artwork, second to none.” -Tim Norris, Grey Elephant Gaming “What can I say? Star Realms is excellent.” - Lenny, ISlaytheDragon.com “I desperately wanted to play again and again. It's just consistently fun every time.” -The Critical Boardgamer Star Realms combines addictive deck building game play with exciting Trading Card Game (TCG) style combat! Designed by Magic the Gathering Hall of Famers Darwin Kastle and Rob Dougherty (of the Ascension Deckbuilding Game), Star Realms provides tons of playability for free, and a one-time upgrade to be able play with your friends and more on any device. Free Version •Universal Application: Play on iPhone, iPod, iPad, iPad Mini, and Ipad Air. •Addictive Deckbuilding Game with Player VS Player Combat. •Tutorial teaches you to play in minutes. •Stunning visuals. •Play VS the AI. •6 mission campaign mode. Full Game Additional Features •Play the AI on 3 different difficulty settings. •9 additional campaign missions. •Battle friends face to face with Pass and Play. •Online play with global rankings. •Challenge a friend online.
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.
- 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
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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
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Star Realms at none against Card Thief's shown. Star Realms also leads on update cadence (every 10 days vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (4.5K vs 1K). Card Thief's advantage is review sentiment (70% vs 57%) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). On price, rating, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Star Realms sells 10 one-off in-app purchases and Card Thief sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Star Realms against 4.7 for Card Thief. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4.5K and 1K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 57% of Star Realms's written reviews are positive against 70% of Card Thief's.
Star Realms ships an update every 10 days, Card Thief every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 4, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Star Realms | Card Thief |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (4.5K ratings) | 4.7 (1K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 57.0% of reviews | 69.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4.5K — better | 1K |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 509 MB | 161 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | White Wizard Games | Arnold Rauers |
Customer experience
Star Realms
Card Thief
User reviews
Star Realms
From 4.5K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great game
- 👍 Excellent implementation
- 💡 Lots of content and features
- 🚀 Fast and smooth gameplay
- 👍 Challenging AI
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and bugs
- 🐛 Issues with online play and connectivity
- 🐛 Unbalanced AI difficulty
- 💰 Expensive in-app purchases
- 🐛 Confusing UI and navigation
Card Thief
From 1K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great game
- 👍 Fun and unique stealth mechanics
- 👍 Very fun for offline gaming
- 👍 New favorite card game
- 👍 Creative and addictive game
Room to improve
- ❓ What is the goal?
- 🐛 Issueee
- 🐛 Buggy
- 🐛 Crashes on load
- 🐛 Cannot select path
Bugs and requests
Star Realms
Reported bugs
4 issues- Game freezes and crashes on launch
- Online games getting stuck or timing out
- Inability to scrap or play certain cards
- Incorrect card behavior and interactions
Requested features
4 requests- Add undo/rewind functionality
- Improve offline/single-player experience
- Implement better matchmaking and player communication
- Provide more detailed game statistics and analytics
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
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- 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
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- 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
In-app purchases
Star Realms
- Crisis: Bases and Battleships Set$1.99
- Crisis: Events Set$1.99
- Crisis: Heroes Set$1.99
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- Crisis: Fleets and Fortresses$1.99
- Command$1.99
- Gambit Set$3.99
- Cosmic Gambit$3.99
- Full Version$4.99
- Colony Wars$4.99
- Frontiers$4.99
Card Thief
- Unlock Card Thief$4.99









