CARDKID

by olddog

CART KID

Blow the dust off. Three retro games on one old cartridge.

You found your old handheld in a box. It still turns on. Pick a cartridge, blow into it, slide it in — each one is a different game.

!

The cartridges

1 · Cartridge Board — Survivor

![survivor]

Survive the horde inside a living circuit board. Level up, pick new weapons, open relic chests and build a loadout that carries you through five stages and a final boss.

2 · Drift Kid — Top-down drift racing

![racing]

A three-race grand prix: Spring Meadow, Maple Woods and Snowpeak. Hold to drift, let go to boost. Win coins, upgrade your car in the garage, buy new paint jobs — and race against the ghosts of your own best laps.

3 · Star Route — Shoot 'em up

![shmup]

A vertical shooter with a roguelite twist. Enemies drop EXP; every level-up lets you recruit a paper-plane wingman (12 kinds: grenades, lasers, homing missiles, boomerangs, black holes…). Open relic chests to stack combos, and take on five bullet-hell bosses.

Controls

	Move	Action
Menus	Arrow keys	Z confirm · X back · C shop / garage / hangar
Survivor	Arrow keys	Weapons fire on their own
Drift Kid	↑ gas · ↓ brake · ← → steer	Hold SPACE while turning to drift, release to boost
Star Route	Arrow keys (auto-fire)	Hold Z to focus · SPACE bomb

Enter pauses · Tab switches the colour palette · Gamepads work too.

Best played in the browser at 1280×720 or full screen.

Theme: Old Tech

The whole game lives on an old handheld: a dusty cartridge slot, a power-on static screen, LCD pixel grid and 4-colour palettes. Every mode is a "cartridge" you plug in.

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Comments15

pankun18 Oct 2026, 17:01

Every mini-game in here is really well-made; it's hard to imagine this level of production being completed in such a short time. It's a retro game console, but the games inside incorporate very modern ideas. Whether it's similar to Vampire Survivors, roguelike mechanics, or incremental growth, the mechanics and numbers are all handled really well. The music is also quite upbeat, the gameplay is light but has good depth, and there's a storyline behind it all, which still easily makes me think of my childhood. Back then, I would play a few old games on a pirated console I bought from a small shop tirelessly for fun. I really, really like this work, and I’m going to thoroughly enjoy going through it.

chuckeles19 Oct 2026, 12:08

Holy shit, how can there be so many games and so well polished?? 🤯

Thanks to you, I have now played my first vampire survivors-like game heh! I played all 3 games and all of them are really well made, great polish, ideas, well executed, including transitions, effects, numbers... There's a lot here and I have nothing negative to say.

Great job!

Serendibity Efreet19 Oct 2026, 22:55

Wow, there is... just SO MUCH here. I'm genuinely impressed by this. This (these??) game is clearly in the lead in terms of how much I played it; and I stopped at the car racing level. I really liked the blocky rotation look in that section. The only thing I really noticed is that when I tried a shortcut during the snow track, the game got very confused; and the camera was very out of place. It also didn't register my finish, so I guess I can't shortcut ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ oops! But really nice job. There is just so much in here! lol Even the animation for switching between cartridges is really nice.

There are some minor things I could comment on. Like some of the color changes in the first game are a little weird, but overall it's pretty great. Nice job!

JerryWest20 Oct 2026, 06:29

The production quality is very high and the content is so rich. It seems that the core of the game lies in the storylines beyond the cartridges. I haven't completed the game entirely. I reached the fifth cartridge. It seems that AI-generated is used, right?

dracco_0n20 Oct 2026, 06:38

absolutely loved it from the moment I started playing and ended up getting hooked for ages! My only suggestions are that upgrades become a bit too frequent in the later levels, which disrupts the pacing (sometimes triggering every step or two), and that some of the Chinese text descriptions could use a little polishing. that said, this is genuinely a great game!

Klever20 Oct 2026, 07:26

Wow, I have no words to describe how much I liked these games.

Cardboard Box20 Oct 2026, 09:00

I do like me some AI to reduce menial tasks, but this ain't it

OddballDave20 Oct 2026, 09:23

WTF! This is an insane amount of content for 72 hours! Eight totally different games, with completely different mechanics, each with skill trees, all with their own graphics and audio, and all in 72 hours. It took me 48 hours just to make one game.

You might as well pack it up boys, game jamming is over! 🎱

Cardboard Box20 Oct 2026, 09:32

@oddballdave each is a slop-clone of an existing grame, down to visual style and even exact character designs. (Come on, there's a literal recreation of Madeline from Celeste, except poorly made)

Yeah, this definitely ain't it.

OddballDave20 Oct 2026, 09:55

@cardboard-box I think you are mistaking my comment as a positive endorsement. It was not! 🎱

Cardboard Box20 Oct 2026, 10:06

@oddballdave not really, but it felt like you're still somewhat over-stating it. "Own graphics, audio, mechanics" etc amount to blending together a couple dozen open repos, pasting in some stolen commercial assets with palette shifts, except unattended.

I don't think you even need an LLM to do this, it's just outright "take some stuff and call it your own" at this point, except the operator is also unaware they are doing this due to being completely out of touch with the event and target audience

marudziik20 Oct 2026, 12:18

Not sure what else need to be said here. AI games should be rated in separate category, for once. But also, does it actually make sense to create this for a Ludum Dare? Just throw a bunch of games at the player and see what sticks? I mean it's clear that the carts were either AI-generated or done outside of jam timeline. Sorry to say that, but this here feels like missing the point of LD spirit, IMHO.

If you're not the author and want to heart this comment, please don't - there's an unfixed bug on LD page. Explanation here and here.

crotonyl_alcohol20 Oct 2026, 16:51

Insanely well polished games. The vibes are great and the gameplay was smooth. However, as other comments states, this does not feel like made during the jam.

Also, the celeste copy was a mess. the original uses space to jump for a reason. This is evidence that the game is AI-generated. I do not oppose the use of AI, but PLEASE spend some time checking the generated content, and try to create more creative things.