Grindstone was completely off my radar until a noclip podcast episode from a few months back where they interviewed one of the guys from Capybara. It sounded good! Then they mentioned it was an Apple Arcade exclusive. That sounded bad! But there’s a Switch Port . . but Switch ports of mobile games are typically really bad. So it went back off my radar.

My poor poor iPad Mini 4 has reached EOL, and Apple hasn’t announced an iPad Mini 6 yet, so after their Spring 2021 event concluded with no new Minis I went out and bought a 5. . . which conveniently came with a free 3 month trial of Apple Arcade. So of course I rushed out to get Grindstone.

It’s pretty fantastic! A perfect endless mobile game. I’ve sunk a bunch of time into it over the past couple days, and have beaten 3/12 zones, and think I’ve got a pretty good handle on what it brings to the table.

Mechanically it’s a drag-to-match-gems game, but with combat, and strategy. Instead of just making arbitrary lines, you have a cursor (your barbarian) and the matching lines you draw are his movement through like mobs. You can chain off strong mobs, or gems which you get from completing 10x chains.

There’s some roguelite style progression, you have gear you can buy and equip, some minor crafting with consumable items, etc. Nothing too extensive.

Map variety seems to slowly continue building, with each new biome introducing a couple new elite mobs and a couple new environmental obstacles, and then figuring out unique ways to combine these over 10 or so levels. Enough to stay interesting.

Difficulty seems to be largely driven by how much of the 7x7 grid is a fixed obstacle, the worst I’ve seen so far is when they wall off 25% of the map. This sucks because you need long chains to defeat enemies / unlock chests / etc, and to get long chains you need like mobs or Grindstones to extend a chain. To get grindstones you need at least a 10 chain. If 25% of the screen is walled off and the rest of it is being wiped every other turn it’s very hard to get going, and when you can’t get going the game really sucks. “We have removed Mario’s ability to jump, good luck!”

Overall I’m really enjoying it. Levels are perfect bathroom-break length. But the big question is: Can I finish the game within 3 months, or at the end of 3 months will I consider this game good enough to continue paying $5/mo for.

Addendum: I beat it. Most equipment is basically pointless. Replayability isn’t super high. Challenges weren’t that terrible, the hard ones later in the game just weren’t fun. Not really a perennial game.