Grindstone

Name: Grindstone
Rating: 4.6 (6032 reviews)
Author: Capybara Games Inc.

A Puzzle-Battle splatter-fest!

6K Ratings
Age Rating

13+
Years
Category

Puzzle
Developer

Capybara Games Inc.
Language

EN
+ 12 More
Size

1
GB

GRINDSTONE is a game of sword-slashing puzzle battles! "I'm hopelessly hooked, and I regret nothing." 85 -Destructoid "It's an instant classic." -Eurogamer.net GRINDSTONE is a game of sword-slashing puzzle battles from the award-winning creators of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes and Critter Crunch! Grindstone Mountain is overrun with vicious Creeps! Slay your way up its treacherous peak where fortune, glory (and death) awaits! It’ll take sharp puzzle skills and an even sharper blade to cleave your way through the swarms of bloodthirsty Creeps dwelling within Grindstone’s dungeons. Battle bosses, loot resources, discover long-lost blueprints for powerful gear, all while cleaving the innards from your deadly foes! Now with more than 200 levels of intense puzzle-battling madness!

Ratings & Reviews

4.6

out of 5

6K Ratings

Doesn’t remember your place, otherwise great
11/09/2019

ghostrida420
Grindstone is great — probably one of the best games on Arcade. So why four stars? It does have some small annoyances, like not being able to see your character’s stats at a glance on the map, animations being unskippable (I reeeeeeeally don’t need to have to wait for the barkeep to go through the animation of “pouring” in order to continue, just let me tap the exit button as soon as I’m done). My biggest issue though is that the game doesn’t keep your place in the dungeon. Let’s say I am playing and doing pretty well, but have to stop for a bit and switch apps. Most games would just save your place and “freeze”, putting you back in the exact same spot on the board when you come back to the app, right? Grindstone just... resets. All the way back to the intro movie. I feel like I’m back in 2009 and multitasking isn’t yet a thing on iPhones with this system — seriously, this should not be a problem at this point.Edit — I complained about the game getting unloaded from memory too quickly and then I realized that it’s most likely the fault of the OS and not the game. Not really fair to rate it lower because of that. 5 stars!
Doesn’t remember your place, otherwise great
11/09/2019

ghostrida420

Grindstone is great — probably one of the best games on Arcade. So why four stars? It does have some small annoyances, like not being able to see your character’s stats at a glance on the map, animations being unskippable (I reeeeeeeally don’t need to have to wait for the barkeep to go through the animation of “pouring” in order to continue, just let me tap the exit button as soon as I’m done). My biggest issue though is that the game doesn’t keep your place in the dungeon. Let’s say I am playing and doing pretty well, but have to stop for a bit and switch apps. Most games would just save your place and “freeze”, putting you back in the exact same spot on the board when you come back to the app, right? Grindstone just... resets. All the way back to the intro movie. I feel like I’m back in 2009 and multitasking isn’t yet a thing on iPhones with this system — seriously, this should not be a problem at this point.Edit — I complained about the game getting unloaded from memory too quickly and then I realized that it’s most likely the fault of the OS and not the game. Not really fair to rate it lower because of that. 5 stars!
They literally called it a grind.
09/12/2020

rjh19820813rjh
Ugh. I want to love these games, but I end up hating them. This one is another in a long list of adventure-puzzle-match-three games like Candy Crush or Best Fiends. Grindstone is dressed up as an Apple Arcade game, but it reeks of a more nefarious money grabber like the others. Here is a summary: 1) great concept with good presentation. 2) progressively harder - by world 2, it already becomes either beyond challenging or pure luck to beat levels (I’m a completionist and go for the crown in every level, which for all intents and purposes is impossible). 3) eventual frustration and deletion. Good for a couple hours. A slog after that. The Achilles heel of all of these games is the random drop engine. These can dictate whether you luck into a 12 move combo or get stuck with only 1 color in each direction. As you move on, the boards become more ridiculous blocked with boulders and crates that can’t be wrecked because there is no way to get combos long enough. Ultimately, this was designed to make money by getting players to buy lives and pay-to-win with charms and stones, but ended up in the Apple Arcade, which is exactly the kind of garbage I hoped to avoid with my subscription. Oh and a bit of constructive feedback: it would be nice if you didn’t have to go to the tavern after every round to refill your lives. It’s a lot of clicking and time wasting for no reason.
They literally called it a grind.
09/12/2020

rjh19820813rjh

Ugh. I want to love these games, but I end up hating them. This one is another in a long list of adventure-puzzle-match-three games like Candy Crush or Best Fiends. Grindstone is dressed up as an Apple Arcade game, but it reeks of a more nefarious money grabber like the others. Here is a summary: 1) great concept with good presentation. 2) progressively harder - by world 2, it already becomes either beyond challenging or pure luck to beat levels (I’m a completionist and go for the crown in every level, which for all intents and purposes is impossible). 3) eventual frustration and deletion. Good for a couple hours. A slog after that. The Achilles heel of all of these games is the random drop engine. These can dictate whether you luck into a 12 move combo or get stuck with only 1 color in each direction. As you move on, the boards become more ridiculous blocked with boulders and crates that can’t be wrecked because there is no way to get combos long enough. Ultimately, this was designed to make money by getting players to buy lives and pay-to-win with charms and stones, but ended up in the Apple Arcade, which is exactly the kind of garbage I hoped to avoid with my subscription. Oh and a bit of constructive feedback: it would be nice if you didn’t have to go to the tavern after every round to refill your lives. It’s a lot of clicking and time wasting for no reason.
Love it. Makes me excited for Apple Arcade.
09/27/2019

Speedrope
Out of the 4 or 5 games I’ve sampled out of the Apple Arcade launch games, Grindstone so far is my favorite. The art, style, music, and gameplay are all stellar. Collecting blueprints is my crack. I’m grateful for Apple Arcade for it’s non-micro transaction environment and curation because I would have never tried this game out with out it. I’m only around level 20 and I heard the difficulty is borderline brutal later on but it doesn’t take away how much fun I’ve had in the past few hours.Room of improvements? Sure. I’m always a sucker for rpgs and character customization. It would be cool if our avatar leveled up and unlock, or we could buy, traits or abilities ... like reducing the hit requirements of boulders by 1 or having an additional small diamond drop on the board when a chain of 20 or more is achieved. Regardless, great game from a talented developer. I hope it gets expanded on. Capybara Games, if you ever need a 39 year old gaming enthusiast intern with a B.S. in Visual Communication, I’m willing to relocate. I love your work.
Love it. Makes me excited for Apple Arcade.
09/27/2019

Speedrope

Out of the 4 or 5 games I’ve sampled out of the Apple Arcade launch games, Grindstone so far is my favorite. The art, style, music, and gameplay are all stellar. Collecting blueprints is my crack. I’m grateful for Apple Arcade for it’s non-micro transaction environment and curation because I would have never tried this game out with out it. I’m only around level 20 and I heard the difficulty is borderline brutal later on but it doesn’t take away how much fun I’ve had in the past few hours.Room of improvements? Sure. I’m always a sucker for rpgs and character customization. It would be cool if our avatar leveled up and unlock, or we could buy, traits or abilities ... like reducing the hit requirements of boulders by 1 or having an additional small diamond drop on the board when a chain of 20 or more is achieved. Regardless, great game from a talented developer. I hope it gets expanded on. Capybara Games, if you ever need a 39 year old gaming enthusiast intern with a B.S. in Visual Communication, I’m willing to relocate. I love your work.
Blowing off steam
07/29/2024

fotofryman
I love this game. The weirdness of it makes it the perfect game for me. But it’s also one of the most annoying games I’ve ever played at the same time. That’s why I’m here to blow off steam. It’s so aggravating to get put in a level where you need a minimum off 5 jerks of the same color in a row in order to bust a boulder or whatever and all you can get is 3 or 4. You smash the 3 or 4 hoping that some more of the same color will drop so you can get a long enough chain to open the board up so you can actually have a chance to do something. Instead you just go back and forth killing the 3 or 4 jerks you can and try to avoid getting hit by the increasingly angry jerks or another one spewing lava from its head. Inevitably you get killed before you even got a chance to try. It’s freaking maddening. My poor dog got upset because I was griping at then game and she thought I was griping at her. Do the developers try these levels out before they publish them or just cross their fingers and hope for the best. The only bright spot is that it’s an Apple Arcade game so it’s not costing any money just time off of my life. Arrrgghhh!!! Other than that it’s a great game. 😏
Blowing off steam
07/29/2024

fotofryman

I love this game. The weirdness of it makes it the perfect game for me. But it’s also one of the most annoying games I’ve ever played at the same time. That’s why I’m here to blow off steam. It’s so aggravating to get put in a level where you need a minimum off 5 jerks of the same color in a row in order to bust a boulder or whatever and all you can get is 3 or 4. You smash the 3 or 4 hoping that some more of the same color will drop so you can get a long enough chain to open the board up so you can actually have a chance to do something. Instead you just go back and forth killing the 3 or 4 jerks you can and try to avoid getting hit by the increasingly angry jerks or another one spewing lava from its head. Inevitably you get killed before you even got a chance to try. It’s freaking maddening. My poor dog got upset because I was griping at then game and she thought I was griping at her. Do the developers try these levels out before they publish them or just cross their fingers and hope for the best. The only bright spot is that it’s an Apple Arcade game so it’s not costing any money just time off of my life. Arrrgghhh!!! Other than that it’s a great game. 😏

Hey Stonegrinders! We squashed a few bugs that were gummin' up the Leaderboards! So head on over to the Daily Grind and Boss Blitz and show'em what you got! - Bossmin

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Information

Size: 1 GB
Compatibility: Requires iOS 13.0 or later.

iPhone
Requires iOS 13.0 or later.

iPad
Requires iPadOS 13.0 or later.

iPod touch
Requires iOS 13.0 or later.

Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.

Apple TV
Requires tvOS 13.0 or later.
Languages: English and 12 more

English, Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Turkish
Age Rating: 13+

13+

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Copyright: © Copyright 2019 Capybara Games Inc.