The game sky-Jo is perfect for a mobile setting, and the one thing this app does very well is let you play with your friends easily through temporary game servers. The gameplay is fun although some of the AI decisions make no sense, with no apparent way to adjust difficulty settings. The worst thing about this app? The ads. There are so. Many. Ads. And they play after every game. They play when you open the app. They play if you don’t start a game within a short time of opening the app. And there’s no paid version, or paid subscription. So you are subject to the ads if you want to play this game on mobile. I would gladly pay a subscription to play without ads.

We play this game a lot as a family and really enjoy it. The app doesn’t replicate the actual game very much at all. The app’s organization of the cards is not the same so it is much harder to play defense (prevent an opponent from getting a specific card). Most games on the app are played against AI generated bots with phonetic call sign names (Alpha, Beta, Charlie etc.). The bots are easy to beat and their discards are entirely predictable. Hypothetically if a bots lowest card is a -2 and then it has the opportunity to pick up a -1 it will not pick it up because it’s algorithm is to search only for lower cards that their highest card showing (it will replace a 10 with a 9 if it can which no human would do). When other human non bots are playing it is much more enjoyable BUT many times the app simply glitches during the game or between rounds. I’ve had rounds where I got all 4 columns to disappear and the game simply stops because i don’t think it was programmed for that to happen. Lot’s of glitches. Still fun but you need a numb mind to enjoy kind of like playing solitaire and you need a ton of patience.

Playing against the computer almost feels like the game is rigged. The computer makes unrealistic choices which screws you over. The online option feels like playing against computer. Also has connection issues. Playing against friends and family is a neat option, however you can only do it when everyone is available at the same time. It also has connection issues and freezes a lot when playing with friends. It’s very frustrating when you’re waiting your turn and then it skips you b/c you ran out of time. That bug needs fixed. And there is no option to contact the company to report problems or make suggestions. Love the game, but the app needs a lot of work. So frustrated with this app. Playing with other friends is pretty much impossible because of connection issues. The app out of the blue disconnects from the game and it won’t reconnect. It just says joining room and nothing happens. The creators of the app are way behind. I don’t feel like the creators are fixing issues either

This morning’s app update was a long time coming, and I (a user who can easily play Sky-Jo for hours every day) was cautiously optimistic to see the changes. There were a few things they allllmost got right on the last update (mainly, the bot’s skill of playing), and I was hoping they were going to finally deliver the little tweaks needed to make this a great game. D’oh, it already feels like they broke more than they fixed, and I fear this is the end of my Sky-Jo playerdom. Here’s what they needed to do:—Improve the bot players just a little bit more, particularly on judgements of when to swap out cards (don’t swap a 1 out for a 12). To me, that is the most aggravating issue with the current bots, because it gives the person after them an unfair advantage of regular high-quality discards—Improve font sizes on the tiny score numbers (looks like they did that) Here’s what they did not need to do:—Add more of a time lag to playing your round. Why these new animated card flourishes? It’s taking so much longer, and this game is already a sizable time commitment—Add pop-up commentary to my play “Aim lower!” Well, screw you commentary engine, that’s the card I was dealt Once again, I wish the redesign/upgrades were overseen by a true player of the game. It’s a great game; I have spent hours and hours playing it (despite its flaws), but this latest update has made some things intolerable