It’s actually pretty good. Acram apps have been getting better with each release and this seems very polished. I haven’t played Stone Age for a long time - since the origin App dropped off the App Store and my library. I’d forgotten how addictive the gameplay loop of set collection and maximising multipliers is combined with building a resource engine. 3 levels of AI - the easy is definitely that. The medium is a greater challenge and haven’t tried the hard yet. Presentation is good - the UI has a couple of little quirks but nothing game breaking all presented in a nice rustic autumn colour palette.
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Is a Raid one of the locked mods?
Sell it to me further. If I’ve already got Waterdeep, Raiders, and Agricola, what is Stone Age bringing to the table to set it apart enough to consider yet another light-mid weight worker placement?
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Yes, but a relatively early-unlocked one (“win 60 fights” achievement, I think). Raids are ten heroes rather than five, double the monsters, and only level-ups each fight, no items. I recommend taking AoE abilities when you can.
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Fair question. I also own the 3 games you mention (although I haven’t played Raiders for a while) and I think like many light-mid weight Euro’s there are commonalities beyond the base mechanism of send worker to slot on board and gain benefit of slot. Examples being the end round pressure of feeding the tribe (family), the culture card set collection (quest completion to match Lord’s alignment).
What IMHO is Stone Ages point of difference is the resource collection mechanism. Rather than being a constant it’s linked to a random dice roll. Each worker allocated to a resource collection space is represented by a die. Furthermore each resource has a different divisor ranging from Food = 2 to Gold = 6. So send 3 workers to collect food and roll 10 and get 5 food. Same workers, same roll with gold and receive 1 gold.
There are ways to mitigate the dice rolls and ease the burden of feeding the tribe by purchasing tools which allow a die rolled to be increased, increasing the number of tribespeople (dice) and growing fields to provide ongoing food so it’s not a total luck fest.
For me it’s that element of chance on each resource hunt (and throwing dice) that keeps the game engaging. There’s also a nice tension with having to be mindful of securing the points from the limited houses (victory point cows) available in the game.
At the end of the day though - yes it is in that light-medium game space. Compared to Dune Imperium it’s only ever going to be more of a filler. In some ways it is a shame it published when it did so close on the heels of DI.
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Thanks! Just found it in the cool modes folder along with another couple. Must have missed the notification when I unlocked it.
Goddammit 353 again. This is the third time. I’m going to delete this damn game as soon as I score 354+.
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361 here and all the achievements except winning three hard in a row. I’ve gotten 2 but then the game turns on me.
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In two pieces of news from Toucharcade, it seems Mi-Clos of Out There fame has shuttered their doors.
And, “highly regarded” Howl is out on iOS and Android; free to try with an IAP for full unlock. Never played it but downloaded and will give it a try.
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Huh. I was about to mention Sigma Theory never releasing for iOS - I mentioned it in the vapourware thread in January 2020 - but it turns out it released last year. Ok, bought it finally, before it gets pulled. @OhBollox was generally enthusiastic about the PC release in May of that year, according to a forum search. Well, let’s see how it holds up.
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Completely unrelated to any of this news I actually bought Sigma Theory on iOS about a month ago and it’s sitting in my “learn to play” folder. Planing on giving it a go on an upcoming trip. It looks solid.
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Sigma Theory is on a notable discount on GOG:
I found it to be charmingly janky. I definitely appreciated how open it was, it seemed very much like a barebones solo board game ported violently onto PC when I played it.
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Oh, I wanted to download Out There before it gets pulled, but it’s not out there anymore (iOS)… at least not in my region.
Still was on the Nintendo eShop for me if that helps
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Looks like Inkbound releases next week?
I bought it ages ago in early access after someone here mentioned it, but haven’t had a chance to play. Looking forward to it!
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Inkbound is solid. I put about 5 hours into it, and looking forward to spending some time with 1.0
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The triple-i initiative, a showcase of indie trailers and announcements, is airing now …
… and the very first announcement was Slay the Spire 2 enters early access on Steam in 2025. 
Wishlist here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2868840/Slay_the_Spire_2/
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The makers of Evolution have a new game in Beta - Nature, which looks to evolve the system and make it modular.
You can check it out here
My biggest concern is that of the 3 characters the cinematic seems to show, it looks like we have Ironclad and Silent back in the game. I know they are fairly standard archetypes but I hope they feel a little different.
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