My experience of The Witness was that I found the setting lovely, and the puzzles at what was to me a comfortable level were very satisfying. It started simple enough to be not very interesting, but quickly became fine, and then good. But at all times after the very early stages, there were enough puzzles available that I could leave when stuck and try something else. I also thought that the last five or ten percent simply wasn’t worth the effort, so it was important for my pleasure to avoid feeling completist about it. To me, that’s a heavy caveat, so it means a lot that I still had a good enough time with it that I played through most of it a second time (being careful not to bother with any of the puzzles which were simply tedious, and to look up solutions when I found something causing frustration after leaving and returning to it several times).
Definitely recommend giving the Sunforge a go in Dawncaster.
Progression and character creation are VASTLY different and it feels very much like a new game mode.
You draft to pick your starting stats, weapons, other cards in your initial deck, and your first few talents. And since you’re playing as a Scion character, you can draft from any of the stats, weapons, talents or card sets and your picks will always be from cards you’d have the correct energy to be able to play. Then it’s just boss battle after boss battle starting from the beginning of the game (elites, and end of canto bosses), after each completed boss battle, you get another draft of upgrades which can be anything from refilling some of your lost health, to picking more cards/stats/talents. You start off with 5 rerolls of anything that can be drafted which you can use while creating your character or on any of the upgrade options after beating a boss, and it seems you earn another one of those reroll mid-run for each end of canto boss you defeat.
Having an absolute blast with this so far.
I’m pretty sure Myst (and River) are already on iOS (because I completed both back in the days on iPhone) so I guess they’re porting now the Unreal engine remake, which is the exact game just in free roam form instead of static screens (gameplay doesn’t change a thing, I didn’t play the whole game on the free roam one but sure it was pretty on Xbox).
The game is exactly the same down to the incredibly challenging (for me) puzzles.
@rinelk comparison to The Witness (which I completed on iPhone too) is on spot, with imho the huge difference that while in Witness you have dozens of puzzles at a given time that range from easy to almost impossible so you can play the game at your own pace providing you’re willing to give up a puzzle and look for a simpler one (with time the impossible ones will be more clear), Myst is AAA difficulty puzzle from the get go (to me anyway). You start in very small place PACKED, and I mean PACKED, with crazy puzzles and you have to understand which is the one you can actually solve first (many require previous puzzle solving to even be approached).
Despite the initial mental burn, Myst is imho absolutely fantastic (as Riven and The Witness) and incredibly satisfying.
I do admit I didn’t know where to start when I first played it and looked for a hint to select the first puzzle, but then I was totally immersed in the story (both Myst and Riven have much more story going on than The Witness).
The is a lot of (essential) notes/books reading in Myst so iPhone wouldn’t be too comfotable depending on your eyes (I was good years ago, I can’t read shit now so I couldn’t play on iPhone).
If you like (very) difficult immersive puzzle games, it doesn’t get better than this, even after all these years.
Overboss has a demo up on Steam.
That’s really all I needed to hear. Basically that it stands the test of time. I’m on board.
Actually the game is free to download with a single unlock for all the worlds besides first Myst island, so you can try for yourself.
I tried it yesterday on an iPhone 14 plus at epic setting and yeah, it’s incredibly pretty and plays very well.
Everything else is the same, highly immersive and mind bending puzzles.
I heard that Riven is going to get a 3D free-roam remake. I can’t wait. It was my favorite in the Myst series.
I love Dice Throne and own Season 1, 2 and the new Marvel set from Kickstarter. Sadly, my wife and daughter don’t like the game so I never really get to play. So I keep hoping it will come out on digital and google that every month or so.
I just did, and discovered that since the last time I looked, they have a web page to gauge interest in a digital version of the game. So if you are also hoping for digital Dice Throne, go check it out and add your email to the notification list. They say they will only use it for new around digital DT.
This is exactly the type of game that I wish there were more of digitally - the asymmetrical mage vs. mage (or army vs. army, or whatever) game. Summoner Wars is one of my favorites ever but sadly the app is dead; I’m hoping the second edition app will roll around some day. Neuroshima Hex was excellent but has regressed enormously. I know Unmatched is on the way.
Not to be cynical, but the these games also seem like great games to milk some IAP out of consumers - provide a couple of free factions and allow buyers to pick and choose which others they want to buy (the correct answer is all of them). But it’s the type of IAP I don’t mind.
I miss the old apps from Playdek, Codito and Coding Monkeys as well. Happy that some are still around, and others, not on the store but downloadable and playable from my account (Carcassonne, Le Havre and Ra for example).
Have you tried the Summoner Wars web based game? I cannot judge on the gaming experience vs other players, but it’s quite solid against the AI (while still sluggish compared to the old iOS app)
I tried it a while ago when it was early beta, maybe, and had only 2 factions. I’ll have to give it a look sometime. I just play at the table when I need my SW fix.
They seems to be continuously improving on it. By now, you can play almost all factions released so far and they’ve even developed some kind of campaign mode (for which I still need to find time to try out).
i oppose.
by now there are more armies to play than had been in the old app.
it loads faster and is more stable.
and the great new feature of being able to see which cards have already been played and which cards will still come to the table is something i always wanted for the old app (had to do some paperwork for this in tournament games).
the game is ready for tournament (double elim?) or league play.
i’m only waiting for the Neo Jungle faction (hard to master but one of my favorites) and will call to arms then.
i have played about 20 games with the new app and they were all great and enjoyable.
Neo jungle is one of my favorites, too!
But it isn’t just the amount of armies; the game is buggier than it used to be, I lose games from time to time when there are updates, and you can’t play with more than 2 players even though the other two slots continually promise “coming soon.”
The game used to be a staple on my phone and I’m still waiting for it to return to its glory.
i have not run into many bugs in all my (exactly 22) played games 
not counting in games broken by updates.
some apps use to do this, and it hurts far more in a long game like TfM than in a short burst game like NH.
agreed on that the slow tempo in which Portal advances the game hurts.
btw in the discord a dev confirmed that multiplayer options will come, but didn’t say when exactly.
but my gratitude that i can play NH again totally outweighs my complaints.
not many games come back from the appstore grave.
(Stone Age might be the next one!)
I fired the game up again, and just off the top of my head they are still missing Neo Jungle, Sharrash, Doomsday Machine, Dancer, and Uranopolis from the old app. Beasts is the only new army in the new version so they are still significantly behind.
First look at the Undaunted: Normandy app. Bookmark Games let me take a look at the game in Alpha mode.
If this is in Alpha and they are able to make the necessary improvements, this is going to be a great app.
yes, behind.
but with 10 armies just now the game is absolutely playable.
and the old app didn’t come out with all armies included either.
they had been added piece by piece over years as well.
and…some of the new armies in the old app i didn’t even want to play.
so i’m not missing them at all.
well, we can enjoy being able to play a lost game again, including great new quality-of-life improvement and all this for owners of old content for free!
or we can keep our focus on lamenting about missing pieces and slow tempo.
each on his own
i’m definitely in the first camp.
The Tuscany expansion just released for Viticulture and I believe the app is on sale at the moment.
Unmatched by @RachetAcram has been released on Steam, iOS, and Android.
iOS is 7.99 for the game and 11.99 for the season pass, which gives you all DLCs when they release. I early accessed this on Steam and it was highly polished and a lot of fun; didn’t have a chance to really play mp though. Unsure about cross platform or async play, maybe @RachetAcram can weigh in?
Either way, I’m in for the full monty, love this game.