Playing on iPhone I have two questions. Seems like I can’t see the full text of the cards while playing and the only way to do so is to touch one then touch another? Long press, double tap, regular touch doesn’t work and occasionally I mistakenly play a card when all I want to do is view the full text and get an explanation of some of the terms. Is there a full glossary somewhere? Also, when I save a game to return when I reopen the app later it takes me back to one turn/event before I actually saved and I have to redo that section. Anyone else experiencing this? Otherwise great game, great port and yes, text can be a little bit bigger on iPhone and cloud support would be very convenient but not a dealbreaker.
It’s not orientation locked for me, no problems reading text here, yes no iCloud sync between devices. Everyone can make their own call on whether purchasing it represents value for them to buy it. I..... am having a blast with all the positives
I realized that you have to touch besides the cards and drag your finger across the cards to view them. It is quite unintuitive. Saving I guess works like the PC version So if you get interrupted you will go back to the beginning of battle or before you chose your loot if you get kicked out.
It's not locked in one orientation. The game has auto-rotation. L.Lawliet's complaint has to do with it starting in the orientation that has the home button to the left. That is, if your device is orientation locked, you have no choice but to remove the lock, flip the game over to the opposite orientation and re-lock your device. I mean, it's not a big deal but I can imagine how it would be a hassle. And yeah, I have no problems either, @skoptic. Font size is fine for me on a XS and while iCloud would be ideal (absolutely) I'm never going to change my mind that it's being overblown in here.
I find this way still not all that great because your thumb/finger can still be right over the text unless you go the very, very bottom of the screen which is a hassle to pin point every time. For my technique, I’ve found it easiest to just basically tap and hold on each card and then drag them just slightly to a more central area still hovering over the other cards though. This then leaves that card basically selected and floating over the other ones but in clear view. You can basically drag out any card like this. I do this mostly for the cards I’m not familiar with, so it’s not like it’s every card. Not sure I’ve explained it too well though. All that said, there’s no two ways about it, Megacrit/Humble really have underdelivered on this aspect of the UI. The in-hand card selection is I think one of the worst I’ve seen tbh. I mean it works, but it’s not without noticeable issues. For the save thing. I find it brings me back to the very event/fight I was up to. No real issue with that.
Regarding the card text being hard to read, I think the Blood Card implemented a good example solution. Just hold the card and the entire card pops up at the center of the screen.
I got to spend some time with the game and I really do enjoy it but the UI definitely needs some work. It's playable but they didn't really optimize it for smart phones. There are two main issues for me: The first is that everything is too small. You can see it but you can get eye strain very quickly, especially for a game you spend a lot of time on. You'll notice this especially when picking out cards after a win. The cards are so small compared to all the empty unused space around it. They definitely could've made all the cards bigger at least but I don't know why they didn't. It seems like it's the same sizing as how it would be on the PC possibly? The other issue is the card selection interface. Playing Night of the Full Moon had a very smooth and natural card selection and hold the card to zoom and drag to drop. This game is strange in how you tap the cards and zoom the cards. It's really hard to explain but it feels just awkward. There's also a tap to use in addition that also makes it easy to screw up between drag and tap. And especially on the new iPhone, the home bar is always visible, and this blocks out part of the card text. They should make it completely hidden until swiping up. Really unfortunate. (I wish so much that ios14 would just let you hide the damn home bar completely. All my screencaps have home bars all over it even.) Not to say the game is bad but I really wish they had gotten seem feedback on the UI or checked out similar card game UI. Or maybe it's too hard for them to change it? It has been in development for a while however.
If I hadn’t bought this the second I saw it had released, these comments would have slowed me down for sure. I’m super glad I bought it. I’m using an iPhone 11 Pro Max and haven’t had any crashing, slowdown, high battery drain/heating, and no issues with the size of the text. As far I can tell, the game looks and plays just like it does on my Switch. Literally the only thing I’d want to have tweaked is the way you view and select cards. Like @Talbs, I drag a card slightly up and release to see the card description before deciding to play it unless I’m already sure of what it is. My solution - and I’m certainly not the authority on card game UI - would be to have the cards pop up as you touch and drag over them and have them drop back down on release. I’m glad there are hundreds of good reviews on the US App Store (I left my own 5 star review), as I’m delighted to have this game in my pocket at all times.
The Switch comment is a good point. A lot of people don’t realize that Switch screen is only slightly larger than an iPhone X (not Max) and nowhere near the the pixel count (1280 x 720 vs 2436 x 1125). In other words, the text on an iPhone is a bit smaller but a lot sharper. That said, I’m appreciating my progressive lenses. It would be nice if they could add an option to make the UI larger. Edit: Just checked — my iPhone XS screen is actually larger than my Switch Lite. What do you know?
So glad this is finally on iOS. But the port ... The UI around selecting, inspecting and playing cards in combat is pretty awful. And I agree with a lot of the things folks here have already pointed out about speed, UI size, background audio, lack of cloud save ... I will play it to death regardless, but I really hope this isn’t the final version. This has potential to be the best version of the game, but iOS presently feels like the worst place to play it.
Just so I post something on topic, this is pretty good on XS Max but touch controls are a little jankier than on Switch. In particular, one boss kept popping the interface showing off their buffs whenever I played a card on them, but there were other glitches too. I think it’ll get a little better based on the Switch version. It’s not quite at parity yet. I wouldn’t expect a night and day change though as it’s pretty close. I find it perfectly playable but if I were new to the series I could see being a touch put off by rough edges. I’d encourage anyone interested to power through as it’s a fantastic game on its own merits. On another note, after playing this I’m pretty annoyed I don’t have an iPhone version of Darkest Dungeon with the Switch UI. It’s the same set of trade offs exactly.
All I can say is that this conversion is a great one. I got STS on Steam too and I find it almost perfect.
All the iPad screenshots on the App Store are with black bars on top and bottom. What a lousy job on the game’s presentation. Luckily those bars are actually not the case. Well, I guess I’m taking a break from Levelhead and going to immerse myself into Slay the Spire for the foreseeable future. The highly anticipated title is finally here. Let the fun begin...
I dont play any clones on App Store coz i would rather choose to try the original first. With all reported problems, i feel reluctant
I'm glad I just insta-bought the game without reading through these comments first because, just like the version I've been playing on my Mac for a while, the game is AWESOME. I also wish it had cloud save but FFS, that's not a dealbreaker, you know they'll add it soon in an update. Just go get the game!
^This. These comments in the thread really put off people to buy this game. It is a premium, full-fledged, up-to-date, straight port of a pc hit title, no compromises, no F2P, with even half the price on steam. The reason it has been delayed for quite some time could be the fact that the developers were trying to get the latest version of the game for mobile. Tbf, the watcher patch update for console only landed in March, and before that, the mobile version in the QA testing is the old version. 3 extra months is reasonable for an updated version, just look at dead cells. Dead Cells on iOS is excellent, but far from perfect just like this one. Also, Dead Cells iOS is seriously lagging behind the PC version and Playdigious could not update it even in half a year. I don't see much complaints for that, so those complaints for this game for minor issues are not making any sense to me
Most people are focused on criticising the game for its UI. Not saying that it’s not deserved, but let’s not overlook the positives too. Most games on the App Store nowadays either don’t run at all, or have serious heating and battery drain issues unless you’re on one of the latest devices. (Looking at you as well Apple Arcade) So it’s commendable that the QA and development team managed to optimise its performance to run almost flawlessly, even on relatively older devices. Not saying it’s a perfect game, but just wanna give credit where it’s due.
I guess it depends on your perspective, but these aren’t just tiny nitpicks. A big part of the appeal of it being on iOS is the ability to play on mobile when you’re out, and on a bigger screen while home. There’s a reason Apple Arcade games include this feature by default. Now, this wouldn’t necessarily be a *huge* issue if the iPhone version was scaled properly and the touch controls were 10/10 (Then I’d just exclusively play on iPhone), but there are issues there as well. Since the iPad version is much easier on the eyes, I’m going to play on there instead of using my phone at home. Since there’s no iCloud, this means I’m effectively stuck on iPad & can’t play the same account on iPhone, defeating the purpose of the portable mobile port for me. Is this a *huge* gamebreaking deal that means no one should buy it? Of course not, it’s still a 10/10 game & it’s impressive that we even got an iOS version, but the port is lacking in some key ways & it’s just a little disappointing. If you don’t care about cloud saves & are fine with the UI, then I totally get why you wouldn’t be bothered, but they *are* issues for some of us. I personally refunded it because it doesn’t fit my use case + it kept crashing, but I’ll gladly re-buy if they address these issues.
