Grindstone box art
Playing Played Wish List Backlog
Add to Shelf Add to List

See more on IGDB

Grindstone (2019)

Capybara Games

Nintendo Switch · PC (Microsoft Windows) · PlayStation 4 · PlayStation 5 · Xbox Series X|S · iOS

3.81 from 75 ratings

245 members have it in their collection · 12 playing now · 95 backlogged · 20 wish listed

How long? Main story 34h · 100% 35h (from 4 logged playthroughs)

A puzzle battle adventure. Help Jorj climb Grindstone Mountain and defeat many creeps that try to stop him.
Remove Ads with Grouvee Gold

Details

Developers
Capybara Games
Publishers
Capybara Games
Genres
Indie, Puzzle, Strategy
Steam
View on Steam

Release dates

  • Sep 16, 2019 (Worldwide) iOS
  • Dec 15, 2020 (Full Release) (Worldwide) Nintendo Switch
  • Dec 15, 2020 (Worldwide) Nintendo Switch
  • May 20, 2021 (Worldwide) PC (Microsoft Windows)
  • May 03, 2023 (Full Release) (Worldwide) PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
  • May 03, 2023 (North_America) Xbox Series X|S
Remove Ads with Grouvee Gold

Featured in lists

Essential Indies by Human_Traffic · 50 games · 6
Best Games (2019) by RehRomano · 10 games · 0
GOTY 2019 by LarsFrukt · 52 games · 0
All-Time Faves by tylerisrandom · 17 games · 0

Rating distribution

5 stars
16
4 stars
34
3 stars
20
2 stars
5
1 star
0
Remove Ads with Grouvee Gold

Community All Reviews Statuses

georgeypoorgey

Review georgeypoorgey 5/5 · Dec 13, 2023

This becomes a five star game the moment you get to explode a sniveling king into blood while children cheer.

enter image description here

I don't want to belabor the point, but this is puzzle bliss. Makes you feel like a genius, oozes with style, gorgeous animation, chill tunes, and its core puzzle is so simple an illiterate child could understand it while being …

Read more

This becomes a five star game the moment you get to explode a sniveling king into blood while children cheer.

enter image description here

I don't want to belabor the point, but this is puzzle bliss. Makes you feel like a genius, oozes with style, gorgeous animation, chill tunes, and its core puzzle is so simple an illiterate child could understand it while being deep enough to keep aficionados like me tapping my pterion like Winnie the gahtdang Pooh.

Read less
4 Comment
Sir_Laguna

Review Sir_Laguna 4/5 · Jun 20, 2022

I'm here to grind creeps and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum

I'm completely addicted to this game now that it's finally on Steam. The base gameplay system is as simple as it is engaging and the cartoony visuals and violence never get old.

But it has TOO MANY levels. A lot of them feel like padding and don't offer cool gimmicks or enemy distribution. The 'game-as-a-service-like' systems like daily quests and …

Read more

I'm completely addicted to this game now that it's finally on Steam. The base gameplay system is as simple as it is engaging and the cartoony visuals and violence never get old.

But it has TOO MANY levels. A lot of them feel like padding and don't offer cool gimmicks or enemy distribution. The 'game-as-a-service-like' systems like daily quests and such were not needed at all and it can't get grindy when you suddenly realize you need more crowns to advance. At least there are no microtransactions.

You can read my full review in spanish in GamerFocus.

enter image description here

I'm really loving this game, but I think I would enjoy it more on mobile on Switch. Its obviously made with a touch screen in mind. But that's not an excuse to try it on any platform. Its really great.

Read less
2 Comment
ed.corcoran

Review ed.corcoran 3/5 · Dec 31, 2020

Incredible fun for a while, but the difficulty ramp was too brutal for me.

0 Comment
tylerisrandom

Review tylerisrandom 5/5 · Jan 15, 2020

Never a grind…

Detail of an in-game screenshot

The best mobile game I've ever played. The cartoonishness of its art direction and sound design are right up my alley, but those aspects pale in comparison to the sheer addictiveness of its color-matching gameplay. A relatively limited palette of mechanics are tweaked and remixed ever so slightly over dozens of levels to keep the experience feeling fresh and rewarding. …

Read more

Detail of an in-game screenshot

The best mobile game I've ever played. The cartoonishness of its art direction and sound design are right up my alley, but those aspects pale in comparison to the sheer addictiveness of its color-matching gameplay. A relatively limited palette of mechanics are tweaked and remixed ever so slightly over dozens of levels to keep the experience feeling fresh and rewarding. There's some really masterful game design at work here.

It's also just so refreshing to play a game like this without a constant barrage of advertisements, timers and microtransactions. As a developer I have mixed feelings about Apple Arcade, but its value to players is easily proven through experiences like this.

Read less
3 Comment
Rokal

Review Rokal 5/5 · Dec 30, 2019

A Mobile Match-3 Game but... Good?

Grindstone is based on pretty tried-and-true mobile game design: matching and chaining same-colored rows of objects to try to get high scores, but it rises above most of those games in a few ways. First off, it’s got the typical Cabybara games art style and polish complete with lots of great looking enemies and environments. Second, it could have very …

Read more

Grindstone is based on pretty tried-and-true mobile game design: matching and chaining same-colored rows of objects to try to get high scores, but it rises above most of those games in a few ways. First off, it’s got the typical Cabybara games art style and polish complete with lots of great looking enemies and environments. Second, it could have very easily felt too repetitive since you’re repeating the same basic puzzle gameplay loop for ~30 hours. Instead the game is constantly throwing enemies, environmental mechanics, items at you to use, and even bosses to fight. There are 150 levels and each set of 15 feels pretty unique both visually and mechanically. Lastly, and most importantly, since it’s an Apple Arcade game instead of a mobile F2P game there are no time-wasting mechanics and the game is not designed to try to get you to spend money or to play a certain number of sessions a day. Instead of a metric-and-revenue focused game like most in the genre, Grindstone is simply focused on fun. It’s the most exciting game in the genre since Puzzle Quest and even that series eventually fell victim to F2P mobile game design.

Read less
0 Comment