Review Insights · App Store
Slay the Spire
Humble Bundle · 3,110 ratings · ★ 4.2
4.2
★★★★★
3,110 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 26 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
19 negative reviews mention this · 73% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Clunky controls. It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go …" - Super.Jelly
2
"card"
8 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Clunky controls. It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go …" - Super.Jelly
3
"iphone"
8 negative reviews mention this · 31% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Can’t see the whole deck of cards. This game is broken. It doesn’t work with iPhone 14." - DH is the greatest
4
"mobile"
7 negative reviews mention this · 27% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Clunky controls. It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go …" - Super.Jelly
5
"touch"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Clunky controls. It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go …" - Super.Jelly
6
"read"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Clunky controls. It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go …" - Super.Jelly
7
"cards"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Can’t see the whole deck of cards. This game is broken. It doesn’t work with iPhone 14." - DH is the greatest
8
"doesn"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Can’t see the whole deck of cards. This game is broken. It doesn’t work with iPhone 14." - DH is the greatest
9
"play"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "5 star gameplay, but 1 star UX on iPhone. I love this game on my PlayStation but it’s really frustrating to play on my phone. Even using a 17 Pro Max, which has a larger screen, it’s just super finicky. It’s annoying that since you’re swiping cards up from the bottom which frequent…" - Bob7268371844
10
"experience"
5 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Don’t Buy the Mobile Version. Tons of UI issues on mobile. Buy it on the desktop instead. It is incredibly easy to misclick and accidentally play cards on mobile. You have to tap cards to be able to read what they do. Otherwise the descriptions are hidden. The wors…" - Bshmandon
11
"controls"
4 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Clunky controls. It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go …" - Super.Jelly
12
"into"
4 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Clunky controls. It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go …" - Super.Jelly
📋 All 26 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
My review
If you have bad luck, like me, this game will make you deeply depressed, this game is worse than the torture written about in “I have no mouth, but I must scream”
Can’t see the whole deck of cards
This game is broken. It doesn’t work with iPhone 14.
Game locked at 30 FPS
I actually really love this game and didn’t mind buying it for iOS after having many hours on PC; however, the game being locked to 30 FPS drastically reduces the enjoyment for me. I’ll be requesting a refund and stick to PC.
5 star gameplay, but 1 star UX on iPhone
I love this game on my PlayStation but it’s really frustrating to play on my phone. Even using a 17 Pro Max, which has a larger screen, it’s just super finicky. It’s annoying that since you’re swiping cards up from the bottom which frequently causes the phone go into app switcher, but it’s infuriating that frequently you accidentally play the wrong card or use a potion on the wrong enemy, etc. The amount of runs I lost in only my first few tries because of discarding the wrong card or choosing the wrong card to return to my discard pile is outrageous. Besides all that, the UI isn’t scaled up, so all of the text is small and hard to read. Maybe it’s okay on an iPad, but it really needs to be rebuilt with a mobile focus for phones to justify a purchase.
Good game ruined by ui
Embarrassing ui implementation. There are many great examples of card games on the App Store and this is not one of them. Gameplay is fun but it just doesn’t matter if inputs are randomized
Don’t Buy the Mobile Version
Tons of UI issues on mobile. Buy it on the desktop instead.
It is incredibly easy to misclick and accidentally play cards on mobile.
You have to tap cards to be able to read what they do. Otherwise the descriptions are hidden.
The worst experience of a mobile game i have EVER had. I wish i could refund it…
It is incredibly easy to misclick and accidentally play cards on mobile.
You have to tap cards to be able to read what they do. Otherwise the descriptions are hidden.
The worst experience of a mobile game i have EVER had. I wish i could refund it…
Please fix fps
How to ruin the experience of a phenomenal game? Make it stutter and give users nausea. +3 vulnerable
Terrible RNG the devs know
Don’t install I’m saving you some time here
Laggy on mobile
I love this game but it’s mostly unresponsive/stuttery on mobile despite having a 15 pro max. I would advise against purchasing on mobile unless you can power through the issues- I couldn’t, unfortunately.
Buyer Beware
Font size too small on mobile. UI touch is cancer. RNG too punishing. Can’t try before buy. Refund requested.
Needs internet connection
Slay the Spire should be the perfect game to play offline, but the app doesn’t start up properly without an internet connection. I’ve tried a few times to play this on a train or a plane, and the app just hangs with “Syncing data…” flashing in the corner. It also doesn’t store the sound preferences locally, so the game I expect to be silent starts blasting music on the plane or train while it’s failing to sync. The people who adapted this for iOS really needed to hire a UX designer to help them think through these mobile use cases.
Touch Controls 💀
The touch controls are absolutely horrendous playing on iPhone OR iPad. Completely destroys the experience. Countless hard close swipes due to errant card plays. Fix that and it’s a five star.
Syncing data
When I open the app, it’s stuck saying syncing data, tried uninstalling then reinstalling and such, various other fixes don’t work.
Great game, but it isn’t much of one if you can’t get out of a loading screen.
Great game, but it isn’t much of one if you can’t get out of a loading screen.
Game doesn’t save progress
Garbage game is full of bugs. I hit ascension 6, with a clear log of my run, and the game is stuck on A5. Useless
Horrible UI
Imagine playing for an hour to just lose because the user interface is so bad that it doesn’t play the card you chose, for starters you can’t even see the whole text on the card if it is on the edges, then when trying to choose a card while scrolling you could accidentally tab the edge of a card and then you instantly pick it up, and lastly if press a card to read the text and then press it again or even press another card sometimes it just plays the card. Good game but horrible UI. What a shame.
Bad touch controls
Terrible controls, unplayable.
👎
The writing size is too small.
Not letting me closing my turn!!
Can't proceed because the finish turn button not working
Clunky controls
It feels like they put no effort into porting this game to mobile. It was clearly designed for a mouse pointer and not a touch screen. It’s incredibly frustrating to try to read what your card says because tapping it makes half the card go past the bottom of your screen.
Amazing game, sluggish performance
How does a game made this long ago only run at 30 fps on a $1200 iPhone? It runs way faster on my $400 Android tablet
incomplete game
Where's the watcher?
Bad frame rate
Wonderful game, horrible frame rate on a brand new iPad Pro
Terrible Controls on iPhone
Sadly I recommend against purchasing StS for iPhone. The touch controls are highly unreliable. I have fairly slender fingers and I’m dextrous, using iPhone 13 Pro Max, and even when being very careful selecting cards, I still miss fairly often. The 2nd to left-most card is super difficult to select to discard. Selecting a card to discard will often result in the wrong card being thrown away, regardless of how careful you are to touch it directly. Also, after touching a card, it remains weirdly “sticky” - i.e. it often won’t go back into your hand, and you have to carefully click around your other cards, hoping to deselect it, lest it be played. The issues are fairly constant; definitely recommend not spending $10 on this. Just play on PC.
Latest update buggy
I adore this game, have sunk a ridiculous amount of hours into it but wanted to come leave some feedback for the devs that the latest update has added a lot of frustration to my experience on iOS (iPhone XS if it matters). Cards in my hand have gotten super sticky - very often when I tap to select they don’t rise high enough up to be able to read the text and I’ll have to tap them up and down 3 or 4 times, often have to tap a different card and go back to it before it’ll pop up properly.
I’m methodical enough that it hasn’t led to too many misplays, and I’m never too proud to scum save when it does…but it does make my turns take a lot longer and adds a lot of extra tapping and frustration.
It was running fine for years so I was surprised to see anything change this late into the game. So while on one hand I’m happy to see this game is still getting some dev love on mobile, on the other all it’s caused me is grief lol so hopefully they’re still up for some more tweaking! It’ll be an easy 5 stars with this one gripe fixed. Thanks!
I’m methodical enough that it hasn’t led to too many misplays, and I’m never too proud to scum save when it does…but it does make my turns take a lot longer and adds a lot of extra tapping and frustration.
It was running fine for years so I was surprised to see anything change this late into the game. So while on one hand I’m happy to see this game is still getting some dev love on mobile, on the other all it’s caused me is grief lol so hopefully they’re still up for some more tweaking! It’ll be an easy 5 stars with this one gripe fixed. Thanks!
amazing game but awful framerate
huge fan of slay the spire, but the low framerate in this version makes it really difficult to do precise card interactions and makes playing much more of a chore than it needs to be. even on the newest iphone 16s,
framerate still lags, so seems like a developer update is badly needed.
framerate still lags, so seems like a developer update is badly needed.
Terrific Game - Terrible on IOS
Have played this on PC & Android with no issues & loved it. Just got an IPhone & the experience is notably worse. Incredible game, just a bad experience on IOS.
Sentiment summary
80%
Positive (4-5★)
6%
Neutral (3★)
14%
Negative (1-2★)