Review Insights · App Store
The Castles of Burgundy
DIGIDICED · 141 ratings · ★ 3.6
3.6
★★★★★
141 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 28 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"
26 negative reviews mention this · 93% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Too few players. There are too few people and I can't form a team to start the game. I want a refund." - zhdsuperman
2
"play"
12 negative reviews mention this · 43% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Too few players. There are too few people and I can't form a team to start the game. I want a refund." - zhdsuperman
3
"crashes"
9 negative reviews mention this · 32% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Crashes. The game constantly crashes on my iPad. I wish I could get a refund." - Ry5467865
4
"games"
8 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Save and load games with AI is not working. If you go back to main menu in the middle of a game played with an AI, the AI will freeze when you resume the game, you will have to start a new game" - AngryForLossing$30😂
5
"start"
7 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Too few players. There are too few people and I can't form a team to start the game. I want a refund." - zhdsuperman
6
"playing"
6 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Buggy from the start. I got this app, even though it doesn’t have great reviews, because I love this game. First time I opened the app it was buggy. Had to turn my iPad off just to get the apps music to stop playing. Very sad. It’s 2023 guys! You can do much bet…" - CannedIce77
7
"board"
6 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Animations way too slow, let us disable them please. This is a great game, I don’t want to diminish that. However in a two human player (2 human + 1 AI) game the animations waste 15 minutes of total time for a single game! That’s being generous as I am undercounting and rounding to the near…" - ShawnZzzzzzzz
8
"frustrating"
5 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Newest update breaks game. The newest update has two map packs as DLC. But even if you disable them on the options screen, the game will still randomly assign you a DLC map and you’ll need to abandon the game. It’s pretty frustrating and now impossible to play the ga…" - BeezCheese
9
"tutorial"
5 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Too buggy for the high price. I regret buying this game. The tutorial froze multiple times at the exact same spot, so I couldn’t finish it. So I read the rules and watched videos. The game is complicated, but I figured it out enough to play a few times against AI. Ther…" - WRS15743
10
"though"
5 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Too buggy for the high price. I regret buying this game. The tutorial froze multiple times at the exact same spot, so I couldn’t finish it. So I read the rules and watched videos. The game is complicated, but I figured it out enough to play a few times against AI. Ther…" - WRS15743
11
"better"
5 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Too buggy for the high price. I regret buying this game. The tutorial froze multiple times at the exact same spot, so I couldn’t finish it. So I read the rules and watched videos. The game is complicated, but I figured it out enough to play a few times against AI. Ther…" - WRS15743
12
"player"
5 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Too few players. There are too few people and I can't form a team to start the game. I want a refund." - zhdsuperman
📋 All 28 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").
Too few players
There are too few people and I can't form a team to start the game. I want a refund.
Newest update breaks game
The newest update has two map packs as DLC. But even if you disable them on the options screen, the game will still randomly assign you a DLC map and you’ll need to abandon the game. It’s pretty frustrating and now impossible to play the game unless you purchase unwanted DLC.
Buggy from the start
I got this app, even though it doesn’t have great reviews, because I love this game. First time I opened the app it was buggy. Had to turn my iPad off just to get the apps music to stop playing. Very sad. It’s 2023 guys! You can do much better than this. Especially for the price! Smh.
Save and load games with AI is not working
If you go back to main menu in the middle of a game played with an AI, the AI will freeze when you resume the game, you will have to start a new game
Worst tutorial ever
The title of this review says it all. Simply put its horrible.
Pretty but useless graphics,limited to no reference and guidance on how things work together.
If this is your first experience with the game it will make you hate it immediately. Buy the real board game instead.
A poor port that should be removed from the store.
Pretty but useless graphics,limited to no reference and guidance on how things work together.
If this is your first experience with the game it will make you hate it immediately. Buy the real board game instead.
A poor port that should be removed from the store.
Forced forfeit bug!
Edit: bug persists throughout several of the past few updates. Why is this bug so hard to fix? I estimate that I’ve lost 30-40 games because of this bug, and my ranking has suffered greatly through no fault of my own. I currently have a game live that has been sitting in my games list for several months as neither my opponent nor I have taken action on it.
Developers please fix the bug that causes the game to get hung after one of my opponents is timed out and forced forfeit by my other opponent. At this point it’s my turn but going into the game, it never progresses to my turn, stays on “waiting for opponent”. This results in my turn also timing out and my opponent also forcing me to forfeit. Very frustrating in ranked games, had this happen 4-5 times in the past couple months, submitted several bug reports from the game, but it’s still not fixed, nor have I gotten any response. 🧐
Developers please fix the bug that causes the game to get hung after one of my opponents is timed out and forced forfeit by my other opponent. At this point it’s my turn but going into the game, it never progresses to my turn, stays on “waiting for opponent”. This results in my turn also timing out and my opponent also forcing me to forfeit. Very frustrating in ranked games, had this happen 4-5 times in the past couple months, submitted several bug reports from the game, but it’s still not fixed, nor have I gotten any response. 🧐
Crashes
The game constantly crashes on my iPad. I wish I could get a refund.
Completely broken on iPad Air 1
Unplayable on iPad Air 1 (crashes at opening splash screen). Admittedly, this is an older device, but App Store indicates that it is compatible. Buyer beware.
Was great, now it crashes
I loved this app for a long time. After this most recent update it crashes constantly. I can”t even play a local game without it crashing.
Play it on the euro game servers for free.
I bought another hobby boardgame app against my better judgement.
The interface is unnecessarily weird. Why the moving parts? There should be an option to eliminate all animated waiting times that drain battery and distract.
I have to click on the worker tab to see workers, why? Ed. I see now that there’s a number signifying workers rather randomly placed. Why did the designers put this game on a weird steampunk gear thing ? Why can’t I fast forward through AI turns and animations?
I don’t want to make another game account with another publisher or game company. This is an almost universally panned practice among board gamers.
The simple implementation of this game on yucata.de and the other ones are better for people that enjoy this game, even though i would like to support Feld financially, $9 is a lot of money for something that probably won’t work in 2 years.
And a graphical bug that displays yellow tech on my board as under construction so i don’t know what i built without clicking on it. not acceptable. Oh not a bug, that’s how it looks. oof.
Hard AI: A good human player routinely breaks 200 point scores, it’s the benchmark for winning in 3p+ games usually. Hard AI couldn’t do this when I played. This is a complex game and wouldn’t expect great AI for an app, but something to consider before buying.
Edit: I made mistakes in my view of the UI. The game info is all there, just not conveyed clearly or logically. This is a problem with board games not being designed by people that play them.
The interface is unnecessarily weird. Why the moving parts? There should be an option to eliminate all animated waiting times that drain battery and distract.
I have to click on the worker tab to see workers, why? Ed. I see now that there’s a number signifying workers rather randomly placed. Why did the designers put this game on a weird steampunk gear thing ? Why can’t I fast forward through AI turns and animations?
I don’t want to make another game account with another publisher or game company. This is an almost universally panned practice among board gamers.
The simple implementation of this game on yucata.de and the other ones are better for people that enjoy this game, even though i would like to support Feld financially, $9 is a lot of money for something that probably won’t work in 2 years.
And a graphical bug that displays yellow tech on my board as under construction so i don’t know what i built without clicking on it. not acceptable. Oh not a bug, that’s how it looks. oof.
Hard AI: A good human player routinely breaks 200 point scores, it’s the benchmark for winning in 3p+ games usually. Hard AI couldn’t do this when I played. This is a complex game and wouldn’t expect great AI for an app, but something to consider before buying.
Edit: I made mistakes in my view of the UI. The game info is all there, just not conveyed clearly or logically. This is a problem with board games not being designed by people that play them.
Simply doesn't work
Crashes every time you start a game.
Crashes
Couldn't get a single game to play more than two turns. Refund requested. Bummer.
So frustrating.
Fun when it actually works. Seems like every time I’m winning against the AI it suddenly freezes. I paid $10 for this game. Make it WORK! Every time I’m winning I swear it suddenly freezes. Not to mention the rolls for the AI are always in their favor. ALWAYS. I play the actual board game at least once a week and there’s no WAY that the chances the AI have on their roles come up. I’m at a point that I want my money back. Ridiculous.
Please remove the game timer!
Developer, please remove the timer for multiplayer games! 24 hours for an async game with 50 turns is not nearly enough so multiplayer is pretty much useless. To make it an easy fix, change it to 168 hours (a week), remove it, or let the user enter the game length. I’ll update my review when this is fixed!
What red seal?
I’d love to play this. But it tells me to click a red seal. Ive watched videos and see a red seal pop up in their game, but nothing happens on my game. What a waste of money.
Bugs, odd art, poor AI for a great strategy game.
+ Great strategy game based off of board game
+ Added character art looks good as does the map
+ great potential
Huge, game breaking bugs.
- I close my iPad lid and the game I’ve been playing for the last 30 minutes is gone.
- I purchased the second mine tile in the game at some point I undo. That tile is no longer in the game. AI doesn’t have it, I don’t have it. Game breaker.
- I’ve watched as the AI take two turns in a row twice now. Took a boat, placed boat, rerolled and then went again! Come on! I’ve never seen bugs this bad.
- the menu ui/ux is terrible. I found that you can speed up gameplay after hours of play. How do I change my player color? They should start over by copying the ui of an app that works or hire a ux designer so everything is intuitive.
- Where does the steam punk iris diaphragm come in? This is a run away design team, where is the art director or project manager here? The 3D buildings were a cool idea but the rest of the ui is so weird and with lots of wasted space.
- after a knowledge tile is built it looks weird. What is that supposed to be exactly and why not just keep the art so I can reference it there? In an effort to “declutter” you added an additional space for each knowledge tile...
+ Added character art looks good as does the map
+ great potential
Huge, game breaking bugs.
- I close my iPad lid and the game I’ve been playing for the last 30 minutes is gone.
- I purchased the second mine tile in the game at some point I undo. That tile is no longer in the game. AI doesn’t have it, I don’t have it. Game breaker.
- I’ve watched as the AI take two turns in a row twice now. Took a boat, placed boat, rerolled and then went again! Come on! I’ve never seen bugs this bad.
- the menu ui/ux is terrible. I found that you can speed up gameplay after hours of play. How do I change my player color? They should start over by copying the ui of an app that works or hire a ux designer so everything is intuitive.
- Where does the steam punk iris diaphragm come in? This is a run away design team, where is the art director or project manager here? The 3D buildings were a cool idea but the rest of the ui is so weird and with lots of wasted space.
- after a knowledge tile is built it looks weird. What is that supposed to be exactly and why not just keep the art so I can reference it there? In an effort to “declutter” you added an additional space for each knowledge tile...
Disappointed
I absolutely LOVE this game but I have a few major complaints. This is the absolute MOST I have ever paid for an online app game and I’m super dissatisfied. One is they only have a total of 3 different maps to choose from and you only can actually choose from 2 in which one is the starter one..,. which I can see getting boring . Plus the app locks up ALLLLL the time in the mid to mid end of the game and the only way is to close out the app and then you lose the game . It’s SOOOO frustrating and I feel like I just wasted 8.99. The bummer is - I want to buy more games from this developer .. ie bonanza and I just can’t bring myself to give them more money .
Crashes, unplayable
Buggy. I’m not even able to play this game. The game crashes every time I go to start a new one. I’ve reinstalled it and still, same issue.
Crash Heaven
Bought it on the first day. Played the tutorial. Worked fine. Then went to play a local game. 1 Easy A.I. Player. Played until it crashed. Tried again. Crashed near the end of game. Tried 2 A.I. Players. Crashes immediately to black screen. No matter what I try crashes unless I go thru tutorial. I have the newest version of iOS on my iPad and before I downloaded it, it said my iPad was compatible. So frustrating. I will give it a better rating once this is fixed. Hopefully soon?
Unplayable
Repeatedly crashes when trying to start a game.
Too buggy for the high price
I regret buying this game. The tutorial froze multiple times at the exact same spot, so I couldn’t finish it. So I read the rules and watched videos. The game is complicated, but I figured it out enough to play a few times against AI.
There were times I should have been able to place a certain tile, but it wouldn’t let me, even though I knew I should be able to. But because there is zero feedback or pop-ups telling you why you can or can’t do something, you’re stuck with a bad tile you can’t place, with no reason why.
I really wanted to like this game, and the actual physical game is surely fine. But at $8.99 I expected a better user experience. I can’t recommend it, especially to a new player.
There were times I should have been able to place a certain tile, but it wouldn’t let me, even though I knew I should be able to. But because there is zero feedback or pop-ups telling you why you can or can’t do something, you’re stuck with a bad tile you can’t place, with no reason why.
I really wanted to like this game, and the actual physical game is surely fine. But at $8.99 I expected a better user experience. I can’t recommend it, especially to a new player.
Animations way too slow, let us disable them please
This is a great game, I don’t want to diminish that.
However in a two human player (2 human + 1 AI) game the animations waste 15 minutes of total time for a single game! That’s being generous as I am undercounting and rounding to the nearest 5 minutes. That’s with the game speed set to the highest and also on an iPhone 13 pro and iPhone 14 pro max (not old or slow devices).
From the first player to the last player is more than 10 seconds waiting for the animations and watching the replay. From the last player back to the first player is well over 30 seconds of animations of switching maps, showing die rolls, and watching replays. Sadly, 40 seconds of watching animations multiplied by the 25 turns there are in the game really add up!
Amazing game but with human players it just takes too long. We haven’t encountered any defects or any glitches that caused us to lose any games either. The problem is it’s not much faster than playing the physical board game.
All we are asking for is a way to disable animations and replays. If I really need to know what the other players did I can just look at their board.
However in a two human player (2 human + 1 AI) game the animations waste 15 minutes of total time for a single game! That’s being generous as I am undercounting and rounding to the nearest 5 minutes. That’s with the game speed set to the highest and also on an iPhone 13 pro and iPhone 14 pro max (not old or slow devices).
From the first player to the last player is more than 10 seconds waiting for the animations and watching the replay. From the last player back to the first player is well over 30 seconds of animations of switching maps, showing die rolls, and watching replays. Sadly, 40 seconds of watching animations multiplied by the 25 turns there are in the game really add up!
Amazing game but with human players it just takes too long. We haven’t encountered any defects or any glitches that caused us to lose any games either. The problem is it’s not much faster than playing the physical board game.
All we are asking for is a way to disable animations and replays. If I really need to know what the other players did I can just look at their board.
Disappointing
I got this despite several negative reviews, because I really wanted to learn this game by playing the AIs. Unfortunately it froze repeatedly in the same spot in the game.
Too many crashes in an otherwise great app.
This is an incredible port of the game, but in both single and multiplayer there are SO many crashes, even after full restarts. I can’t play against AI now, as the app crashes before it can save my first turn, and I have multiplayer games going in which my opponent simply can’t take their turn.
Great game when it doesn’t crash
I really enjoyed playing this, until it started crashing ALL THE TIME. I can’t even get through one game anymore. It’s awful. For the amount you have to pay for the app, I expected better.
Crashing....but good if fixed
Haven’t made it past first Turn since I completed my first game. Once patched, I would enjoy playing it often. Would like an option to select from all the boards though.
Tutorial is a nightmare
I’ve never played the tabletop COB, and was so excited to learn how to play. My mistake: the tutorial is impenetrable. I think I know less now about COB than I did before I bought the app.
You guys have no clue how to make a good tutorial or interface
I’ve purchased a bunch of your board game apps in the past and I have to say there are always 2 things guaranteed:
1. The interface is bad.
2. The tutorial is even worse.
How do you screw up an interface when all of the design work has already been done for you? Just copy the board game exactly, don’t get cute with it.
As for the tutorial, I’m guessing there is probably some language or cultural barrier here because this makes no sense for the US audience. If you want to see how to teach a board game, look up “Watch it played” on YouTube. You have to be clear and organized. Having the tutorial be a dialogue between two fictional characters is a TERRIBLE idea.
I could go on and on but I’ll spare you.... some developers can make board games into good apps like the Carcassonne team and the Ticket to Ride team. You guys need help though.
1. The interface is bad.
2. The tutorial is even worse.
How do you screw up an interface when all of the design work has already been done for you? Just copy the board game exactly, don’t get cute with it.
As for the tutorial, I’m guessing there is probably some language or cultural barrier here because this makes no sense for the US audience. If you want to see how to teach a board game, look up “Watch it played” on YouTube. You have to be clear and organized. Having the tutorial be a dialogue between two fictional characters is a TERRIBLE idea.
I could go on and on but I’ll spare you.... some developers can make board games into good apps like the Carcassonne team and the Ticket to Ride team. You guys need help though.
Sentiment summary
61%
Positive (4-5★)
11%
Neutral (3★)
28%
Negative (1-2★)