# Heroes of Darkwoods — Real-time strategy, one thumb > Real-time strategy, one thumb (iPhone/iPad app by Simon Schubert.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/heroes-of-darkwoods/id6801273974 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Simon Schubert](https://appshunter.io/developer/1219649975) - Category: Games, Simulation, Strategy - Price: Free - Age rating: 9+ - Requires: iOS 17.0 · 122 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-08-26 - Data updated: 2026-09-07 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/heroes-of-darkwoods/id6801273974/reviews.md ## What is Heroes of Darkwoods? A real-time strategy game built for a phone rather than shrunk onto one. Buildings go down anywhere the ground allows, units walk a real navigation grid, and every order in the game is one thumb on the screen. A DAILY CHALLENGE, FREE One challenge is put in front of everybody each day, the same one for everybody who plays it — so "how far did you get" is a question two people can compare answers to. Tomorrow it is a different one. You never pay to play it. IT TEACHES ITSELF The tutorial is a real match, not a set piece. It founds an island the way every other game does and takes its orders through the same taps, and a step finishes when the thing it asked for has actually happened. Nothing is faked and no move is played for you, so what you learn is still true when it ends. Skip it in one tap, or restart it from Settings. FOUR GAMES ON ONE ISLAND The map decides which one you are playing. THE SIEGE is one realm against the map. The opposition is the dead, and you win by clearing every last one of them. One road runs from the Necropolis to your castle gate, and every ninety seconds or more a wave sets out down it: announced, numbered, and growing. So the island has exactly two directions. Out, where the camps are. In, where the road is and the towers go. Clearing the Necropolis turns the waves off — the hardest camp on the map is the objective, not the last chore. THE SKIRMISH is up to three rival realms played by the machine, won by being the last castle standing. Nothing marches down the road, because the nest at the head of it is a castle now. The camps are dealt evenly between the realms, so the map is somewhere to race rather than somewhere to clear. Everybody climbs the same ladder, and the thing that arrives at your gate is a champion you could have killed while it was still level two. THE WARBAND is one champion on bare ground. No castle, no workers, no economy at all — an island thick with nests, and every other champion you will ever field is captive inside one. The roster is not built here, it is freed. Clear every nest and the island is yours; lose the last of the band and it is over. THE LAST STAND is one champion on an empty island — no nests, no chests, nothing to take. The dead arrive instead, from every side, on a clock that stops only when enough of them have been outlasted. The opposition is not the map or a rival but the schedule, and the wells are the only mercy on it. THE ISLAND IS THE LADDER The neutral dead stand in camps of graded difficulty across the map, and killing them levels a champion. A kill is worth a fraction of what was killed, so a champion that levels on empty houses is one nobody had to risk. The gear your forge makes goes on the ones who earned it. THE MACHINE CHEATS AT NOTHING The rival realm gathers with real workers off real trees, builds through the same call you do, and is held to every rule you are: one champion of a kind, one hall of a kind, the command ladder, the population cap. Difficulty makes its hands faster. It never makes its opening bigger. WHAT YOU GET • Free building placement on hex terrain — no grid slots, no build queue • Economy: woodcutters, mines, mills and the fields they need, markets, a forge that makes gear • Defence: walls that tile themselves around corners and gates, towers that upgrade • A works rail across the top: everything your town has on the go in one glance • One-thumb controls: tap to select, drag to marquee, tap to order • Generated islands, so no two matches open on the same map ONE PURCHASE, ONCE Free, always: today's challenge — a different one each day, and a different game with it. The skirmish set up however you like. The tutorial. One purchase opens the rest: every challenge whenever you like, not only on the day it comes round. Bought once and kept — no subscription, no currency, and nothing that makes your army stronger. Money buys more islands to play, not an advantage on them. Plays entirely offline. No ads. ## Version history (last 3 releases) ### 1.3.0 — 2026-08-29 Two new islands. The Old Fort founds a town inside somebody else's walls, with one gateway in them and the dead standing up at a Necropolis in the far corner to march at it on a clock. The dead walk past walls rather than break them, so a wave goes round and comes in at the gate — a wall stops being a thing that is broken and becomes a thing that aims. Break the Necropolis, clear what is left, and the island is yours. The Last Ground gives four bands no town to build at all and a tide that takes the island out from under every one of them. The three rivals now play it rather than drown in it: they price a fight before they pick it, walk the mender clear of what reaches for it, and leave the water before it draws rather than after it bites. Fort Held and Last One Standing, a feat for each of the two islands. Every wall in the game stands the right way round at its corners, and the face with the battlements on it is the one pointing out. A run saved with a wave already marching loads again instead of refusing. The last ground holds its frame on an island three times the usual size, and the placement bar's plates are one size. ### 1.2.0 — 2026-08-28 The Two Roads, a new island. Two roads run between two castles, both realms stand a column of the dead up every half minute and send it down them, and four towers a side decide which column arrives. Take the rival castle and the island is yours. The Long Night, Free the Band and The Two Roads each open with a lesson of their own. Three modes with no town to build and no economy to run were being learned by losing. Selecting a tower draws the ground it covers, the way a wild well already drew its mend. Both towers reach a hex less far, so where one stands decides more. A champion who has fallen carries the clock counting down to their return, in the square they fell in. On the two roads that clock is a minute at its longest rather than a hundred seconds, and felling an enemy champion stands two of the dead up where it fell. An island you have already won wears a gold seal over its picture, instead of a star small enough to miss. A captive's pen is solid ground. Bodies walk around it instead of through it. A match you have finished stops being played out behind the screen that ended it. ### 1.0 — 2026-08-21 No release notes. ## More apps by Simon Schubert - [Linux Command Library](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/linux-command-library/id1219649976) - [2 Player Quiz](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/2-player-quiz/id1281347338) - [Darwin Command Library](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/darwin-command-library/id1478951256) - [Braincup - Brain Training](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/braincup-brain-training/id1483376887) - [Orc Genocide](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/orc-genocide/id6753610161) - [Kai - AI](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kai-ai/id6758148023) All apps by Simon Schubert: https://appshunter.io/developer/1219649975 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-07.*