# Poker and Sorcery — user reviews > 28 indexed App Store user reviews of Poker and Sorcery by Carsten Zeiffert, rated 4.30/5 from 27 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/poker-and-sorcery/id6670727841/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/poker-and-sorcery/id6670727841.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 19 · 4★ 3 · 3★ 2 · 2★ 0 · 1★ 3 ## Newest reviews (8 of 28) ### 5/5 — Great replacement for Swords and Poker *2024-11-25* Fun game. Great Mechanics. Could be longer. I have only found one spell/weapon combo I can reliably win with, though I have only occasion won with other combos. Scratches my old S&P itch. **Developer response:** Hi, thanks! The buffs should work - the Simple Staff that mages begin with actually has a base damage of 1 for one pair, but with the proficiency it’s 2, and if you get the Imp Idol, the damage goes up to 3. The damage numbers are also blue when the weapon receives a buff of some kind. If this isn’t the case for you though, do let me know. I’m working on chapter 4, which will hopefully be out in a month or so! ### 4/5 — Great replacement for Swords and Poker *2024-11-20* Fun game. Great Mechanics. Could be longer. Unfortunately, +1 buffs from character proficiencies and totem artifacts don’t actually work. For example, a mage should get +1 damage when wielding a staff but that doesn’t happen. Still a great game. **Developer response:** Hi, thanks! The buffs should work - the Simple Staff that mages begin with actually has a base damage of 1 for one pair, but with the proficiency it’s 2, and if you get the Imp Idol, the damage goes up to 3. The damage numbers are also blue when the weapon receives a buff of some kind. If this isn’t the case for you though, do let me know. I’m working on chapter 4, which will hopefully be out in a month or so! ### 5/5 — Fantastic game with one problem - leaves you wanting more. *2024-11-13* I really like this game, but whenever I finish the tower level, I keep feeling like the game has ended too soon. I wish it was much longer. That said, it may be worth having our character revive at the start of each new world rather than having to start from scratch. My 2 cents. Anyway, I love the game and wish it were longer and harder! **Developer response:** Thanks! I have plans to add an endless chapter after the tower, hopefully around the end of the year. After that I want to add a longer campaign mode, but that will take a long time to add. ### 4/5 — Good (but hard) game *2024-10-26* Edit to my original review: Thank you developer for your kind reply addressing the game balancing. I totally understand. I think the other mode you plan on doing sometime is more up my alley, so I’ll try again at that time. I still recommend this game for those who don’t mind the difficulty or permadeath. It’s priced right and plays well if that’s what your looking for. Original review: I liked this game and originally gave it five stars. But after playing a lot, I feel it needs balancing. I finally got to the end of Chapter 3, The Tower, which I’m assuming is the final boss. When I got to that boss, he had 100 hit points. What?! The player only has about 50. Even with strong weapons and debuffs, it was impossible to beat him. I got him down maybe halfway before his strong hands and skills killed me fast. It felt very unfair. So unfair, I decided I don’t want to start all over and try yet again. And this was on normal mode. Hard mode must be beyond impossible. If I see that the game gets some balancing, I may download and try again. Until then, I only recommend it if you want a super hard game. I do appreciate the fair monetizing and no data collection and no ads. I really wanted to like this. Maybe make an easier mode or make the boss more equal to the player? He gets perfect hands and you don’t stand a chance. **Developer response:** Hi! Thanks for the feedback. The game is indeed very hard to beat, although with enough experience it’s possible to beat it almost every time. I feel this is similar to several other roguelikes. Hard mode requires some luck to beat however. Chapter 3 is the final boss, yes. I’m planning to make another game mode down the line - a longer campaign, without permadeath and with more progression. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that more! ### 5/5 — Fantastic! 10 Stars! *2024-10-18* I’m so glad I found this game! It’s so hard to find something that is easy to pick up and play but has enough depth to stay interesting, without being overly complicated or frustrating for a casual player. I just started playing, and I love it. The developer did everything right. It’s monetized extremely fairly. There are no ads or IAP, though you can pay one small, fair fee, to unlock all the characters. I will be doing this to support the developer. The file size is small. It’s good on battery. Everything runs smoothly. And, best of all, it’s in portrait mode and saves progress! The developer thought of everything. As a busy person, I need something I can play in short, quick sessions. Because this saves, I can go in and out a lot. I look forward to learning the game better and playing a lot more. Thank you, developer, for doing everything right and fairly! So rare nowadays. I highly recommend this game. ### 5/5 — Nice *2024-10-02, version 1.03* Genuine game, no ads, nice dev, other devs take not off all this. No data hoarding going on. Good job. ### 4/5 — fun but *2024-09-30* It's fun. But it feels unfinished. I expected the fun of Sword & Poker, but it dosen't reach that level. ### 5/5 — Thank you for making this! *2024-09-29* We all know the inspiration for this game and I’ve been looking for poker hand-based battle games for a long time since. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Broken *2025-09-05* The game is stuck in tutorial mode after the most recent iOS update, I can only fight training dummies now. **Developer response:** Hi, thanks for reporting this, I haven’t heard about this issue before. Edit: The latest version should fix this bug. ### 1/5 — Crashes on start-up *2025-08-23, version 1.07* See title. iPad Air, iOS 12.5.7 ### 1/5 — Game gets stuck when making invalid hand. *2025-07-24* Theres no back button. The background is blacked out and user is forced to try and make a hand, but cant. The only way out is to Abort the run. **Developer response:** Hi, you should be able to drag the first card back to your hand from the board. Thanks for the feedback, I’ll look at improving the tutorial regarding this. ### 1/5 — Disappointing *2024-11-14* The devs have taken a good and clever game and made it boring. The original presented the player with choices and goals Each level of the game showed player the opponents, and rewards, they would encounter and presented multiple paths to to victory, or defeat. Players made choices that permitted them to form their character to their own choosing. This version is a simple trek of kill the next monster and pick a random reward, with very little player agency. The devs added complexity without preserving playability. Where the original provided outcomes for the full range of poker hands this version reduces variety by lumping the low probability hands into a single outcome, then tags a handful poker breaking cheats as rewards. It became tedious halfway through the first play through. Most annoyingly, the game does not allow tablet rotation, forcing play with the power connection at the bottom, precluding playing while connected to a power source. This app is, at best, a poor copy of a much better game. **Developer response:** Hi! Good point about tablet rotation, I’ll include that in the next release. Thanks for the feedback. ### 1/5 — Cutscenes use AI generated art *2024-09-26* I would rather you have no cutscenes at all. If a human didn’t put in the time to create the cutscene, then why would a human put in the time to watch it? **Developer response:** Thank you for your feedback. I don't disagree in general, which is why I limited it to the cutscenes - which are a small part of the game. If I manage to recover the costs of making the game, I will hire an artist to make new art for them. ### 2/5 — needs balancing, boss way too hard *2024-10-23* I liked this game and originally gave it five stars. But after playing a lot, I feel it needs balancing. I finally got to the end of Chapter 3, The Tower, which I’m assuming is the final boss. When I got to that boss, he had 100 hit points. What?! The player only has about 50. Even with strong weapons and debuffs, it was impossible to beat him. I got him down maybe halfway before his strong hands and skills killed me fast. It felt very unfair. So unfair, I decided I don’t want to start all over and try yet again. And this was on normal mode. Hard mode must be beyond impossible. If I see that the game gets some balancing, I may download and try again. Until then, I only recommend it if you want a super hard game. I do appreciate the fair monetizing and no data collection and no ads. I really wanted to like this. Maybe make an easier mode or make the boss more equal to the player? He gets perfect hands and you don’t stand a chance. ### 3/5 — I Have Been WAITING *2025-09-30* I miss sword Poker 1 & 2 soooo much. If I had to guess, each provided about 40 hours of game play. And replay value. This game 1 hour. I purchased in hopes they will produce a real campaign game. If they do, I will pass this game on to my board game community. Giving it three stars as there is so little gameplay, or I would give it a 5. ### 3/5 — More of a demo than a game *2025-06-01* Went through it in 20 minutes. ### 4/5 — Great game like an old favorite *2025-08-06* Opponent played 9-K and got credited for a royal flush. Was even holding the A. **Developer response:** Thanks for letting me know, I’ll investigate. ### 4/5 — Great Game, BUT *2025-06-12* The seeds are all here. But we need more levels and more classes and more weapons and more creatures and more repeatability. Please keep updating, happy to pay for expansion. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — A faithful reimagining of an old favourite *2026-03-10, version 1.08* This is great. Fun to play, no creepy ads, nice adventure story to wrap it all up in. Thank you for making this game! ### 5/5 — Great game *2025-12-28, version 1.08* Really like this one, it’s not too deep but a good challenge, hope it will get more updates like branching path instead of a single line, maybe a few more classes or weapons, but otherwise really a good game! ### 5/5 — Game gets stuck when making invalid hand. *2025-07-28* Review changed to 5 stars due to quick response! Theres no back button. The background is blacked out and user is forced to try and make a hand, but cant. The only way out is to Abort the run. **Developer response:** Hi, you should be able to drag the first card back to your hand from the board. Thanks for the feedback, I’ll look at improving the tutorial regarding this. ### 5/5 — A wonderful love letter to Sword and Poker *2025-04-06, version 1.05* I’ve only just started playing but this game is great. It’s a wonderful reimagining of the old Sword and Poker games. A roguelike fits the game type perfectly. ### 5/5 — Thank you *2025-04-02* Sword and Poker was one of my favorite games on my phone… been looking for a sub for a long time. This gives me my fix… please continue to expand this game 🙏🏼 much gratitude!!! ### 5/5 — Great Surprise *2025-02-21, version 1.05* The game is waaay better than it may look. The gameplay and strategy is deep and works on many levels. You can just try to find best combinations, or you may think about the future, take into account the skills you have (save these sweet clubs as a warrior) or even look at your opponent cards and try to see what you need to prevent them doing. 5 stars well deserved, thank you! Couple of suggestions: 1. Add quick play button, it’s painfully slow once you get a hang of it. 2. Allow to choose the type of the starting weapon. And then after the battle just offer to “improve your weapon” (+1 to current weapon) or take the an artefact. The reason is because a warrior will never take a bow, for example, why even give this choice? I believe this will make the game less random, while offering better replayability. Thabk you for the game! ### 5/5 — Return of the King! *2025-02-17* Thank you so much for bringing this game back to all of us. ### 5/5 — Awesome! *2025-02-01* Love this game! Brings back the old memories and done right. Challenging but not impossible. A few things are missing like a store to sell and buy weapons, but I’m sure the dev is working on upgrades. Highly recommend! ### 5/5 — I find this game! *2025-01-01* Sword and poker was very good game. I think game developer was very concern how make fun different style. I recommend this game all puzzle and rpg gamer. ### 5/5 — Great callback to Swords&Poker *2024-12-30* Swords&Poker was my favorite mobile game and it was a sad day when it could no longer run. I love that this game brings back the gameplay. Agreed it’s short, but I happy supported the dev in hopes that enough people will give them a reason to keep updating the game. Great work in bringing back a great gameplay style! --- *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 2026-09-03.*