Viticulture vs Railroad Ink Challenge
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Viticulture
Manage a vineyard in pre-modern Tuscany, allocating workers and visitors to tasks across seasons. Expand your estate, plant vines, and fulfill wine orders to become the top winery owner. Enjoy single-player or multiplayer modes with global competition.
- Worker and visitor allocation
- Seasonal tasks
- Vineyard expansion
- Wine order fulfillment
- Single-player vs AI
- Online multiplayer
- Asynchronous gameplay
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You find yourself in rustic, pre-modern Tuscany, where you’ve inherited a meager vineyard. You own a few plots of land, an old crush pad, a tiny cellar, 3 workers…and the dream of owning the best winery in Italy. Your job is to allocate your workers and helpful visitors to complete various tasks throughout the year. Each season is different on a vineyard, so the workers have different tasks they can take care of in the summer and winter. There’s competition over those tasks, and often the first worker to arrive at each one has an advantage over the rest. Using those workers and visitors, you can expand your vineyard by building structures, planting vines, and filling wine orders as you work towards the goal of owning the most successful winery in Tuscany. Features: • 1 to 6 players • Family friendly – non violent theme • Cross Platform • Easy tutorial to learn the game from scratch. • Single-player mode with 3 challenging levels of computer opponents. • Multiplayer games against your friends in friendly games. • Face players from all over the world in ranked multiplayer games online! • Worlwide leaderboard • Take your time in asynchronous game mode with push notifications and never miss a turn. • Analyze your best games or learn tricks from the best with playback • Uses the newest rules of the board game.
Railroad Ink Challenge
Roll dice and draw routes to build a transportation network. Connect exits and expand your railways and highways to score points. Avoid open connections to prevent penalties and aim for the highest score in solo or multiplayer modes.
- Dice rolling and route drawing
- Network building with railways and highways
- Connecting exits for points
- Avoiding open connections for penalties
- Solo play for high scores
- Online multiplayer challenges
- Leaderboards
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In Railroad Ink Challenge, you have 7 rounds to make as many points as possible. Roll the dice and draw the routes to connect the exits around your board. Expand your network with railways, highways, and stations to collect points, but you will be penalized for any open connections, so plan carefully! Play solo to improve your best score, or challenge players from all over the world! HOW TO PLAY Each round you will have to roll the dice and use the available routes to build your transportation network and connect as many exits as possible. Expand your network to collect points. You’ll also score bonus points for your longest highway and railway, for building into the central spaces of your map, and for completing optional, time-dependent goals before they expire. You can also connect special structures to your network to trigger their special effects, such as duplicating routes, unlocking powerful special routes, and more. But beware: Try to not leave any open connections, as each one will cost you points at the end of the game. EXPANSIONS Forest and Desert expansions add special dice and rules to create even more intricate landscapes for your highways and railways. MODES Play solo with random objectives and join the online rankings or challenge players from all over the world with custom game configurations! The online leaderboards (Daily, Monthly, and All-Time) are completely cross-platform! • The wonderful art of the roll and write game by Marta Tranquilli, fleshed out and digitally enhanced • Network planning gameplay: try to make the best use of the available routes each round to create the perfect transportation network • Try to conquer the top of the online leaderboards (Daily, Monthly, and All-Time)! • Cross-platform, asynchronous multiplayer challenges with your friends! 100% Asynchronous multiplayer challenges Don’t like to wait while your opponents complete their turn? Fear not! With the 100% asynchronous multiplayer challenges, that is an issue of the past! Play a full game on your own, then post the challenge online! Players from all over the world will be able to play with the same dice and goals you had and try to beat your score! Who’s gonna get the best score? Railroad Ink Challenge is the official adaptation of the critically acclaimed roll and write game created by award-winning designers Hjalmar Hach & Lorenzo Silva and illustrated by artist Marta Tranquilli. To find more information about Horrible Guild, please go to https://www.horribleguild.com Having an issue? Looking for support? Please contact us: https://www.horribleguild.com/customercare/ You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/horribleguild/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/horribleguild Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/horribleguild/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@horribleguild YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/horribleguild Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/horribleguild *IMPORTANT* Railroad Ink Challenge requires iPhone 6s, iPad Mini 4, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro, iPad (2017) or later.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Railroad Ink Challenge at 4.2 against Viticulture's 3.7. Railroad Ink Challenge also leads on price ($3.99 vs $8.99). Viticulture's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months) and chart position (#44 vs unranked). On review sentiment, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Viticulture costs $8.99 and Railroad Ink Challenge $3.99 up front. Viticulture sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Railroad Ink Challenge sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Railroad Ink Challenge holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 95 and 206 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 55% of Viticulture's written reviews are positive against 48% of Railroad Ink Challenge's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Viticulture ships an update every 3 weeks, Railroad Ink Challenge every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Viticulture | Railroad Ink Challenge |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $8.99 | $3.99 — better |
| Rating | 3.7 (95 ratings) | 4.2 (206 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 54.5% of reviews — better | 48.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 95 | 206 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #44 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 322 MB | 283 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | DIGIDICED | Horrible Guild |
Customer experience
Viticulture
Railroad Ink Challenge
User reviews
Viticulture
From 95 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Faithful recreation of beloved board game
- 🎮 Engaging gameplay with strategic depth
- 🎨 Good graphics and visual presentation
- 🎵 Nice background music
- 📱 Convenient portable play anywhere
Room to improve
- 🐢 AI turns extremely slow and tedious
- 🎮 Clunky and unintuitive user interface
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and game freezes
- ❌ Poor UI conventions and design patterns
- ⏱️ Excessive confirmation buttons required
Railroad Ink Challenge
From 206 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎨 Beautiful graphics and animations
- 🎮 Engaging and addictive gameplay
- 📱 Intuitive user interface during play
- ⚡ Quick games perfect for short breaks
- 🏆 Daily challenge feature
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent app crashes and freezes
- 🔋 Excessive battery consumption
- 🌐 Server connectivity issues
- ❌ Resume game feature broken
- 🔐 Apple ID login problems
Bugs and requests
Viticulture
Reported bugs
20 issues- Game crashes on startup or during gameplay
- Unable to plant grapes despite having buildings
- Special workers cannot be selected at correct times
- Merchant worker action not functioning
- Game hangs when multiple human players with AI
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- AI gets stuck and requires force quit to progress
- Blank tableau display
- Missing windmill points for summer actions
- Visitor cards appearing back-to-back duplicates
- Motivator card not allowing all players to respond
- Summer volunteer crew card not functioning
- Build button greyed out despite sufficient coins
- Cannot purchase multiple workers in one season
- Game ends abruptly without warning
- Undo function causes game freeze
- Games not syncing across devices
- Main screen cannot find games that side menu shows
- Card selection prompts disappear too quickly
- Unclear when multi-action cards end turn
- Loading screen hangs indefinitely
Requested features
16 requests- Tuscany expansion (now available)
- Moors and Visitors expansion
- Auto-save functionality for crashes
- Improved notification system
- Configurable turn timers for casual play
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- Separate volume controls for music and effects
- Replay button for quick rematches
- Better game history and turn tracking
- Simultaneous action selection (not turn-based)
- Clearer worker placement location labels
- Guided tutorial for UI elements
- Pause functionality for async games
- Undo multiple moves (not just current decision)
- Dark mode option
- Better iPad optimization
- Improved app icon design
Railroad Ink Challenge
Reported bugs
18 issues- Resume game feature freezes app
- Apple ID login loop and authentication errors
- App crashes during gameplay and tutorial
- Game locks up after iOS updates
- Crashes on older devices (iPad Mini 2)
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- Desert expansion white screen on purchase
- In-app purchase restoration not working
- Server connection errors during scoring
- Game Center account sync issues
- Daily Challenge timeout and crashes
- Scoring not saved to server
- Exit scoring bug deletes game from history
- Friend list navigation broken
- Mountains challenge unplayable
- Tutorial freezes at first dice placement
- Crashes when using too many factories
- Offline game results interfere with leaderboard
- Password recovery impossible on iPad
Requested features
11 requests- Local pass-and-play multiplayer mode
- All expansion dice sets (Rivers, Lakes, Future, Engineers, Lava, Meteor)
- Optional tile placement mechanic
- Personal score history and ranking
- Larger maps with more turns
Show 6 moreShow fewer
- Offline play without server dependency
- Timer option for rounds
- Randomized special square placement
- View opponent boards after game completion
- Better expansion rules reference in-game
- Russian language support
In-app purchases
Viticulture
- Tuscany Essential Edition$8.99
Railroad Ink Challenge
- Forest Expansion$1.99
- Desert Expansion$1.99
Questions
Is Viticulture free?
Is Railroad Ink Challenge free?
Which has better reviews, Viticulture or Railroad Ink Challenge?
Do Viticulture or Railroad Ink Challenge have ads?
Which is updated more often, Viticulture or Railroad Ink Challenge?
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