Circulous vs Yestertide
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Circulous
Embark on an immersive first-person mystery narrative puzzle game. Solve challenging puzzles as Amanda Trouser, uncovering corporate espionage and conspiracy theories within a mysterious company. Experience a story-driven adventure with animated environments and intuitive in-game device interaction.
- First-person narrative gameplay
- Mystery and conspiracy storyline
- Challenging puzzles
- Animated environments
- Immersive parallax movement
- Intuitive in-game device interaction
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Pay once, play forever! Circulous is an episodic mystery narrative puzzle game. In this first-person game, you take on the persona of Amanda Trouser. You have just been let go from your job. After packing your things, you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of your life. How will you afford your apartment? On the subway ride home you see an add for a job opening at Circulous…it’s almost as if the ad was put there just for you! You apply, and you end up hired! That is only the beginning of the story. Your work at Circulous is exciting, but soon you realize there may be more to this company than you’ve ever imagined. Corporate espionage, conspiracy theories and moral dilemmas lead you through challenging puzzles that will test your wits, your allegiances, and what you think you know about…everything. Engagement This puzzle game pulls you in and makes it as immersive as possible. Scenes use parallax movement to make it feel like you are in Amanda’s world. The opening scene (in which you are fired) uses story and humor to quickly place you in Amanda’s shoes. Each scene is an animated environment that invites you to explore and notice things that may or may not be important to the story or puzzles. The use of your phone (or iPad) is an intuitive way to keep you in the game but also make it feel as if you are truly using your device alongside the game and not just a gimmick. The OS feels like a true OS and makes the immersive nature of the game much more enjoyable.
Yestertide
Embark on a mysterious adventure in a quaint, uncharted village. Solve puzzles, interact with cryptic characters, and uncover secrets involving time travel and aliens. Your choices are crucial to saving this strange place.
- Hand-drawn art
- Puzzles and riddles
- Cryptic character interaction
- Time-travel elements
- Alien encounters
- Card tricks
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Come in. Stay for AGES and AGES … Welcome to YESTERTIDE, another exciting mind-bender from the MysteryCaper team. Enjoy your visit. You're not going anywhere anytime soon. – You've been backpacking for days. You're tired; you're sore. You just want to SLEEP … You stumble upon a quaint old village. YESTERTIDE. Quiet, unassuming, cobblestoney. You'll rest here. It's funny, though. You've never heard of this place, and it's not on any maps. Oh well. It will do for now. But when is NOW exactly? And why do you feel like someone — or some-THING — is watching you? – FEATURES • a thrilling array of hand-drawn art • an endless supply of puzzles and riddles • the occasional cryptic character interaction • hilarious in-game comments • a pigeon • a cat • time-travel • aliens • card tricks • and YOU, the last hope for Yestertide — and beyond – MysteryCaper. It's COMEDY SOLVED.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Circulous at every 6 days against Yestertide's every 5 months. Circulous also leads on price ($1.99 vs $5.99). Yestertide's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 4.2) and review sentiment (77% vs 55%). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Circulous costs $1.99 and Yestertide $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Yestertide holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 184 and 76 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of Circulous's written reviews are positive against 77% of Yestertide's.
Circulous ships an update every 6 days, Yestertide every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Circulous | Yestertide |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 — better | $5.99 |
| Rating | 4.2 (184 ratings) | 4.6 (76 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 54.9% of reviews | 76.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 184 — better | 76 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 11.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 985 MB | 396 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Chain Reaction Games LLC | MysteryCaper, LLC |
Customer experience
Circulous
Yestertide
User reviews
Circulous
From 184 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🧩 Creative and clever puzzles with good difficulty balance
- 💡 Innovative in-game smartphone interface and mechanics
- 📖 Engaging mystery storyline that captivates players
- 🎵 Well-designed audio and music elements
- 👨💼 Responsive developer support and helpful hints system
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and game freezes throughout gameplay
- 🐛 Persistent bugs in Act 2 and later chapters
- 👀 Small text and UI elements difficult to read on mobile devices
- ⏳ Excessive real-time waiting mechanics (11+ hours to progress)
- 🔄 Unresponsive controls and laggy app switching
Yestertide
From 76 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Engaging story and humor
- 💡 Creative and challenging puzzles
- ⭐️ Excellent hint system available
- 🎨 Charming art style
- ⏳ Good game length
Room to improve
- 🤔 Puzzles lack logic
- 😵 Navigation is confusing
- 🤯 Puzzles are too obscure
- frustrating to navigate hints
- 🤷♀️ Some puzzles not solvable
Bugs and requests
Circulous
Reported bugs
18 issues- Game crashes when entering shifty.com/invisible or shifty.com/door/15
- Ryde app shows 'no routes available' preventing progression
- Text message reply interface fails to display responses
- Cloud save reloads prevent continuing gameplay
- Computer/app windows fail to open or display properly
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- Screen becomes blurry or frozen when navigating between scenes
- Magnifying glass and mailbox clickable elements unresponsive
- Inventory locked preventing item placement
- Game crashes when rotating device to access phone interface
- Crashes when opening specific messages (HR rep email)
- Decoder grid displays empty with missing elements
- Keyboard remains on screen after typing, blocking puzzle content
- File names overlap and display incorrectly
- Game hangs with background music continuing after exit
- Compatibility issues with iOS 14 memory allocation
- Bird box combination numbers too small to read accurately
- Puzzle solutions don't work despite correct answers
- Game crashes on first puzzle when placing items in box
Requested features
7 requests- In-game hints and walkthrough system accessible without Discord or email
- More frequent content updates and new chapters
- Skip or difficulty adjustment options for challenging puzzles
- Ability to disable music
- Improved hint system with escalating difficulty levels
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- Larger, more readable text and UI elements
- Reduced real-time waiting mechanics
Yestertide
Reported bugs
5 issues- Fruits must be dragged twice to blend
- Cafe safe code didn't work
- Hot plate puzzle bug
- Alien keypad issue
- Safe combination in hints doesn't work
Requested features
3 requests- More games from the developer
- In-game hints instead of website
- Notebook to remind of tasks
In-app purchases
Circulous
No in-app purchases
Yestertide
No in-app purchases
