Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic vs Cairn
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic
Embark on a retro dungeon crawl inspired by classic RPGs. Explore early levels, choose from classic classes, and level up your characters. This free edition offers a focused, old-school experience with no ads or in-app purchases.
- Classic dungeon crawling gameplay
- 5 classic character classes
- Level up characters to level 3
- Explore first 6 dungeon levels
- Automatic saving
- No ads or in-app purchases
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Step into a world of classic dungeon crawling—deadly traps, hidden doors, unholy relics, and riches beyond imagination await! This Basic Edition is your FREE entry point into Moldvay’s Labyrinth, a retro CRPG inspired by 1980s Dungeons & Dragons and legendary games like Wizardry and Bronze Dragon. • Explore the first 6 levels of the massive dungeon • Choose from 5 classic classes: Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, Monk, or Thief • Level up your characters to level 3 • Save automatically, play for minutes or hours There are no ads and no in-app purchases—just a clean, focused, old-school experience. Want the full adventure? The paid version unlocks: • 42 handcrafted dungeon levels • 15 unique classes • 100 spells, 300+ monsters, and hundreds of magic items • Deadly traps, brain-teasing puzzles, and cursed treasure Your characters in the Basic Edition cannot level past 3 or descend beyond dungeon level 6. When you’re ready for more, you can upgrade to the full game and begin your true descent!
Cairn
This app serves as a player for classic text adventures, allowing you to bring your own story files. It features automatic mapping, integrated reference materials, and iCloud syncing across devices for a seamless experience.
- Automatic live mapping
- Visual room and connection tracking
- Support for Z3, Z4, Z5, Z7, and Z8 story files
- Attach custom PDFs and images
- User-supplied hint file support
- Inventory bar
- Customizable themes
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Cairn is a player for classic text adventures. It does not include any games — you bring your own story files. Many classic and modern titles are available free from the Interactive Fiction Database and community archives. If you own Infocom games, Cairn plays those too. One app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, included with a single purchase. Your stories, saved games, materials, and the maps Cairn draws all travel with you through iCloud — begin an adventure on your Mac, continue it on your iPad, and check a hint on your phone. Unlike traditional interpreters, Cairn automatically builds a visual map of the world as you explore, so you can focus on puzzles and discovery instead of keeping graph-paper maps by hand. Cairn is a rich play desk for classic adventures. Attach your own PDFs and images to each story — manuals, maps, feelies, and other reference materials — then read them beside the game. PDFs include page navigation, single- and two-page layouts, and fit and zoom controls. Cairn also supports user-supplied InvisiClues hint files in a compatible JSON format. Hints appear in their own tab, grouped into booklet-style sections, and reveal one clue at a time. Every playthrough carries a notebook. Write down door codes, maze mappings, and the thing to come back to once you find the lamp, in a tab beside the story rather than on paper. A button drops in where you are, what you are carrying, your score, the move count, or the last thing you typed. Notes travel in the saved game, so restoring a save brings back what you knew at the time along with the map and the transcript. An at-a-glance inventory bar shows what you are carrying below the transcript, without typing an inventory command and without costing you a turn. The live map is flexible too: rooms take custom shapes, and you can hide or restore any of them. On iPhone and iPad the story takes the whole screen, and the map, your notes, and every attached document are one tap away. Readable themes include IBM PC Color and DEC VT241-inspired options. Cairn supports the complete classic Infocom Z3, Z4, and Z5 catalog, including Beyond Zork with its original on-screen map, stat bars, and character setup, and also plays Z-machine version 7 and version 8 stories, opening the door to modern Inform 6 and Inform 7 interactive fiction beyond the Infocom era. Version 6 graphical stories are not supported. Compatible adventures include classics such as Zork, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall, Enchanter, Trinity, Bureaucracy, Suspended, Deadline, Wishbringer, Spellbreaker, and many more. Features - A session notebook saved with each game - Automatic live mapping as you explore - Support for Z3, Z4, Z5, Z7, and Z8 story files - Beyond Zork's original screen, or a classic status line, at the flick of a switch - Attached PDF and image materials - PDF page navigation, layouts, fit, and zoom controls - Image zooming and scrolling - InvisiClues hint browsing from compatible JSON files - Spoiler-safe clue reveal controls - At-a-glance inventory bar - Adaptive side-panel tabs for maps, notes, PDFs, images, and hints - Custom room shapes, hidden rooms, and per-connection line routing, stroke, and labels - Separate map and text presentation options - Library management for your adventures - Tag your stories, then filter and search by tag, and group by tag or date - Add several stories at once, with covers and descriptions from the Interactive Fiction Database - One app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac with a single purchase - Stories, saved games, and materials synced across your devices with iCloud - Native menus and keyboard shortcuts on Mac and iPad - Layouts that adapt from iPhone to ultrawide displays IMPORTANT! Cairn does not include any game files, manuals, maps, images, or hint files. You supply your own from your personal collection or other legal distribution channels.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Cairn at 100% against Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic's 0%. Cairn also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.0) and ratings volume (8 vs 2). Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic's advantage is price (Free vs $19.99) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 26.2). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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
Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic is free to download; Cairn costs $19.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Cairn holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 8 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic's written reviews are positive against 100% of Cairn's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 4 days. Both last shipped on October 7, 2026.
| Parameter | Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic | Cairn |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $19.99 |
| Rating | 3.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (8 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 8 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days | Every 4 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 — better | 26.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 42 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | CrossCut Games, Inc. | Daniel Ducat |
Customer experience
Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic
Cairn
In-app purchases
Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic
No in-app purchases
Cairn
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic free?
Is Cairn free?
Which has better reviews, Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic or Cairn?
Do Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic or Cairn have ads?
Which is updated more often, Moldvay's Labyrinth Basic or Cairn?
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