Descent vs Sumhow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Descent
Embark on an old-school mining adventure on your iPhone. Dig through six unique strata, collecting increasingly valuable ores as you descend. Upgrade your rig, strategically use dynamite, and uncover buried secrets to find your way home.
- Six unique strata to explore
- Collect various ores including gold and platinum
- Upgrade drill, fuel, cargo, hull, and engine
- Use dynamite for difficult rock
- Discover buried bones for rewards
- Offline play with autosave
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Descent is an old-school mining game, made for iPhone. • Six strata with unique characteristics • Ore gets richer with depth: iron, copper, silver, gold, platinum — and Descentium, the rare guidance ore that opens the way home • Five rig systems to upgrade: drill, fuel tank, cargo bay, hull, engine • Dynamite... for when the rock disagrees with you • Insurance: rescues aren't free! • Buried bones scattered in the deep: assemble the whole skeleton for a payout • Bring 3 Descentium and $150,000 to the launch pad, to complete the game • Autosaves constantly; pick any run back up where you left it • Fully offline. No ads. No in-app purchases. • Game Center and iCloud sync are optional: achievements, leaderboards, and your save on every device The ore gets richer the deeper you go. So does everything trying to stop you!
Sumhow
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Somebody left you a calculator. Most of the keys are gone. Sumhow hands you a target and a handful of surviving keys, and asks you to make the number anyway. Three, plus and times are enough to get started. Then the machine starts changing the rules on you. HOW IT PLAYS • Every unit has a par: the fewest presses it can possibly be done in. Match it for three stars. • The machine resolves left to right, with no order of operations. On this unit, 3 + 4 × 2 is 14. • Undo and Clear are free, so experiment. There are no timers, no lives and no fail state. TEN CHAPTERS, ONE RULE EACH Roots, where √ only lands on whole numbers. Echo, where equals repeats the last operation. Decay, where the × key dies after two uses. Stutter, Memory, Wraparound, The Toll, Below Zero, Blind. And Word Mode: ninety-six trivia questions whose answers you spell by typing the number that reads as the word when the screen is upside down. The first four chapters are free. Each of the ten that follow is a single purchase, or earn it: every unit in a chapter at three stars pays for the next one in gold. HINTS THAT COST SOMETHING A nudge shows your next press. A route shows the whole solution. Both cost gold and cap the stars you can earn on that unit, so a hint is a choice, not a shortcut. SKINS Wear the calculator you want. Forty-three skins in seven packs, from leopard print to a synthwave sunset, tried on before you buy. THE QUIET PART The unit reacts to certain numbers. None of them are listed. Scratch mode is a fully working calculator with no target; that is where you go looking. Find enough and a chapter opens that is not for sale. No ads. No account. No energy meter. Just a calculator with a problem, and you.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Sumhow at Free against Descent's $1.99. Descent's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and device support (3 vs 1). On ads 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
Sumhow is free to download; Descent costs $1.99 up front. Sumhow sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Descent asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Descent | Sumhow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Cartographer ApS | Timothy Palladino |
In-app purchases
Descent
No in-app purchases
Sumhow
- Skins: Café$1.99
- Desk skin pack$1.99
- 80s skin pack$1.99
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- Night Shift skin pack$1.99
- Seaside skin pack$1.99
- Wild skin pack$1.99
- Sweet Shop skin pack$1.99
- Chapter 8: The Toll$4.99
- Chapter 7: Word Mode$4.99
- Chapter 6: Wraparound$4.99









