Comparison

Descent vs Sumhow

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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!

About

Sumhow

Features
Read full description

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

Descent4 screens
Sumhow4 screens

Verdict

The call

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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Descent versus Sumhow: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDescentSumhow
Price$1.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 9 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB16 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCartographer ApSTimothy Palladino

In-app purchases

None

Descent

No in-app purchases

10 purchases

Sumhow

One-time10
  • Skins: Café$1.99
  • Desk skin pack$1.99
  • 80s skin pack$1.99
Show 7 more
  • 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

Questions

Is Descent free?
Descent costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Sumhow free?
Sumhow is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Descent or Sumhow have ads?
Neither Descent nor Sumhow shows ads.

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