CalystrixCard Carnival vs Tomb Architect
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
CalystrixCard Carnival
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CalystrixCard Carnival is a collection of three original card puzzles, each with its own rule set. One idea holds them together: a deck of cards is a wonderful set of puzzle pieces, and a Joker is the piece that fits anywhere. Joker Orbit asks you to plant cards on three turning rings around a Joker star. Every card you plant makes the whole orrery drift, so you are always planning one step into a board that is about to move. Joker Bloom treats cards as seeds. Each suit grows its own way ā hearts spread sideways, diamonds run diagonally, spades creep downward, clubs send out a single runner. Four touching plots of one suit bloom and lock in. Plant in the wrong order and your garden strangles itself. Joker Prophecy shows you the future. You can see the next three cards and the exact square each one will land on. You cannot stop them ā but you can spend Joker tokens to redirect them, change their suit, or turn them wild. Then you satisfy the omens the stage demands. Every one of the 36 stages is built from a fixed seed, so a stage is the same puzzle for everybody, every time. Skill decides the outcome, not the shuffle. Features ⢠Three original puzzles, 36 hand-authored stages, three stars to earn on each. ⢠Joker Orbit ā a drifting three-ring orrery. Nudge a ring, spend a Freeze, align the rays. ⢠Joker Bloom ā suit-directed growth on a 6Ć6 garden, with Joker Suns that revive everything nearby. ⢠Joker Prophecy ā turn-based and untimed. See what is coming, then bend it with Joker tokens. ⢠Versus (2ā6 players) ā the host picks one puzzle and stage, everyone solves an identical board, and the best score takes the round. Placing earns XP for everyone. ⢠No internet, no accounts, no data leaving your device ā versus runs peer-to-peer over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. ⢠Failed attempts still earn XP, so progress only ever moves forward. ⢠Progression: levels, XP, stars, solve streaks, achievements, a leaderboard, plus Stats and a full run History. ⢠Sound and haptics, both switchable.
Tomb Architect
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You are the architect. You are also the intruder. Tomb Architect gives you a plot of desert and lets you carve whatever you like into it ā corridors, halls, stairwells, tunnels, a sarcophagus, a treasury, a room that appears on no drawing. Then it does the thing no building game does: it puts you inside your own plan and asks whether you can get back out. If your tomb is easy, that is your fault. The rating says so. WHAT YOU DO ⢠Break ground on a gridless desert plot ā rooms go anywhere, and the plan links them with ancient architectural lines on its own ⢠Raise ten kinds of chamber, from a plain corridor to an eye chamber, each rising out of the sand as you place it ⢠Arm six mechanical traps: a falling capstone, a pressure floor that starts a chain, a rotating chamber, a sand shaft, a hidden blade, a door carved to lead nowhere ⢠Assemble the machinery yourself in the Mechanism Engineer ā lever, gear, chain, counterweight, gate ā and watch it run inside a cutaway of the wall ⢠Set four kinds of riddle and play every one of them: steer a sunbeam through mirrors, chain hieroglyphs in the order the wall demands, throw a shadow onto a carving, route water through ancient sluices ⢠Enter the tomb. The camera drops through the sand and you walk the plan by hand, torch first ⢠Survive Escape mode, where the tomb wakes on a clock: systems open, routes shift, doors drop, and the dunes start coming in ⢠Listen for the hollow rooms ā some chambers are only found by sound, light, or shadow ⢠Watch the Time Shift turn your work from new to ancient to ruin to almost entirely buried ⢠Take a verdict on seven axes ā Complexity, Exploration, Puzzle Quality, Trap Design, Navigation, Secrets, Difficulty ā and a rating from one to five scarabs ⢠Replay your own descent as a glowing route line and see exactly where you gave yourself away ⢠Recover relics into an underground museum you walk through, where every object turns, zooms, and comes apart in your hands ⢠Take a new commission every day, carved on a stone tablet: twelve chambers only, three false paths, a route that turns on a light riddle HOW IT FEELS No tab bar, no lists, no flat menus. The main screen is one enormous tomb floating over the desert that you turn with your finger, and its parts are the way in. Screens do not appear ā the interface crumbles into sand, a stone wall collapses in front of you, hieroglyphs light and join into a portal, a shadow crosses and leaves you somewhere else, or the camera simply dives underground with the sand rushing past. EVERYTHING IS YOURS AND LOCAL Every plan, relic, rating and setting is stored on your device. No account, no sign-in, no servers, no ads, no analytics, no AI. Play it on a plane. Sigils are earned by delving. Nothing costs real money, and every chamber, trap and riddle in the game is reachable by playing it. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: CalystrixCard Carnival at 14.0 against Tomb Architect's 16. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
CalystrixCard Carnival ships an update every 6 days, Tomb Architect weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CalystrixCard Carnival | Tomb Architect |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days ā better | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod ā better |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 ā better | 16 |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 25 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | ZEYNEP UMUT | Rattan Lal |
In-app purchases
CalystrixCard Carnival
No in-app purchases
Tomb Architect
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is CalystrixCard Carnival free?
Is Tomb Architect free?
Do CalystrixCard Carnival or Tomb Architect have ads?
Which is updated more often, CalystrixCard Carnival or Tomb Architect?
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