Grindstone
A Puzzle-Battle splatter-fest!
How much does Grindstone cost?
Prices are current as of 20 Oct 2026.
Grindstone has no in-app products on record in the United States.
10+ alternatives to Grindstone
| Grindstone |   Patterned |   Lost in Play+ |   Simon's Cat - Blast Time |   Zookeeper World |   Temple Run: Puzzle Adventure |   Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop |   Garden Tails: Match and Grow |   SUMI SUMI : Matching Puzzle+ |   PUZZLE & DRAGONS STORY |   Summer Pop!+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.6 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 3.9 | 3.3 |
| Reviews | 15K | 81K | 28K | 23K | 11K | 7.7K | 7.6K | 1.3K | 1.1K | 579 | 88 |
| Released | 2019 | 2019 | 2025 | 2021 | 2021 | 2021 | 2024 | 2022 | 2025 | 2023 | 2024 |
Grindstone reviews
4.6 out of 5, based on 15,108 reviews.
What people like
- Fun puzzle mechanics that make you think
- Charming art style and great music
- Developers keep adding new content regularly
What they complain about
- Game crashes and loses all your progress
- Levels feel unfair and rely on luck
- You have to grind for basic items
Love This Game!
I found this randomly once and I’ve never looked back! I’ve played all the way through and started again, and I love that they keep adding new areas and levels and even a new dimension!!
How is this supposed to work?
I’m swiping to match three and nothing moves.
It’s a shame
If it wasn’t only on Apple Arcade, it would easily be a 5/5
Impressively mediocre game design
There’s more skill involved in roulette. As you advance and the levels become “harder” you realise there simply isn’t any chains you can do and trying to play tactically doesn’t work either since some of the big enemies kill the minions around them, so you can’t reliably leave only one colour to get a chain later. This flaw reminds me of free to play games, where the random unfairness is there to force the player to spend real money for extra lives, power ups and the like. However, just like those f2p games, the UI is decent and the animations enticing. It’s just a shame it pretends so hard it’s a skill game, because even though there is some skill involved, it’s basically random whether the level can be completed or not.
Frustrating to play
It’s a fun game, but seems the game is stacked against you. Many levels need to be replayed to build up resources which constantly get drained away to pay for health. It gets to the point where you don’t want to play anymore.
Hi
Hi
HATED A LOT
I HATE THIS APP SO MUCH! IT’S SO BORING 🥱☺️🥱😴😪😑
Lotofun
Great game with excellent replay value!
Battery drain
Wondering why the battery performance and drain is so high? Play it for 30 minutes and takes 20%off my newly replaced iPhone. iPhone 12
No landscape mode!!
I like playing this game, it’s fun, but I almost never play because portrait mode anything on my 12” iPad Pro is horrible—my stand is landscape only, everything else I do need’s landscape, so to play this I have to sit my iPad on my lap—this thing is way way too heavy to have sitting on my lap for any length of time!! But I KNOW this game HAS a landscape mode—it’s available on Apple TV, but is/was a switch game, so it HAS to have that size/format, WHY is it not available as an option at the very least??? I mean, the fancy games just know the orientation of your device and goes with that, but even a setting would be great! I’d really like to play your game again.
Beats is fire
The Beats is fire
Addicted
Great addictive game
fantastic game
I love this game a lot! the graphics are great, the art style is super charming, and it runs really well! the gameplay is super addicting and I sometimes find myself playing for hours when I really only ment to play for a short stint of time. My only issue with it is that theres no way to label the different save files, so it’s a bit hard to différenciante which file is which.
It’s Just OK
This game was nominated for best mobile game at The Game Awards 2019, and it got positive reviews from the few critics who bothered to review it on Metacritic. In fact the only reason I downloaded it is because it kept popping up near the top in lists of best AA games I found on the internet. The game is well made technically, I played the entire thing, and if there are any bugs at all in the game, I didn’t find any, the game ran flawlessly for me. If I were to judge it based on it’s software 5 stars. The game is very unique as well, again 5 stars for originality. So clearly I’m in the minority but my problem is, it just wasn’t that fun. In fact the only thing that kept me coming back to finish the entire game is I was hoping it would get better, and I do think it has the potential to be at least a good game, if not great. The problem for me is it’s way to easy of a game. I want I video game to give me that tiny endorphin rush that comes from completing a challenge, even those simple AA games like Cut the Rope remastered and Sp!ng can give me that... “Yeah I beat that level feeling”. Grindstone did not, even after beating the last two bosses in the game I felt nothing. What I was hoping for when I reached the end of the game was an unlocking of a much more difficult version of the game for round two. What I got instead was an ending so lame I wouldn’t be ruining anything for you if I told you what happened. Same story with the Daily grind, it’s boring and pointless to me. Since the game Grindstone is based on luck as much as skill, it has a lot to do with where the creeps fall on the bored. My grandpa likes to play the card game solitaire but just like Grindstone it’s a game heavily based on luck I’m sure he wouldn’t care if he was ranked number 1 solitaire player of the day, just like I don’t care or see the point having my name on a leaderboard in a game like Grindstone. It’s not an accomplishment, it’s like having a competition on who’s best at winning the lottery. All that being said though my Grandpa did teach me a couple version’s of solitaire were the odds of winning are stacked against you so bad that you could play the game all day and not win a single game. But when I finally did win “best card game ever!” Still remember it to this day as young adult. That’s what I think Grindstone could be, but with the skill and game knowledge aspects mixed in with the luck... saying Grindstone has the potential to be 10x better than any card game may be an understatement. My hope is I’ll come back to check out apple arcade in a year or two and there will be major updates to Grindstone that solve the lack of challenge problem, and the game goes from not really worth playing for me, to best mobile game ever! For now however, two stars since I’m judging the game on level of enjoyment, hoping I’ll be able to give it five stars one day, but if not that’s OK, like I said in the beginning, clearly I’m in the minority here.
Very difficult
I really enjoyed the first 15 levels. Starting at level 16 it becomes to difficult to play and there is no settings to change the difficulty. There doesn’t seem to be any games out there for the causal gamer, game developers advertise how hard their games are like that’s something people want. Unfortunately I will be uninstalling this game which is very disappointing
Great job
Love the idea 💡
Quit asking me to rate
I already rated this game leave me alone. 1 star for being annoying.
Save data bug has forced me to restart my save
Constant crashing after level 11 has forced me to start my save again. Otherwise it’s been a lovely experience. Solid game, good satisfying mechanics.
Stuck on level 15!
Have completed this level several times and doesn’t move onto level 16 . !!! Frustrated . I loved this game until then !!
It’s designed like a f2p game
I don’t understand the design choices of making you refill your hearts with essentially a worthless currency. It screams free to play and just makes the game feel tedious. But the actual gameplay part is fun :/
Please Give Us More Levels
I really like the game and would like to see more levels provided so we can continue playing. Please add more levels, or more to the story.
Do not even bother
It took forever to figure out how the game worked. Then when I did figure it out an update arrived that made all my gems disappear. Even when playing the mini games the gems disappear. Just horrible.
How the f*$k do you beats slobs
I’ve been hooked on this game for a few days not but I am getting frustrated as I can’t get past the first section as I can’t get the crowns from the slobs. I believe I have to kill a chain of red creatures but the game only gives me 1 or 2 of them and nowhere near the slob! What the heck are we supposed to do?!
Looks like a Jurk destroyed my save game data
I’ve been playing this for months and enjoying it. Today though when I tried to play, loading my saved game results in an “IndexOutOfBounds” exception that crashes the game. Months of progress lost. ‘it’s a frustrating experience that means I’ll have to uninstall the game. I don’t have the heart to start again.
I wish I could play this but...
In the first level- the monsters you end up having to kill first—particularly when they are in their selected state, they look wayyyyyy to much like Golliwogs— the old fashioned British racist cartoons. I am originally from apartheid-era South Africa, where golly merchandise was also popularized, and the opening level of the game, with 6 monsters grouped in front of the hero, felt way too much like rounding up and killing 6 helpless blackface characters... again, it was the selected state where the hair is up, the mouth is rubber bandy and the eyes get saucer like. Probably unintentional. Hopefully unintentional. But, regardless, I couldn’t bring myself to execute level 1’s small 6-monster combo and begin the game. With the white saucer eyes, dark skin, dark nappy Afro-like hair, and rubber band red lips... sigh. I’m not a member of cancel culture or anything and I don’t learn either right or left. But I just had to call this out. Cheers.
Love the game & wish I could buy
Great puzzle game with a really nice music. Some feedback for the capybara team. It would be awesome if we could buy a license of the game on iOS rather than subscribe to Apple Arcade. I have a Nintendo switch, however, am hesitant to buy a copy there as I like the feel on a tablet.
stop freaking asking for reviews every time app is opened
EVERY time I load this game it asks for another review, even though I've done many. so annoying
Game won’t open
Haven’t played in a couple days, tried to open the game up over the last 2 days and it won’t load. Just leaves me on a black screen. Really enjoyed the game when I could play it!
Fun but incredibly frustrating
This is a fun game but it’s incredibly frustrating. You can tell that the original game design was made for in app purchase of grindstones. As I progress through the levels I unlock all kinds of cool swords, arrows, armour and potions but good luck ever using any of them!!!! No matter how good I am and how awesome my chains are I never have enough grindstones to build this stuff. The game, although addictive and somewhat satisfying, never comes close to as fun as it could have been because of the steep ( and what would have been greedy) cost of grindstones. I mean if you’re going to have a daily grind, let us keep the grindstones!? Going to try and find another game to play now, after level 115, I’m taking a long break.
More levels and unfair daily challenges marr great game
This is a really fun and clever game - and although (as others have said) it needs more levels for all of us who have been playing for a while, the developers added the useful daily challenges. The problem there though, is that often the chest doesn’t appear in the quick challenge, meaning it’s random whether you can get a high score or not.
Love this game
LOVE IT
Good game but…
Please stop asking for ratings every time I open the app.
Fun but grindy
This game is worth a try, but, as per the name, you will be grinding for items a lot. The match puzzle core is interesting.
Progress lost!
Really enjoyed this game, beat the original set of levels, and was excited to see the extra levels and other additions in the big recent update over the summer... Then didn’t play for a while, logged in today to see a new update but ALL save data gone! Even went through the tutorial to see if it’d fix itself but sadly no. Very disappointing. Hope this can be fixed.
Sincerely needs landscape mode.
It’s a great matching game. The gem wildcard mechanic is great for chaining stupidly long and multicoloured gems. But as an ipad user, I mainly use apps and play games that have landscape mode. The fact that this game has been on the arcade for so long without this feature is disappointing. Or at least allow us landscape users to play this game side by side whilst using other apps? It’s good game regardless, the grind mode seems a bit dumb. Not entirely sure why I would play the game without keeping the resources... Also doesn’t seem to have much in way of unlockables. Good for pick up and play a round or two per day.
Please make more levels
Please make more levels instead of competing i love this game i beat every level
Nah
Softlocked the tutorial in about two minutes. The game wouldn’t let me progress without making a path with the grindstone, but it was not possible to make a path with the grindstone because it spawned in surrounded by dudes with the wrong colour. Triple A polish? Maybe from Bethesda, except Fallout Shelter doesn’t even softlock in the tutorial unless you deliberately mess up.
It is great
I love it but I got a bit stuck on a level and have not been able to complete it but I bet other s don’t have this problem and all in all it is very good
I thought this game would be about increasing chains...
But the more you advance the less chains you can make, I find myself making 2-3 steps and ending up nowhere due to the sheer amount of aggressive mobs and also the massive variance in colours and where they sit. Not that fun of a game really. Maybe it’s just based on RNG in that you have to be lucky with the placement of the mobs, which in that case it’s not for me.
Just started playing again but
I only have access to the daily grind, where are all my levels gone?
Fun!
This is my go to game when I have time to kill. It really doesn’t get old for me. Once I beat all the levels I still have the daily grind which is a new challenge everyday. They’ve also expanded things several times giving more gameplay. Anyway, I really enjoy it.
Don’t waste your time
Get to level 40 then every level takes 4-5 tries only thing that changes is the drop colours that make it impossible to finish the level in less than three tries the game is Appy named grind grind grind the same level til the drop the colours to let you win.
Buggy
App keeps crashing before I can even pick a level
Good fun but doesn't save
My game continues to clear and reload me at level 65 Everytime the game closes. I have gotten to the end of the world and sure enough the next morning I'm back at 65. Ever since the update this occurs and I get the same update messaging about what's improved except it can't save my game in the right spot. I've tried all the game center tricks to no avail
Playable but disappointing
I like playing it although at 65 levels in it’s starting to get repetitive. 65 levels worth is a fair amount however. The power ups are rubbish. I still use the basic first three I got. The ones that you have to pay for with rewards don’t seem to make much difference, and why you have to pay to refill some and not others seems pointless. I have such a surplus of rewards I not sure if what would happen if you used them all up refilling the power ups, can you die? Do you have to start from the beginning if you do? It doesn’t seem so, so why bother needing to refill. In a game this repetitive I’m sure no one wants to have to go farming to be able to refill power ups, but then as mentioned you don’t need these power ups anyway. In short, playable but pointless, un-enticing and lacking any kind of satisfaction normally found when achieving something in a game.
Fun strategy game
I’ve had a blast playing this. It’s fun and make you think a little but not too much
Level 90 something, game totally stops working
Don’t waste your time. Got to level 90 something and got some ridiculous exception error everyone I try to load my profile. Totally locked out. Nothing helps. Don’t invest your time into this given that.
Very fun but gets repetitive
The game is very fun and challenging up to level 150. The new levels are just crazy. A lot of grinding and quite frustrating.
Lost my progress
Logged in today and my entire game up until level 30 was erased, forcing me to start again?!? Not cool
Could Be Better
This is such a cute game to play and I didn’t think I would like it at first but glad I gave it a chance. I love the graphics and animation and, although simple, you can tell care has been put into it. However, I do have to agree with a previous reviewer that it feels as though it was created as a freemium and somehow made its way to Apple Arcade. I often find myself stuck in an impossible situation, straight off the bat with only one life left causing me to play previous levels to gain gems in order to purchase more lives. I would like to see the ability to fast forward the opening scenes of a level. Sitting and watching four ghost hands turn monsters into skeletons over and over again becomes a little tedious. I had to take a few breaks just for that alone. Also, I’m not sure if this is part of the game, but even monsters that aren’t “on fire” still attack me, causing me to lose a life I would assume I wouldn’t be losing. I’m hoping this is just a glitch that can be fixed soon, as it’s disheartening to lose lives like that. Overall a simple, well designed game to pass the time with only minor niggles that need seeing to.
Grindstone FAQ
- Is Grindstone free?
- Yes. The app is free, in all 170 countries it sells in, and it sells nothing inside it.
- Does Grindstone have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- What are the best alternatives to Grindstone?
- Patterned (4.8 from 81,161 reviews), Lost in Play+ (4.9 from 27,655 reviews) and Simon's Cat - Blast Time (4.8 from 23,402 reviews).
Grindstone download
Last updated 5 months ago.
Grindstone sells in 170 countries. It was released 7 years and 1 month ago, on 19 Sept 2019. It holds a 4.6 rating from 15,108 reviews.
Supports 13 languages: English, Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Turkish.
How much does Grindstone make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.