Grindstone

Chill, relatively easy but still challenging puzzle game. Amazing to play now and then when relaxing/watching something else on your second monitor. Good substitute for autobattlers/puzzlegames with quality written all over it. More positives than negatives, could use more tweaking and changes to some features.

Pros:
- Refreshing and unique puzzle elements
- Amazing aesthetics and art style
- Cool character designs and animations
- Satisfying gameplay (long combos and figuring out better chains)
- Adds new variables and mechanics to the core gameplay the further you get, making it harder and interesting
- Easy and hard puzzles
- Massive amounts of gameplay time (atm 19h and not even 50% done with the game)
- Challenges
- Dailies
- A lot of different consumables, gear and items to make your own gameplay style different

50/50 pro/con
- Mobile UI elements (I personally like it because it's simplistic and snappy)
- A lot of animations (can be frustrating for players like me who don't care about them anymore)
- RNG placement of chests and slob kings (optional missions in puzzles) can sometimes be really weird, making it extremely easy or nearly impossible to get. This adds rng variable to the puzzles which is nice, but sometimes makes you replay the puzzle for easier spawns.
- CalArts artstyle (I'm neutral about it but it's super basic and saturated at this point, animations and presentation makes it special)
- Some costumes are locked behind a weekly quest gate. If you don't meet the requirements (eg. on launch you need 50 spike shield kills, and with my 19 hours of gameplay time I still haven't gotten it), I have no idea if you'll ever be able to get it again.

Cons:
- Clearly developed for mobile first as a f2p+p2w game, then changed to p2p model. This makes some mechanics and features "weird" for a pay to play game.
- Resource dependant with consumables, special items and hp. If you suck at the game, you might need to grind the older levels for resources which ofc sucks butt because it's a husk feature from the p2w mobile game dev version. (No idea how bad it is because so far I haven't had to replay any puzzles for resources)
- No fast mode, can get tedious to wait for the animations to finish
- Some puzzles are so hard that you need special items to complete them. On paper this is not a bad feature, but because the items need resources to use them and if you get stuck/suck at the puzzle, you need to grind the resources back which ofc is horrible and tedious. Once again, mobile game version's husk feature.

Tips:
- Use the pickaxe to spawn more items on the map, which are neutral colored pickups. Makes combos easier and gives more room to move. Pickaxe refills after every puzzle aka you don't need resources to use it.
- When you are in a position where you have to either take damage or use an item to get out of the situation, think about which is less expensive for your; taking 1 hit which costs 5 gems to heal OR getting out of the situation with an item which costs eg. 10 gems + other resources to refill/repair. Sometimes taking 1 hit is much better decision.
- In the early game you can pick special resources from challenges to make new items/gear, but later on I highly recommend always picking up gems because you need them for hp and item refills/repair. You'll get plenty resources from other things in the game.
- If the puzzle map is special with map hazards or multiple tough hp enemies, don't be afraid to quit the puzzle when you've checked it out at the start, change to appropriate items and trying again. This doesn't cost you anything as long as you've not lost any hp and/or used items which require resources.
- Remember to use monster goo at Helgä's shop regularly to craft super items. Once the amount of goo hits the 6000 limit, you can't gather more until you've free'd up some space.

Thanks for reading.

Edit: Added more bullets points

First played Grindstone during the game demo Steam event. Was immediately hooked. After realizing it was made by Capybara Games, I felt compelled to pay full price on Steam for support. Even though the game was was on Apple Arcade for free. I figured, I loved a similar match three type game by CAPY; Critter Crunch. And the Steam features were something I felt had enough value to justify my support.

However, I should have taken the feature on Apple Arcade as a hint of the target audience. The mobile game community has a reputation of endless games that don't really require skill or increase in difficulty. Designed to suck the user in with the insinuation that the levels keep progressing, and they are going somewhere.

Grindstone starts strong with a hand drawn art style, and a video which leads you to believe there may be a story unfolding. But there really isn't a story. You simply grind through areas, each with there own new element, and finish out with a boss. They have added this weapon and amor element to add to the rogue like feel of the game. It sounds interesting enough. And at the beginning it is pretty amusing.

But the problem the problem is the game just doesn't change from the first moment you play. It gets boring and tiresome quickly. If there were a story it would help remove the repetition of doing the same thing over and over again. The difficulty never seems to ramp up unless RNG screws you. In which case you can just reload and the crisis is averted. And the weapons and armour are hardly clever. I actually stuck with the same gear for almost the entire game, even after getting the "elite" gear at the end.

Honestly the only reason I finished was because I felt like I had already invested so much time, I wanted to see if anything changed or got harder. But in the end the game is the same almost the entire way through, with one level feeling slightly harder, and the next feeling like the very first level. The game is basically a classic match three game. Pointless, endless, and mindless. But the joke is on me for not seeing through the graphical polish to the empty core.

Grindstone is a tile-matching puzzle game with the goal to combine long chains of tiles while defeating enemies with the highest possible combination score.

To be honest, I expected some kind of viking-themed puzzle game with cute graphics that would entertain me for some in-between time, but Grindstone definitely surpassed my expectations. I think match-3 games or tile puzzles generally have a harder time because many people throw everything into the same pot as Candy Crush. Grindstone is definitely much more extensive; with over 250 levels + 15 bosses, 50-60 equippable abilities, daily and weekly grind challenges, it's far more complex and long-term entertaining than expected. The art style is beautifully designed, the soundtrack is incredibly epic, and the variety of enemies and levels kept me in a “okay, just one more level”-loop far too long. Definitely became one of my go-to casual games in 2025.

17€ is an absolutely justified price for this fairly addictive arcade game, which definitely deserves greater popularity.