Slay

It takes a little bit of trial and error to learn the strategy, but once you get the hang of it, this is one of the greatest games ever made. I absolutely love how approachable it is on iOS and iPadOS. I reach for this game multiple times a day when I need to clear my head or just waste a few minutes. Just buy it and take a little time to figure it out. You won’t be sorry. My ONLY complaint…I wish it used iCloud sync so that I could pick it up on any device. I have 3 iPads, iPhone, and 2 Macs, but I’ve had to stick to one device as I tear through each map in order on Expert (not quite good enough for Master yet). Not a huge deal because it’s really great to play on an iPad mini…it would just be nice if I could choose any device and keep my progress.

Great, simple, "it just works" game that can kill 10-20 minutes very quickly. My only complaint after like 10 years of having this game and playing it every now and then, is that AI blindly yolo at the user player. Sure, I'm on expert, but when myself and another AI have small territories like 25% and the other AI has 50%, why is the other 25% doing literally nothing fighting the actual threat, and going for me instead? Makes for some frustrating scenarios, where they give up cutting the larger AI territory to take your tiles instead... -Even animals understand the basic concept of the larger threat, even if we don't work together specifically we still need to leave each other alone or else the larger will just swamp both of us.

I've been playing Slay since before the iPhone, it stands the test of time. Just like Minesweeper, it is a light, casual game that is sorta puzzley, but in a way that you are never really challenged long enough that you need to put it down. The gameplay is world domination, but really you can just make the computer surrender by breaking its territories up. The challenge comes in balancing growing your territory with defending while also making sure not to level up too quickly or else you won't be able to pay your troops (+1/space, -2/lvl1, -6/lvl2, -18/lvl3, -54/lvl4) Almost never buy the lvl4 dude unless you need to squash a lvl3, but usually you can starve them out. The game comes with enough maps for you to play one a day for over a year and you can buy more interesting shapes if you like it, no nagging, just available. Lots of cool looks/themes, all included. They just added a fourth row of maps that are all symmetrical. These maps are the toughest ones yet! Well worth the price if you enjoy the game.