Spite & Malice!

EDIT: I have deleted the app after over 1500 games. It's not fun when you rarely get to play due to the computer constantly just clearing hands and stacks, the glitches playing/discarding for you, etc. Too bad, because I love playing the game, but the glitches are just horrible. This app has several glitches that had caused me to lose several games in a row and I am about to delete it permanently. The computer will either take a card and discard it for you, allowing it to skip your turn, or it will play a card in your hand and discard one. It always either plays a card that will enable the computer to move a card from their pile and/or discard to block a card you need to use. It's extremely frustrating when this happens because it always leads to the computer winning. My hand is nowhere near the screen when this happens. It used to happen on occasion but it's now happening almost every game I play.

Sometimes cards are played automatically and sometimes discards are made before I have a chance to make my move to discard. Sometimes the game fails to load our cards and unless you want to forfeit you have to wait quite a few minutes before your given the option of declaring a draw. Sometimes it looks like an opponent can’t be found to start the game and you are given the option of playing the computer. If you choose to play the computer the game starts with a human opponent, not the computer. Most games run without issues but sometimes there are issues. I find the most annoying thing is playing someone who takes forever to make a move. Slow opponents. Ack.

I enjoyed playing this game and even thought it was way better than the other apps for Spite & Malice until I noticed that playing the single player versus the AI/bot is completely rigged/biased (on expert) especially if you are trying to complete challenges while playing. The AI in single player is so obvious when getting every single card it needs to win, not to mention that the cliche “you win some, you lose some” has never been more true. I have been playing Spite & Malice for many years and have never seen any game (well, except for Ludo on AirConsole lol) quite so biased/rigged/etc. on such an obvious level in this game. BEFORE YOU make judgements on me, I know how to play very well and normally only play on expert and I AM NOT saying the expert level should be easier. I think if there’s going to be different levels of difficulty, each one should have better ‘AI’ as in the first two levels already have; they forget to play cards, etc. On the expert level, it shouldn’t be “difficult to play against the computer bot/AI” in such that it just so happens to get everything it needs to make its plays, but yet it should be to where the AI/bot/computer has no mercy such that it NEVER forgets to play anywhere on any card, etc. That’s my opinion. I am aware that on expert level it already doesn’t forget anything, but when four wilds played in a row on the same stack and then a ‘not so wild’ correct card comes up to play on top of the other wilds, it’s quite obvious. If you have comments or anything else please don’t hate, but communicate. Thanks for your time reading this review, it is my honest opinion and will change the rating accordingly.