Smash Up - The Card Game

Reviews from 4 years ago note how terrible the card selection and playing is, with developers noting they respond to feedback. Well, the card selection and playing is still terrible. Use a drag method! SmashUp is a great game, and it’s a shame the app makes it very hard to play. Will report bugs separately though I have little confidence they will be fixed.

Personally I think they've done a great job porting this to an app. It take care of keeping track of base and player points while also prompting you when you can play a special action cards out of turn. There were a few card selection issues when it first came out but these have mostly been fixed. Looking forward to some new factions being released.

The card version of Smash Up is a messy and chaotic (but fun!) game. The app version, in needing to impose order in its design, manages to lose the messiness, swaps chaos for frustration and unfortunately, just isn’t fun. I’ve played the card game for years, but this app manages to make the gameplay really confusing. I would strongly suggest that the “Proceed” button’s default setting be ON at all times - otherwise things just happen to you and you have to check the game logs to know why. It slows the game down, but at least you have some sense about why things are happening. All this aside, I honestly couldn’t suggest how to fundamentally restructure the design of the app. It’s a hard problem to solve, as the game usually sprawls across a table. I cannot imagine how anybody plays this on their phone - it’s a cramped experience on a 12.9” iPad. I will continue to use this app to play-test faction combinations, but if I want to enjoy Smash Up!, I will turn to the card-based version.

Great game but unfortunately poor UI. Especially on the iPhone. Often it seems like buttons can’t be pressed. In fact I’ve had to crash out of the game because I can’t ‘press’ the options cog. Hope that some improvements are made as it is a great table top game.

Lots of people have mentioned the small cards and that's a major issue, but it also has a big problem with cards you may activate. They need to be front and center, but instead they are buried under everything else. I haven't yet played a game where an effect I was relying on didn't trigger because it's technically optional. Given time and support this could be amazing, but for now it's more or less unplayable.

A surprisingly poor adaptation by Asmodee (whose games I normally love). Trying to select cards is atrociously bad - sometimes I can move back and forward with the tiniest movement of my finger and STILL not select the card I’m trying to get. The same thing happens when trying to select a card from a bunch on a base to play an action on. Often the action ends up on the wrong card, wasting a move. Then there’s the confounding inability to drag a card to a base - it’s such an ingrained action when using a touchscreen to press and drag that this omission catches me out every time. I keep unconsciously trying to do it & wondering what’s wrong when it doesn’t work. At other times, I can’t work out what’s going on as the opponent seems to be playing endless cards per turn, even when none seem to have an action allowing extra cards to be played. Utterly confusing, and I wish I hadn’t wasted my money. Sounds like a great game, but really doesn’t play like one on the iPad. It’s one I’m unlikely to play again.

Smash Up is a brilliant game, and should be even better as an app where the computer can keep track of everything, but it really isn't good. The method of selecting your card is terrible, with a cascading choice that is so fiddly it is difficult to select the card that you want. It's difficult to see the cards in your hand too, so knowing what to choose is problematic. I was looking forward to this app for ages, but am pretty disappointed with it, and think I have wasted my money on it. Poor.

I have every physical expansion of smash up and was one of the most excited people about the release of this game. I think there should be some kind of player progression and profile customisation. I can’t help thinking that the game maybe should be free to play to entice new players make two free factions the rest are pay to play.

Big thanks to the developers for getting back to me quickly and sorting out the crash issues. They also improved the size of the card pop ups. Thanks for the speed of response. The game is great and lots of potential. The UI is still a little tricky to grasp and could maybe do with some refining but overall a very nice game.

Since updating to iOS 11.0.3 I had the black screen problem, this has now been solved with the latest update, and all is working again. The card selection is still a little twitchy, but I am sure these things will be sorted out down the line. Also had great feedback and emails concerning this problem. So I have upped my star rating accordingly. 👍