Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 06:50 am
Lanterns: The Harvest Festival – Board Game Review
Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a Board/Strategy game from Dire Wolf Digital LLC, first launched in 31st October 2016.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 138+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Lanterns: The Harvest Festival Stand Out
Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a beautiful, thoughtful tile-placement game set in imperial China based upon the best-selling and award-winning board game. The app now includes the new expansion Lanterns: The Emperor's Gifts at no additional cost.
In Lanterns, players take turns arranging colorful floating lanterns on a ceremonial lake. Completing sets of lanterns earns Honor, and at the end of the game the player with the most Honor wins.
Vibrant visual effects, skilled AI, meditative environmental music and smooth touch play translate the delightful zen of Lanterns: The Harvest Festival to your phone or tablet.
Praise for the board game:
• SXSW Game of the Year Nominee
• Geek & Sundry Top 5 Games of 2015
• Dice Tower Seal of Excellence
• Board Game Geek's Most Anticipated 2015
• Mensa Select 2015 Winner
• Best Family Game - Dog & Thimble 2015
• Best Game for New Gamers - Dog & Thimble 2015"Lanterns is very beautiful and easy to get into, but has depth that can challenge even the most experienced players." – Geek & Sundry
"I think a lot of people are going to be turned on to Lanterns, because you can play it casually, or you can play it very competitively. Both ways it's very enjoyable, and it's hard for a game to do that." – The Game Boy Geek
"Lanterns offers tile-placement and set-collection with a twist, and that twist makes it more interactive than other tile placement games I’ve tried. … I loved the simplicity and interactivity of the game, as well as the originality." – The Opinionated Gamers
Lanterns: The Harvest Festival offers all of the fun and depth of the tabletop game, PLUS:
• Online asynchronous matchmaking against old friends and new
• Strategic solo play to hone your skills against AI players
• Progressive Challenge system to guide you through gameplay
• Intuitive tap-and-drag tile placement for fast and easy playFor more information, please visit www.direwolfdigital.com
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This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd October 2025
Recent improvements include:
Fix for shader issues on the playmat.
Download & Availability
Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Lanterns: The Harvest Festival on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Great version of the original. We just wish you could toggle off the animations. Also would be great to have one level more difficult AI, but all in all its great.
We have really enjoyed this game and rated five stars, but Ive only played it solo against the app. But we like it so much that Im going to try to get the physical copy again even though Ive traded away once before.
A great translation. The audio, the visuals, the intuitive interface.we wish all tabletop games were done this well in digital.
This is a good example of how an app can breathe new life into a great card game. The bookkeeping is all done for you, all the color and beauty remains. The two player game is the most strategic. It is really just an abstract card game, simple rules and a bit of a take that attitude.
The user interface, and especially the tutorial, need serious upgrades.
When youve set yourself up perfectly to make the game winning dedication on the last turn and the current version of the game is broken so you never get that last turn, it takes all the joy out. Fix the last turn already! Clearly it has been broken for 6+ months. It isnt too much to ask to expect that the digital version follows the rules of the game.
Update: still unplayable on iPhone 12 pro max and iPhone 12 pro after update. On both iPhone 12 pro max and iPhone 12 pro, the screen is all blown up and you cant scroll around. Support responded once a month ago and then radio silence. Plays well on iPad. But, final round is broken as many others have reported. Very disappointing for a $5 app.
We do like this app a lot as for the 4- Stars but the latest update has really hampered multiplayer game play over time. While we do play often in a normal 1-HR game it works fine but sometimes, we just want to play a free flow game when we have time. Weve noticed with the update it just scrubs the game. We log in with the game gone… Just frustrating when you had played the way for so long. A timer visible would at least give us some visual. Hope the multiplayer is fixed in the next update.
Great game though the last round is glitched. After placing your last tile, you cant do your final round.
This is a great game, and the app has been enjoyable for years; however the most recent update has problems that have not been addressed by the developer. The game doesnt follow its rules with the last update. There is no final turn-in round, and players can use the Emperors lanterns twice in the same turn.
The new 2.0 version has more bugs than the previous version. Users were forced to update to play online games. Exiting games were lost. There are serious game play issues as well, for example not being able to play the last dedication round. Minor bugs with things like the back buttons localization string being button.back. Im not going to play again until at least the next update.
Ive only played against the AI, but it wins half the time, which is amazing. Beautiful graphics, interesting gameplay, and mostly intuitive interface. All around great job.
Love the board game and love the app for it! Way to go RGS.
Easy to learn, enjoyable to play, challenging but not frustrating. Love it.
Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a perfect adaptation of the amazing board game.
Lanterns is beautifully rendered and fun to play, with strategy to master. Two complaints: The game doesn't keep us logged in and sometimes says it can't log us in, there are some mechanics of the game that aren't fully explained, and badge notifications don't work.
It is a fun game, but it is infuriating to play. The main issue occurs when playing vs multiple AI opponents. Be aware that they will freely help each other get points. Ai2 needs a blue?100% chance that one of the other AI players will hand it over. Ai3 needs black to win over You and Ai1? Ai1 will happily give a black piece to its opponent. So be warned. This game is fun, but gets old fast as you watch the other players scheme out ways to ensure that you lose.
Ive only played a few solo games on a IPad Mini 4with no issues. We are giving it a 5* review, because it is fun, bright, and graphics wise, is awesome. Best way we can describe the play of the game is, its similar to dominos, but more involved. We do like seeing the Koi swim around while playing, and the music is nice too, not real loud or horrible sounding to turn it off. The music is similar to some mahjong games Ive played.
We Ike this game and the app version is great, we can play the base game and the expansion. The only reason we didn't give 5 stars is that the upgrades on log-in have issues and it seems to be stuck when we were actually logged in and if we retry then we get an error. So right now we have tried try once, and the close the screen and go online again and it works. Hope they get an update soon.
Our old username and password no longer work, and even after resetting our password, we still couldnt login.
An excellent app version of an excellent board game. Really good work.
7/17 we used to really really really love this app! But it has been stuck for the past several weeks and none of our attempts to fix it or reach out to the developer have been successful. So, now this app is useless, which is really annoying since it's one of the few apps we actually paid money for. 12/17 STILL frozen after reporting this issue several times. Very disappointed that no effort is being made to resolve this issue, especially for a paid app.
We'd say it was perfect except there is not always a prompt or "push" when it's your turn.
Well done implementation, including the most important iOS board game feature to us, async multiplayer! Buy without hesitation. Our only quibble: there is no badge on the app icon when it's your turn, and no way to turn it on in settings. Bug? Bravo, devs.
We love the board game and this digital version is excellent.
The game itself is great. Our big issue is how buggy the app is. Our hubby and we try playing the multiplayer game and there are times where the computer doesn't take it's turn. Totally not worth the $5 at all. Bugs need to be fixed before we play this again.
We have the physical board game of this and the game itself is great but this app is very buggy. Does not recognize turns in multiplayer games, takes forever to be notified of your turn in multiplayer, really hope they fix this. Currently not worth $5.
We love this game's app. We love the game play, very fun, thoughtful, strategic and relaxing. We love the music and the graphics. We can't stop playing this game.
This game is wonderful, an excellent adaptation of the board game, excellent graphics. Only minor concern is it was a little bit difficult to get an online game going with a friend out of state however we eventually got it to work and it plays fantastic now (We have played several games since without a hitch close) no problems. Highly recommended.
We love the physical game and this digital version is a great implementation of it. Highly recommended.
We have seen the board game in stores and this version also came highly recommended. Good tutorial which we played through twice. Great expansions included, which is even out before the physical version is. We like that our entire family can play each on our own device.
Just too simple otherwise, the core game has one best strategy, and doesn't have enough randomness/variation to lend much replayability. Expansion should fix that though.
We do not own the original board game, but after playing this implementation we're ready to get it. The game itself is very fun, but what's more, the app is very well designed. We're always pleasantly surprised when we find a board game app that successfully represents the original game, and whose developers didn't cut any corners during development, but took care to produce as polished an app as this.
This is a beautiful, and well implemented version of the physical game. We highly recommend both.
We have the physical copy of Lanterns, but can never get anyone to play board games. Our mom lives on the other side of the country and she's always down for a good game, so we gifted her a copy of this & set up an account so we could play online. It has been great, and she has beaten us three games in a row! Calming, beautiful, easy to learn game.
This is a great port from the tabletop version! Beautiful graphics and sound.
Claims to support multi-player, but we never get the email. Checked junk mail folder, nothing.
This game is beautiful, and the digital port is fantastic.
This is a wonderful version of the board game. Our daughter loves this game. The multiplayer function is great. We can play on our iPhone and iPad together. The graphics are wonderful. Direwolf Digital and Renegade Games do not disappoint. We and very happy to have another means to play this amazing game.
It's such a good game, we've gotta give it five stars. Great strategy game and great visuals (although we wish the lanterns glowed). It works perfectly as well. Our only complaint is that it kills our battery fast. We're on an iPhone 6 and after one game, it ate six or seven percent. It shouldn't eat that much because there isn't a lot of action on the screen. Devs, we love this game…please make it more battery efficient in an update. Otherwise, thanks for an amazing game.
Awesome port of the cardboard version.
Super fun game. We played at a friend's house and was super excited to see a digital version. We're excited to play online and improve our strategy for next time. The ui is great as well as the art. 5 stars.
Great visuals, tranquil atmosphere and fun to play both solo and multiplayer.
We've only played a few rounds of the table top version but we really like this digital version. It has a great visual aesthetic and it simplifies the scoring. The game itself is simple enough to pick up and play casually with a friend and complex enough to keep you thinking.
This game is truly beautiful. The artwork, sounds, and gameplay are all serene.
The game is so cool. It looks great and the controls are really simple. We like the awesome graphics and animations that are throughout the game as well! You can tell it must have been a lot of effort put into the game! Job well done.
The solo mode runs very nicely. We can't get it to stop displaying a finished "ranked" game, or to start another. We also can't figure out how "play with a friend" works. Hopefully they will work out these issues and we'll be able to raise our rating again.
Super relaxing to play, great audio to just chill out. Gameplay is deep but rules fairly easy to pick up.
Wasn't sure how this would look on our iPhone 5S, but it's beautiful. Gameplay is fascinating too.
This is a pretty much perfect implementation of an excellent board game! If there's anything wrong with it at all we haven't found it. Great work.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.3.1
- Size: 229.35 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Dire Wolf Digital LLC
Last updated: 3rd October 2025 | Genre: Board, Strategy | Developer: Dire Wolf Digital LLC