Last updated on January 18th, 2026 at 08:40 am
Mysterious Castle – Roleplaying Game Review
Mysterious Castle is a Roleplaying/Strategy game from Jeremy Jurksztowicz, first launched in 22nd September 2011.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 26+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Mysterious Castle Stand Out
A minimal touch interface controls a party in a turn-based adventure set in a procedurally generated open world filled with monsters and treasure.
Play in your browser at https://www.mysterious-castle.com
- Control 1-4 characters as they explore and engage in tactical turn based combat with enemy parties of monsters in a labyrinthine open world.
- Procedurally generated world plus varied monsters and items makes for endless playability.
- Use combat techniques, spells, bows, wands, staffs, potions, sneak-attacks, and more to dispatch monsters and make your way to the bottom of the network of dungeons that dot the forest.
This Roleplaying game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Mysterious Castle is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 11th July 2024
Recent improvements include:
- Angel enemies and epic characters are now more powerful.
- Demon enemies are now slightly more powerful.
- More enemies are generated in very high level dungeons.
- Increased the size of the necromancers party by 50%!
- Rebalanced
banishspell:- It cost more to prepare.
- It has a lower chance to banish enemies.
- It deals more damage to enemies that resist banishment.
- Added "out of bow range" message when enemy is too far to shoot.
- You can now use help mode to see epic characters racial modifiers.
- Tapping on an item name when in help mode now brings up item info.
- Fixed a bug when moving equipped offhand items broke your inventory.
- Fixed a bug where if you 'put' an item in your inventory it would disappear.
- Fixed a bug where a corpse over a secret door would prevent selecting either, and block 5 foot steps.
- Fixed a bug where you couldn't dismiss the map view unless tapping on specific areas.
- Fixed iOS tap coordinates bug for multiple iPad and iPhone models.
- Fixed resolution for iPad Mini 6th gen.
Download & Availability
Mysterious Castle is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Mysterious Castle 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:
Mysterious Castle is a great little gem of a roguelike that strikes an excellent balance of simplicity and depth. Definitely worth your time and money to give this one a thorough play.
This game needs documentation badly. We still can't figure out how to add found spells to the spellbook. Took us forever to figure out how to rememorize spells,not to mention trying to figure out why our characters couldn't shoot their bows. The UI elements are too small on an iPone 4S screen, we frequently select the wrong thing on the screen. The author's website has the same issue BTW on the iPhone. One can't see things on the screen very well (such as food to pick up). SIne this is the only way to heal, it's a critical flaw in the UI design! The swipe gestures are somewhen glitchy. They aren't responsive enough, and the downswipes are commonly registered by opening the notification pulldown… :/ The video tutorials take too much time to wade through when he info could be succinctly presented in a written document. But… The fighting mechanics are great! It's too bad they aren;t documented well nor controllable very well because of the bad UI. Also the skills aren't explained anywhere. And how to use all of them. :/.
This is a great, classic, dungeon crawling experience. The touch interface is fairly easy to get used to. The only problem we have is that it's really hard. We put the difficulty alk of the way down and we still end up running out of fruit and dying. Besides this great game and worth the price.
Our party just got exploded by a giant and a beholder. We've been playing this instead of skyrim Keep up the updates.
Update! We enjoy the game. We got it to run now that we upgraded our phone. Fun game. New update to game is much better too.
We like RPGs, especially isometric ones. At first we wasn't going to spend the money when we can get tons of other games for free, but we're glad we bought this one. It's actually quite addictive, despite being somewhat "generic"- reminds us of "Castle of the Winds", only slightly better. It's got a very nostalgic feel, and we like the random maps – adds replay value. There are some minor bugs, and having to double click nearly everything took some getting used to, but we think this game is worth the price.
This game might have the most painful to use interface we've ever encountered. Requires you to double-tap-confirm virtually everything, even with that option turned off. No way to compare items except by equipping all of them, and auto equip doesn't appear to work. Discarded items fall on top of unlooted corpses, obstructing them; chests cannot be looted while any enemies are present, and the wait button appears constantly – most often when there is nothing else to do but wait. The overlay screen remains present on the character sheet, obscuring your stats. A headache-inducing mess, and the most unpleasant game we've encountered in recent memory.
In our earlier review, we said we were broken because it didn't generate new maps. We fixed this by closing the app a few times while it was trying to create a new world. This fixed it. We think three new worlds the normal way now.
This game is a gem! How many options are there that incorporate party gameplay, tactical positioning, and replayability? Support independent developers – you wont be disappointed.
We love the concept and the gameplay. Even on cakewalk it's still a good challenge. Read the website for directions and hints otherwise it's a lot of trial and error which could be frustrating for some. Thank you for a great game.
We can't get the app to even start. We've tried rebooting and reinstalling it, but nothing seems to get this one to run. We're out our $3.
Used to play this back on our iPad 2. Its a great roguelike, with a sprawling world, and most unusually, a party based system. Its one of those one-person passion projects that often have rough edges (the interface), but have more content and passion than any number of slick, quick corporate money grabs. Some years back, it vanished from the app store, and then was lost, we thought for good, in the 64 bit purge. We were wrong. We were scrolling through our uninstalled software list and we see it again, with a fancy new icon. No way, we think, but yep, its the same game. Only now we can use a mouse in iOS 13 and its even more fun than we remember. If you like your old school roguelike dungeon crawls mixed with some open world exploring and classic Ultima vibes, with some nicely tactical combat, this is the game youre looking for. So glad to have it back.
We thought this game was dead! We remember having a ball with it when it used to be up to date. Good thing we rediscovered it! Never thought we would be playing this game again. #FreeHongKong.
Either are present. Every new world we generate has the exact same environment, objects, and terrain. Not impressive esp when you advertise procedural generation. And theres no tutorial which means you have no idea what you should be doing and what you can be doing. Tease.
To access inventory and menus, swipe finger up, left, down, or right. Go to dev website (non mobile) to access instruction doc at top of screen. This game rocks!! Play on.
We bought this game on impulse, and though we don't regret it, we were disappointed in the game. There is a lot of depth and interesting mechanics in here, but they are wrapped up in a user interface that is difficult to work with. On one hand, having no UI chrome makes for a pretty clean screen, but on the other, the devs have omitted any sort of instructions for how to actually use the app. For instance, only now after looking at the comments did we learn that you could even access inventory for characters; we had no idea, because as far as we noticed anyway, there was no mention of this. Our overall impression is that this is a flawed game that is one or two dev updates from being a solid game. We love the tactical combat, the variety of playable characters, even the graphics (although they are taken from public-domain tilesets, they are well-integrated and attractively done, especially in regard to line of sight and light levels), but ultimately, it's hard to recommend this game because of the UI issues. If you're inclined to like this sort of game, we'd say either go ahead and buy to support development and struggle through the UI, or watch this for an update and see if the UI concerns have been addressed. (As a side note, our version also crashed on first launch, as mentioned by other reviewers, but rebooting the device fixed that and it hasn't crashed since.).
Seems pretty good so far. How do we save a game though? We see save slots but no option in game to save a game. A help screen would be a good idea. Also some type of high score screen. What about character inventory? Is this in the game? If so we can't find how to bring it up in the game.
No instructions. No visible way to access a characters inventory. How the heck do you get back spells? Good attempt but help.
We would love to start playing this, but we can't get past the main menu. We want to rate this higher, but we won't until this is fixed. Please hurry.
We have an IPOD touch 4 gen and this game still crashes constantly. Game looks like it might be fun but all we've ever seen is the title screen.
Can't get past title screen. DON'T BUY.
Requirements should state that this game currently only works with iPhone 4 or 4th Gen iPod Touch. (Information found on game web site.) This information should also be stated in the game description. We can appreciate the amount of effort that went into the making of this game. But because our iPod Touch is not 4th Generation, we basically just lost $2.99.
This game is definitely challenging, but worth it. Ive played through it so many times, both solo and with parties, that Ive adjusted to our one complaint; the quirky interface. The game is based on the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5e ruleset, so referencing an srd might help explain things. One thing thats not obvious is that trees, shrubs, and stumps provide cover from enemy attacks. Also, you have the option, when soloing and killed, to reincarnate as the creature that defeated you. This is by far our favorite aspect of this game; demon lords and ancient vampires are the best! Now just waiting for an iOS 11 update so we can get back to adventuring.
This game is a very fun and very challenging old school tactical RPG. Requires a good bit of planning and strategy and you always feel like you're on the brink. You can tell the developer had fun making it. 5 stars despite the flaws – just know that this is a low budget indie game. The single most sketchy thing about it is the situation of the "enable Permadeath" button. You have to swipe past it every time you go to the menu screen, and the "are you sure?" Is always popping up accidentally. One stray touch and your game is screwed. The game glitches every now and then, and you can become stuck in the walls- be sure to save in case that happens.
This is a really amazing game, but we think you should add a better app icon, this is our option would make more people buy the game because it would look more professional.
We have played these games since the days they used a text terminal on a dec 10… And pretty much the whole time wanted one to be party based. This is it! Fun and fast playing as these games go. Bit of a learning curve, a little skimpy on info, interface "features", but 5 stars none the less because it is interesting, fun, and fits our handheld gaming style.
This pixelated RPG game is absolutely one of the best we've ever played. It's randomly generated maps never let you down nor do the cute little NPCs/characters.
The game overall is pretty good. It takes a few tries before you get the hang of it. The UI is very clunky in terms of trying to target the right tile especially when there are things on door archways. But once you can get past the initial problems the game gets a lot more fun.
We cannot download it now because the company hasnt updated the game. We think Im gona cry.
It tried to be DND like, but failed. The graphics sucked, the game play was horrible, It almost always screwed up every command given to it, nothing worked right, and your characters were ALWAYS being wiped out. Over all, don't get this game, or you'll regret it. We wish we could've given it a zero, it was so horrible.
Love this little treasure. Develop it further. We'd love to help or inspire.
Great atmospheric music. Great game. Great loot. Great characters. But for us, we like hearing some weapon related sound effects when we hit and miss, rather than a simple generic bleep or bloop. How about a clang! Or a swoosh! When we hit or miss? Or how about the sound of walking… You know actual footsteps? We know it's a small thing, but sound effects are a huge part to any game. Please concentrate a bit on this. Sound effects are cheap to obtain. Please get then in there.
At first we were put off by the controls. After playing Final Fantasy Tactics through to completion on our iPhone, we had some trouble figuring out how to play. However, dungeon crawlers aren't known for their accessibility, so we trudged on! This is now our favorite game on iOS! Our only complaint is there is no skeleton class available to play.
Extreme amount of complexity and depth for being such a simple premise. One of the better games we have played on ipad in terms of being casual and strategic.
Update: The latest version brings the long-awaited pinch-zoom feature, and with it the fun. Unplayable on iPhone… Until now!! This game is a time-warp blast. Reminds us of "Fairy Tale Adventure" for PC.
Very good already, frequent updates. Great tactical combat! Could have better explained controls.
Its a great game and we really like the graphics, but it crashes. Please fix this.
Summary: This game is an isometric roguelike with loads of replayability. You can have a party of up to 4 adventurers as you take on goblins, orcs, ogres, vampires, hordes of the undead, and more. For casual gamers, you get the option of playing in the normal or easy modes where health and resources are a bit easier to manage. For the hardcore gamers, you can play with a full party on the hardest level, or perhaps try to tackle the game with a solo character. Magic, swords, bows, wands, and various artifacts you come across will all be at your disposal and you can play this game again and again. We highly recommend this game for anyone looking for a unique roguelike experience on iPhone and iPad. As of version 1.11 The Good: – Not forcing the player to have to take all four characters to comprise the party adds new levels of challenge to an already difficult game. – Large map to explore with lots of treasures hiding in various spots. – Monster difficulty tends to increase the further away from the start point you go, but so does the equipment. The difference scales well-enough to make the game challenging throughout. – Monsters of different races (we.e. Ogre vs. Undead) tend to hate each other. One viable strategy (and sometimes the only strategy) is to lead these groups to fight each other, which can be both amusing and frightening, depending on how they fight each other. The Bad: – Monsters don't respawn, so once you kill everything on the map, there isn't anything left to do but restart. – Sometimes the height of a monster will completely block the view to the tile north of it. This makes the selection of moving to that square difficult and annoying. The Ugly: – The game can be a little crash happy at times – Navigating away from the game and opening a different app, then going back to the game will often cause it to restart. If you didn't save, you'll lose whatever progress you made.
Title says it all. There is promise here but the game needs work. For us it's more playable on iPad than iPhone.
We hope one day to play it. Unfortunately, it crashes every time it tries to generate a world for us.
This update makes this game still unplayable on the 3GS and perhaps others too. The game crashes when we save as well as loads map file incorrectly when returning to games. The original played fantastically so we really hope this game receives another update for us all.
Could be a decent game, but it's very poorly written. It seems to us that one button press should be enough, and that should never have slipped into a release. Also, fighting doesn't work. We rarely get an attack menu. This isn't worth .99 cents until it's more polished.
Games needs an update to have the screen fit newer phones. Also add different regions to make the game more diverse.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.62.1
- Size: 169.31 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
- Developer: Jeremy Jurksztowicz
Last updated: 11th July 2024 | Genre: Roleplaying, Strategy | Developer: Jeremy Jurksztowicz