Last updated on December 17th, 2025 at 05:59 am
Roia – Adventure Game Review
Roia is a Adventure/Education/Puzzle game from Tobias Sturn, first launched in 16th July 2024.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 23+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Roia Stand Out
Embark on a marvelous adventure as you follow a river from its humble beginnings to the vastness of the sea in Roia. Sculpt the terrain according to your imagination, guiding the water's descent. Along the way, a bird will be your companion, leading you through rugged mountains, dark forests, and sun-drenched meadows. Step into Roia's world and be enveloped by the unmatched serenity of nature, where every moment is a profound journey into the depths of wonder and discovery.
Features:
- Innovative new game mechanics
- Handcrafted landscapes
- Many different exciting, challenging and diverse obstacles
- Striking, unique, minimalistic graphics
- Beautiful music that was specifically composed for Roia
www.roiagame.com
This Adventure game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Roia is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 25th July 2024
Recent improvements include:
We listened to your feedback and made the town chapter easier.
Download & Availability
Roia is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
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:
Such a peaceful and beautiful game! Im lucky to have stumbled upon this gem. From sculpting the land to watching the water break into tiny blue strands, this game has become one of our favorites. Roia is easy to understand and all you need is two fingers. This game gives you the chance to appreciate the land we stand on. Great work.
We absolutely LOVED this game – if you have the patience to beat all the hard parts then we think this beautiful game is meant for you. We beat the entire game but there are parts where it gets difficult, finding out this was made by a solo dev blew our mind! Its so cute and minimalistic though sometimes we got lost and we couldnt find the bird haha but we downloaded and took a break last night and completed it this morning ! We need to find more games like this.
Theres something about being able to move mountains (and take them away) that makes this game so appealing. Its clever, interesting, intriguing interspersed with whimsy. Its more problem solving than game which makes this one very unique. Its a keeper for sure. Try it.
The game is very relaxing and feels rewarding when you get the water to go to the places you want it to go. Basically, we just want more of the game to play as its such a terrific base. There a few things that could make the game perfect: Sometimes the water gets lost behind things. A way to see through obstructions would do wonders. Some terrain can only be lowered so much, but thats not communicated to the player. (Darkest purple colors denote this). Some sort of feedback when the terrain wont move anymore would help a lot. More decorations or buildings or animals on the top of the mountain. Land Bridges.
We got to the part where you have the three canoe characters. No matter what we do, once they get to a certain point of the mountain, they flip over. We dont get it. Otherwise, great game.
Before we give our feedback, let us just say that we really enjoyed playing this game! Anyways, some parts are definitely a lot harder than others which we have nothing against we actually enjoyed it. We just feel like theres a huge gap between whats hard and whats not lol. The only real piece of criticism we have is that the game is short. It took us 30-40 minutes to complete. Other than that we really enjoyed it.
The game is fun, but it needs to be longer or have more maps/ chapters. We finished the whole game in like an hour.
First we want to say that we love the idea and appreciate that something this nice is coming from a solo dev! Many of the ideas in here are lovely. We had originally wanted to rate higher but we are completely stuck in chapter 3 or so. Ive read in comments that there are walkthroughs but the potential beauty of this game to us isnt in completing it but making our way through and seeing all the sights. We are stuck at a place where it is unclear how to proceed. Some of the things Im rubbing up against are clarity that is lost because of the visuals, the limitations of the interactions and their feedback, and the inability to rotate the view, forcing a very clumsy constructing at times. It also feels like where something like this could be really fluid, natural, and open ended instead im guessing the path the devs want us to take. Other things like resetting the current chapter seem to be missing obvious needs. Overall it feels like the game could greatly be served with a whole lot of user testing, feedback and smoothing of the rough edges, it feels like there is so much potential and such a lovely start.
Gameplay is pretty good for the concept of game. Does only take about 30 mins to complete the game and thats it. Sadly feels like a waste of money for what the game is. Could be a lot better if there were more chapters.
But the controls make it unloveable for us. You mold terrain in 3D, but your view is 2D. Flowing from peak to peak is difficult with poor depth perception, and the lack of 3D view makes the controls feel unpredictable. We are open to the idea that Im dumb or missing something, but something is definitely very unintuitive here. In addition it definitely feels like there is a correct answer for your path, but there is very little guidance. Combine all that with a frequent lack of landmarks, and we often didnt know if we were progressing or reworking the same bit of river over and over. We think game play needs to be less rigid, or else more guidance. We got stuck and gave up. Maybe Ill revisit, maybe not.
Moving the terrain is really smooth, and the water responds predictably. Its as fun as it looks from the screenshots! Two small spoilers: 1. Its all one mountain, not separate levelsyou keep the same water going on and on. We like that. 2. The little bird shows you where to go next. Dont ignore it.
Why is this random mobile app one of the hardest games Ive ever played? The music tells us to relax, the game play shows the horrifying destruction of water. We cant pass chapter 6 because we cant figure out how to flow the water around the houses at all? Despite trying for over 2 hours, we cant figure it out. Like being a hard game is fine, but maybe dont make it so frustratingly hard it ruins the core message of your game, which is to relax. Lol.
Controls are difficult on our iPad – maybe its just too old (gen 5). Too bad, seems like a nice relaxing game.
We finished this game in 25 minutes. Was a great concept but was shocked when it ended so fast.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.01
- Size: 212.90 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: HR, CS, EN, FI, FR, DE, EL, HE, HU, ID, IT, JA, PL, PT, RO, RU, ZH, SK, ES, SV, TH, ZH, TR, UK, VI
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: [Tobias Sturn]()
Last updated: 25th July 2024 | Genre: Adventure, Education | Developer: Tobias Sturn