Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 01:43 am
Root Board Game – Strategy Game Review
Root Board Game is a Strategy/Board game from Dire Wolf Digital LLC, first launched in 24th September 2020.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 4,055+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Root Board Game Stand Out
Play the digital adaptation of the beloved tabletop board game. Root is a game of adventure and war where 2 to 4 players battle for control of a vast wilderness.
The nefarious Marquise de Cat has seized the great woodland, intent on harvesting its riches. Under her rule, the many creatures of the forest have banded together. This Alliance will seek to strengthen its resources and subvert the rule of Cats. In this effort, the Alliance may enlist the help of the wandering Vagabonds who are able to move through the more dangerous woodland paths. Though some may sympathize with the Alliance’s hopes and dreams, these wanderers are old enough to remember the great birds of prey who once controlled the woods.
Meanwhile, at the edge of the region, the proud, squabbling Eyrie have found a new commander who they hope will lead their faction to resume their ancient birthright.
The stage is set for a contest that will decide the fate of the great woodland. It is up to the players to decide which group will ultimately take root.
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Root Board Game is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 15th December 2025
Recent improvements include:
Bug fixes and improvements.
Download & Availability
Root Board Game is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Root Board Game 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:
We have root the board game but we dont have many friends that play as well. This game solves that because of the online element. Plus the challenges are really fun. We would recommend this if you like root but cant play it often.
The first thing we noticed about Root was its art: cute anthropomorphic animals in medieval set dressing. Diving further, each group of animals represents a political force or faction in war for the woodland at large. These archetypes are split into two major categories, militants and insurgents. They play differently as their names suggest, militants exert force and generally have a larger presence in the woodland expanding from clearing to clearing, leaving a small garrison behind as their frontlines expand with the bulk of their forces. Insurgents on the other hand can similarly spread albeit without the military might to back that presence, instead their deployments represent a softer form of power that harbors the potential for great violence or exploitation if left unchecked. Each faction, both militants and insurgents, play differently. This expansive asymmetry and the many different combinations of the factions means no two games truly play the same. There is also a deck of cards with different suits that represent the varied denizens of the woodland, each faction can leverage these cards in their own way to accomplish their goals to end the war in their favor, alongside the universal options that each card offers. Theres more to consider with expansions introducing hirelings (minor versions of each faction that are mutually exclusive with their counterparts), and landmarks (special buildings that add flavor and a new mechanic to a clearing). Theres a lot to this game, we would suggest playing each faction at least once to get a sense of how each can influence the state of the game and its outcome. Also, we hate the vagabond, which is just a comment on our own preference when playing the game.
When a character loses, there are different poses they assume based on how many points they lost by. If you lose by a lot your character lies flat on the ground. If you lose by a little, most of the characters stand with their heads down and their hand on their opposite elbow. Except the vagabond. When the vagabond loses by a mere one point he sits on the ground with stars circling his head. It just makes it seem like hes lost by way more than he has. We always play the vagabond and this annoys us.
This game is amazing but we prefer the board game.
Fun, but get used to bugs in the IOS game.
Perfect adaptation of a fantastic game.
We play the physical game and this is awesome for online play.
Unironically the best board game of all time. Nothing else has tickled our interest as much as this gorgeous piece of art. We cant stop playing it and we probably wont ever. We bought the physical game first and this beauty Dire Wolf has crafted allowed us to better understand factions and play in our spare time when Im feeling lazy or when its not possible physically.
This is real strategy game and also if you want to get into this game on real life, this is a great way to start.
Contains a lot of skill use and strategy. Very good app. (Very cute characters!!!).
Both online and the actual board game are great! We have very fun times delveing for relics as the keepers in iron! Or playing as the ranger vagabond.
This game is fantastic if youre someone who already enjoys the Root board game or someone who is just trying to get into it. ONLY COMPLAINT, is the pricing of the expansions. At the end of the day this is a money maker that needs profit, however, maybe a couple bucks marked off the digital expansions or at least some codes in the physical board game expansions would be cool. A little scary already putting $10 into a phone game, then another $30 or so to get more content. But regardless of the complaint, we have been addicted to Root for the past two weeks and after getting our hands on the digital version, Ive been border line unstoppable in the physical game.
Very fun, love the battle style and easy to figure out :).
We used this to teach us how to play the physical board game.
Easier than the game board. Music is great, as well as the animation.
We love the board game and this is where we send friends that want to learn how to play each faction.
Is difficult, and inhibits what is otherwise a great game.
This game is super fun with amazing mechanics, but the AI plays this game dumber than an oscillating fan. If you want to simulate playing against people with intelligence of at least a rock, dont download this game. Just to the board game instead.
Great digital adaptation of Root. We wish there were more like this of our favorite board games.
During pass and play it would be great if there was a way to just hide and unhide the hand so that everyone can watch moves that affect other players. That is one of the fun aspects of the board game that the digital game lacks. Would be 5 stars if this was a feature.
Root is hands down our favorite board game, and this app is stellar on every level. It has every bit of the glory of all the strategy and asymmetry. The tone of both the animation and the music is right on. And as the cherry on top we have all the (current) factions to play around with. SO good. We will say its extremely helpful to have played the game in real life before trying to learn it on here. It automates a lot of different mechanisms of the game that would probably have gone over our head if we wasnt familiar with it already.
If you dig asymmetrical strategy this is one of the best.
Dire Wolf continues its excellent implementation with continued updates to the available expansions for one of the best asymmetrical board games.
Incredible adaptation of Root. 5 stars but will still share some quality of life things Id love to see: skipping is very slow, we also wish we could skip only plays Ive seen before, the timeout is very fast when we switch apps and come back (the whole game has to reload), sometimes it stays focused on a specific space when it should pan to display a move in a different space, maybe its too advanced but Id love to be able to set preferences for which pieces to lose in common scenarios (take out our sympathy token before our base). All in all, very well done thank you for so many great times.
One of our favorite games ever made. The digital app and its community are awesome. The one piece of feedback we would give to improve the app is faster movement speed and battle scenes with the factions to help gameplay move a little quicker.
This is a great implementation of an amazing game. Super excited that the Badgers are in.
Perfect and high quality port of the board game. This is probably the best way to learn a lot of the specific mechanics of the factions and the game.
App version gnar scoots! Yall crack hard on the box, but this digi flex is fresh for squirtin on the pot. Rollin thru all the toots so Im totes to the max. Ear vibes dangling fresh with ani frames speckin toasty on our eye orbs! Fresh forest nectar knockin twang w/ Robin Hoods jive-snap crispy danglers!! Its niiice.
Ive learned about 40-50 board games and based on every thing Ive tried, Id consider Root like the Stairway to Heaven of Board games. By far our favorite game. Each faction is like a game within a game and theyre all brilliantly checked and balanced by the other factions the game is a true master piece. Any functional adaptation of the game on iOS was always going to get 5 stars from us. This app deserves all the stars it can get just for making this game more accessible. But we do have some big things we thing need to be fixed: 1. When games end, half the time we cant see results 2. There needs to be some sort of log to show your wins and losses and stats by faction. Its a beautiful app, but without any sort of analytics its hard to see this app ever becoming a hub for competitive root. 3. There needs to be an option for ranked and competitive play. Too many people quit if they dont get the faction they want. An elo system like chess.com or some sort of ranking system is necessary to discourage quitting games. 4. The faction pop out needs to list all available actions. Its super irritating to play the moles or vagabond and have to open the rules to check actions instead of being able to see it on our faction card. It wouldnt even be that much more to add. Beside that, the app is a beautiful adaptation of the game. Its incredibly animated and there is so much care to really streamline what could be a daunting game for new players. The tutorials are excellent, but could maybe add a little bit more of the nuance from the law of root. The app already has great standing on the App Store. We think with some improvements this could have a thriving competitive scene and take off even more. Also its great news the marauder expansion is coming! Thanks for the great work so far, despite our comments we really think its a great app and totally worth getting.
If you like games with chits and bits, paralyzing amounts of options and infuriating mind games, well good.
Root is a board game that plays very similarly to Risk but amped up. Root is asymmetrical which means each of you plays a different species of animal which each have their own way of playing. This aspect is the reason why the game is so amazing. The game has amazing art, and wonderful card abilities. It is hard to learn but it is worth every hour Ive played, even our wife who isnt big into hard to learn games loves it.
This game is very good through the tutorial.
Game is great, but there is no audio coming out.
We bought this on steam a few years ago, but the AI was so bad it was unplayable. We bought it again on iOS hoping things had improved and we would have a good game to play on our iPad. The AI is still unplayably bad. The AI will ignore a faction one turn from victory to attack the lowest scoring faction on the board (we get when Eyrie does it due to decree, this isnt that). How hard is it to program some priorities in to target leaders.
Either this game is racked with bugs or it has lots of crazy unwritten rules. For example, when youre playing woodland appliance who knows why any faction can move to any other space but woodland appliance can only move to assigned spaces that the game decides? Think Im done with this. Recently the game designer had to publish a two volume set on all the esoteric rules of this game. So its simple but not really its as completed as D&D ?! Ok we feel manipulati joined a game we can do.
We like the factions they were actually in there and they are based on the actual board game, but we were still wondering when are you gonna add the other new factions they were already released.
Its a complicated game with a good bit of setup but the app really allows you to grasp the game and practice. Our only gripe is how long the bots take to do their turn, and how they dont have an option for skipping their turn.
If you are interested we this game this is a must buy. It has one of the best tutorials Ive ever seen. We wish we had had it before teaching the game and learning it ourselves.
Most fun Ive had with a mobile game in a long time! If you like strategy games this is for you.
We love the board game but sometimes its tough to find people to play and set up is a big deal and takes a lot of space. Thats where this digital version comes in handy. Great for learning the nuances of the game and practicing strategies. Love it . And ten bucks..what a deal. Hope Leder Games makes an ARCS app too.
Now if only we could convince our friends to play.
This game changed our life. Its not apple, nor dire wolf that deserves the credit. Its the team at Leder Games. Game on.
Great game. Relaxing, cute, good music, good mechanics, etc.
This is a great game. That said, its super annoying that the item that youre trading aid for is not selected by default. Ive missed tons of items because of not selected the usually lone and obvious item. Then inexplicably, theres no undo. If you guys good fix this it would be great.
If youve ever wanted to play the tabletop game, or wanted a more portable version of the game that you could play anywhere then we highly recommend this.
Lots of action of root with great graphics and extra chalenges.
Such a fun game. Ive been playing asynchronous with a couple friends who dont live near us anymore and its been a blast. Excited for more expansions to come out.
Love the game. But want lord of hundreds now.
Love the board game and enjoyed the app. Lots of love put into this and the developer actually listens to what is wanted through the feedback options. Im sure we wasnt the only one asking, but made a request for a skip recap feature, and within a week was added. Love to see that.
Ive been playing this app for 4 years. It truly never gets old! An asymmetric war game with amazing factions. The way direwolf brought this board game to life is insane! Its a masterpiece! We just have one question. PLEASEEEE give us some news about the mauraders expansion!! Is it in the works? Almost done? In the middle? Will we get it this year? Next year? Please give us something! XD.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.1.3
- Size: 505.08 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: CS, EN, FR, DE, IT, JA, PL, RU, ZH, ES
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: Dire Wolf Digital LLC
Last updated: 15th December 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Board | Developer: Dire Wolf Digital LLC