Shivah
Step into the gaming world with Shivah, one of the top $1.99 games in the App Store! Crafted with creativity and innovation by WADJET EYE GAMES, LLC, this captivating Adventure game is bound to grab your attention. With its content rating of 12+, it caters to a wide audience. Ever since its release on 21st November 2013, it has been constantly updated, with the latest version rolled out on 29th May 2015.
Whether you have a liking for Adventure, Role Playing, games, Shivah is sure to keep you hooked!
User Ratings
Join the crowd of 36 gamers who have given their verdict on Shivah.
Ready to take on the adventure? Get Shivah now from the APP STORE.
Dive into Shivah
The Shivah: Kosher Edition – Completely remastered with all-new graphics and music!
Russell Stone is a Jewish rabbi at a struggling synagogue in New York City. He is a devout man with a problem – membership is down and he lacks the funds to keep his synagogue open. Things are looking very bleak, and he has grown progressively more cynical and bitter with the passage of time.
Just as he is on the verge of quitting, he receives some intriguing news. An estranged member of his congregation has died and left the rabbi a significant amount of money. A blessing? Or the start of something far more sinister? Can Rabbi Stone just accept the money and move on, or will his conscience get the better of him? Step into his shoes as he travels all over Manhattan in his attempt to uncover the truth.
Features rabbinical conversation methods, a unique method of fighting, a haunting score, and three different endings depending on your moral choices.
REVIEWS
PocketGamer – "Its unique cast of characters, intriguing storyline, and sharp detective-style conundrums mean it’s well worth playing this thoughtful and pensive adventure." Score: 9/10, Gold Award
Cult of Mac – "Tricky puzzles, a great hero, and an interesting plot." Score: 5/5
148Apps – "The perfect bite-sized adventure that’ll whet one’s curiosity for many answers to life, death, choices, and mystery." Score: 4.5/5
MacLife – "The Shivah makes the jump to iOS gracefully. It’s rare that a game’s plot, characters, genre, and platform mesh as neatly as they do in this short and bittersweet tale." Score: 4.5/5
IGN Italia – "The Shivar: Kosher Edition represents a great opportunity to play a solid, mature, fascinating and original graphic adventure." Score: 8/10
Adventure Gamers – "The Shivah’s interesting clues system, well-written dialog, logical puzzles and fascinating commentary make it easy to recommend." Score: 4/5
GameZebo – "The game addresses philosophical questions that have been with humankind since we first learned how to look upwards and wonder. … The Shivah: Kosher Edition doesn’t have all the answers, but it does supply a top-notch adventure experience." Score: 4/5
The Onion A.V. Club – "The Shivah fits a compelling moral conscience over a tight decision tree, and compared to [other titles], its rewards are subtler and more satisfying."
What’s Fresh in the Latest Update?
Discover what’s new in the recent update of Shivah on 29th May 2015:
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
Warning: This update invalidates old saved games.
Updated for 64-bit native builds.
Fixed bug that caused the game to crash randomly.
Fixed bug that caused sound to cut out after phone-calls.
Replaced buggy sound sliders with check boxes.
Increased size of GUI text to be more visible on phones.
Hear from the Players – Shivah Reviews
Find out what gamers are saying about Shivah:
We’re psyched that this came to iOS. We’re a big fan.
The game is on the short side and occasionally a little scripted, but it is definitely novel, unique and enjoyable.
Wonderful games (along with Blackwell series), perfect for iOS. Interesting, adult, serious – unlike most of that genre, so feels unique.
We Strongly suggest anyone who is reading this , who is deciding to buy it or not to consider two points of this game. One: this game has a very Interesting Plot, has a creative twist in it. It certainly has some unique ideas added in like religion, mysteries, etc… We strongly suggest you to take a look and preview it in YouTube. Two: The bad part is that the game is too short. We played for 2 hours and solved nearly everything in the gAme. It should be updated to extend its story plot. For 1.99, you are not capable to play it for a long time because you will solve the story Really FAST.
This little title goes so far. It brings out the best in what video games have to offer in how they mix gameplay and story with faith. The mobile port isnt half bad either, and the story and characters drive it above all. Totally worth the quick 2hr play through, and inspiring for where games and culture can overlap. 5/5!
Compelling if illogical story with great music and Yiddishkeit themes. A nice addition to your Israelite games library.
We love all of Wadjet Eye games and The Shivah didn’t disappoint. This game is more like the Blackwell series than Gemini Rue (the best!) but more austere, shorter and with complexity. It’s a story of a rabbi who is caught up in a crime, you have to navigate the rabbi through the clues as he tries to find out who did what to whom. The beauty of the game are the moral dilemmas. If you behave justly then you can win this game that has more than one outcome. We had to play a few times before we figured out that moral choices is the key. There are some difficult clues in the game so u really have to focus and search for clues. We would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for something different and enjoys games that are wrapped up in a story that has good flow. We hope Wadjet Eye continues to develop more games for Mac as we would but any game they dream up. We have fun with their stories and creative play. We only gave this four stars because this game is relatively simple compared to their others. Great visuals, no glitches, they have a sense of humor and it didn’t leave us too frustrated or bored.
Can’t put the password in the Computer when we put in yanto it don’t work for the password it says no user name or password.
We played all the Blackwell games and enjoyed them, but this one was disappointing… It’s dull…. The music is repetitive and annoying…. And the solutions in places are so specific that it becomes a frustrating chore to play rather than fun. There are more things we could kvetch about but we think you get the idea. Go ahead and spend your money if you must… It’s only $1.99…. But it only gets two stars in our book.
This game got on our nerves in several ways: – All the dialogue is wannabe-deep. It’s hoping that if you say abstract things in a deep, troubled voice, you can sound profound. You don’t. – the voice acting is high school theater quality – the Judaism-based backstory is empty. Basic Jewish words are mispronounced or misused. Jewish concepts are misapplied. It seems like not a single Jewish person was involved in the game’s making. – the game mechanics are OK. There is a clue gathering and combination system that is never explained. It’s too easy to get stuck. Every room is full of objects that are meaningless. This game might have been good in 2007, but it’s subpar for 2016. Don’t waste your time. There are better games to be played.
When you get stuck, you have to start over. What? You read correctly. You get choices of what to say and how to say them and if you pick the wrong choice, you are done and can’t finish. Most games wouldn’t let you get stuck like this. The story would be good and we can accept the old style game drawings of not for the disappointing game play. You could put 2 clues together but you wouldn’t know to try that since they are not objects. Too many usernames and passwords. It’s the same puzzle over and over. Nothing to really click on and since when does a rabbi investigate? Oy, call the police and get some gefilte. We want to like it but we’re going to move on to something else.
Not sure how a company that released good games allowed themselves to release this one. We guess someone came with the idea that Jewish theme will attract many Jewish people which is a good market. Looks like the company gave the development of this game to some newbies when the others were working on a different game. Looks like the developers had no experience with point and click games for the next reasons: 1. Its a short game but we never had to check the walkthrough so many times. Things do not make sense like trying to find the user/password of different people 2. There is no inventory. The inventory includes 3 items which can not be used in the game 3. When you talk to people you wrote notes. They had an idea you can combine notes to get different conclusions. It was supposed for maybe 2 combinations only. Idea by someone that didnt work and they decided to go with what they already written. 4. Only few characters – very basic movement. Poor graphics 5. The way to win to game is almost impossible. When you see the walkthrough you will understand. It makes no sense so dont waste your time and go to the walkthrough. Sad that such a company produces such a low quality product.
Highly recommended if you like ’90s adventure games. A detective mystery without the tired detective mystery clichs. Excited to play the dev’s other game, Gemini Rule, next.
Loved this game, wish there were more games like this one on the App Store. A little short but still worth buying.
This is such a groovy game; we wish there was a sequel!
Not very long, but a nice little retro adventure.
Shivah got a Gemini Rue makeover for the iOS, which is awesome both for old and new fans. We need more point and click adventure games like this. Hopefully Shivah was successful enough that Wadjet ports or makes new titles for the iPad crowd.
We really enjoyed this pensive gem. Great voice acting and a solid mystery. A memorable "anti-hero" main character as well.
First off your a fan of classic point-and-click then Shivah is worth your time. The rabbi character is a welcome change from the typical hard-boiled detective that one usually find in this type of adventure. The puzzles in this game are simplistic and typically revolve around solving computer passwords; However there is some decision-making and alternate endings. In short the only major problem for fans of this genre is that shivah is just too short, expect about 1:30-2:00hrs of gameplay, there is a commentary mode to give some replay but quite frankly it all just wraps up as it getting started. For $1.99 however you get a few hours of classic adventure and support a company that is filling a niche in the adventure market.
We’re happy we finally played this game. The story is compelling. It is short but the length feels appropriate. Be prepared to navigate dialogue trees instead of inventory puzzles to progress. The adaptation to a touch screen is well done. But, to the developers, please cut out the lengthy opening. Why do we need to watch it every time the app launches and after you die? We love the bonus material at the very end, nice touch.
Good story but puzzles are limited to figuring out passwords and conversations. Very short game. Bad design, takes few minutes to navigate back when you die.
After playing Gemini Rue we figured I’d give this game a shot. However, as someone pointed out, there are only a handful of simple puzzles and the game is extremely short (less than an hour of good gameplay). At "the end" we expected the game to pick up, as if we just finished the prologue. Of course "The End" was definitely an unexpected screen to pop up. We think for the length, $0.99 is a reasonable price. Note: On iOS 7, whenever you tried to get to your inventory, the slider pops down as well so hopefully this annoyance will be fixed in the future for anyone buying this.
We loved "The Silent Age" but so disappointed in "Shivah"; the Rabbi just keeps rambling on, there are so few clues to gather or use & the actions require a variable amount of useless repetition to proceed to the next action. Plus why do we have to look at a photo of the producers to find out we’ve come to a clue – really?!?!? Get back to work on part two of the silent age, Please.
This is the second Wadjet Eye game we’ve played. To our understanding, this was the first game released. We enjoyed it thoroughly and can see replay value in it. There are multiple endings according to your in-game decisions. The first game we played was Gemini Rue. Shivah is not as epic, but if you like Gemini Rue then you will like this game as well.
This is a smart, detective, problem-solving game with a decent storyline and good interactivity. We really dislike when people rate games lower because they aren’t good at solving puzzles. All of the clues you need are in the context of the story so pay attention. P.S. Before you give brilliant games lower ratings, there are walk throughs online for virtually every game. If you’re not good at logical reasoning, this isn’t for you. As for us, we can’t wait for more from this developer.
Buy this game, you will not be sorry… Though we might recommend turning the speech off.
This game is awesome. We are glad that now we can take it with us.
We guess we were hoping for a deeper world than the freeware version for the PC had. We want to know what parsha the scroll at Beth Tikvah is open to. What kind of books are on Amos Zelig’s bookshelves? Is there a dusty pair of boxing gloves in the crawlspace? What do the pictures in Rajshree’s apartment portray? Why can’t we see for ourselves the horror that Paddy O’hare’s bathroom is rumored to be? In short we want more in- game toys than a computer based joke book.
After initial login to rabbi’s computer, password won’t work anymore which makes search for information impossible. Stuck after talking to wife abt Joe DeMarco as well as anything else in warehouse besides email and ledger. Could you at least help with the login. Problem?
The game is very easy to get stuck and is very short. Few of the logic puzzles have large gaps.
We like puzzle games that make you think but this one is irritating. Slow pace and figuring out next steps is ambiguous at points.