Beloved mobile game Grindstone is coming to Apple Arcade last year. The developer bills Grindstone as a "puzzle-battle splatter-fest" that tasks players with tracing efficient, gory paths through hordes of cartoonish enemies. Grindstone is beloved by fans for its impressive soundtrack and remarkable level of polish, making it an exemplary mobile game and a big name on the Apple Arcade platform.
Apple Arcade became a pretty big name on the mobile game scene when it debuted in September last year. The service offers a sizable library of high-quality mobile games for the exclusive to the Arcade in of mobile platforms, though that obviously doesn't extend to console releases. Grindstone launched at the same time as Apple Arcade and is generally considered a perfect game for the system; it's accessible enough for players to give it a try during a free trial, but deep and compelling enough to get them to pay after the trial ends. To keep players subscribing, it even got an update earlier this month which added 50 more levels to the game.
Given how successful Grindstone has been for Apple Arcade, it's surprising to see the title migrate to a different system. A trailer posted to YouTube by Capybara on August 18th announced that the game will see a release on Nintendo Switch this fall. Keen-eyed fans might have spotted it earlier in the day, when it featured briefly in Nintendo's Indie World Showcase during a montage of indie releases.
It's pretty shocking to see Apple let such a solid exclusive go, but it's certainly good news for people who don't want to buy into Apple Arcade. As solid a deal as it is, there's good reason to avoid Apple's subscription service. The tech giant has recently been the focus of quite a bit of criticism for stifling app developers and gorging itself on an unfairly steep cut of the profit. This is likely best exemplified by Apple's recent conflict with Epic Games, which is currently taking legal action against the company for monopolizing the iOS distribution space. In such troubled times, it might be for the best that Grindstone is sneaking away while it can.
As of this writing no specific date for Grindstone's Switch release has been given. Nintendo players have plenty to keep themselves occupied in the meantime, as the same showcase that saw the announcement of Grindstone also heralded the surprising and immediate release of several new indie games. Nintendo might be falling behind in of big announcements, like what it intends to do about Mario's 35th anniversary, but it's certainly made August an exciting month for indie games. With the release of Grindstone on the horizon, the Switch's library just keeps getting better.
Source: Capybara Games/YouTube
