Tides of Time

Review by eFreeware

If you and one other person regularly end up with twenty minutes to fill and a single phone between you, Tides of Time is built for exactly that situation. It is a paid adaptation of a two-player card drafting game, and the appeal is the format as much as the game: just two people and a short, tense duel.

What it gives you is a complete, self-contained game. You draft from a small set of cards, pass hands back and forth, and score when the cards run out. The developer describes it as faithful to the original Portal Games card game by Kristian Čurla, and the digital version adds three levels of AI and a set of unique challenges on top of the local two-player mode.

I would expect this to land best with people who already enjoy tabletop card games and want something they can hand to a friend without a rulebook. It is not a long campaign or a sprawling strategy title; it is a tight, repeatable duel, and it asks you to think about what your opponent is holding as much as what you are.

A small deck with a lot riding on it

The premise is simple to state and harder to play well. Two players draft cards over three rounds, and every card belongs to one of five suits while also carrying its own scoring objective. That dual role is the heart of it: a card you take for its suit may hand your opponent a better scoring opportunity, and a card you leave behind may be exactly what they needed.

Because the deck is small, the decisions come quickly and the consequences are visible. The developer's own framing is that every card matters, and the structure supports that. There is no filler in a draft when the pool is this tight, which is why the game reads as light but plays as something more deliberate.

The three-round format gives the match a natural shape. You are not building toward a single final score in one long arc; you are playing three smaller contests, each of which feeds the next. That rhythm is what makes a session feel complete in a short sitting rather than truncated.

How a match actually unfolds

A turn is straightforward. You look at the cards in your hand, choose one to keep, and pass the rest to your opponent. They do the same, and this continues until the cards are gone. The tension comes from choosing under uncertainty, because you can see what you are giving away even if you cannot see what your opponent will do with it.

Once the hands are empty, both players score based on what they drafted. The scoring objectives printed on the cards decide how those points add up, so the value of any single pick depends on what else you managed to collect. A card that looks strong on its own can be worth little if the rest of your draft does not support it.

After each round, players retain one card for later and discard another permanently. This is where a match can turn. Keeping a card is a commitment to a plan; removing one is a way to deny your opponent something they were counting on. After three rounds, the higher total wins.

The result is a game that stays readable throughout. You always know roughly where you stand, and the between-round decisions give you a chance to adjust rather than simply watch a bad draft play out. For a game this compact, that is a meaningful amount of control.

Ways to play, and reasons to come back

The digital version offers two routes into a match. Pass-and-play keeps everything on one device, which suits a game where the two players are sitting together anyway. Alternatively, you can take on one of three AI levels, which gives you something to play against when no one else is around.

Three difficulty levels matter more here than they might elsewhere, because the game rewards reading an opponent. A weaker AI gives you room to learn the card interactions and the scoring objectives without being punished for every mistake, while a stronger one asks you to think about what it is likely to keep and remove between rounds.

The developer also includes unique challenges, which add specific situations to work through rather than straightforward matches. For a game with a fixed deck, that variety is useful: it gives you a reason to approach the same cards from a different angle instead of settling into one preferred strategy.

The game was released in March 2019 and has been updated as recently as September 2026, with the most recent change being compatibility work for current OS versions. That is a modest kind of update, but it suggests the app is being kept running rather than left behind.

What it costs, and what you get for it

Tides of Time is a paid app at $5.99. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, so the price you pay at the store is the whole cost of the game. For a two-player card game with an AI opponent and a set of challenges, that is a straightforward proposition: you buy it once and play it as often as you like.

The trade-off is that you are paying upfront for a narrow experience. This is a game for two players, played in short rounds, and it does not try to be anything larger. Whether that is worth the price depends on how often you expect to have a second player available, or how much you enjoy testing yourself against an AI.

It is also worth noting that the game has a 3.9 average from 307 ratings, with 10,000+ installs. That is a decent but not overwhelming reception for a paid title, and it suggests a committed audience rather than a mass-market one. If you are already interested in two-player card games, the numbers are unlikely to put you off.

A short duel that rewards a second look

The case for Tides of Time rests on its focus. It takes a small deck, a simple turn structure and a three-round format, and it asks you to make the most of limited information. The suits and the scoring objectives on each card mean that every pick is doing two jobs at once, and the between-round decisions keep the match from being decided entirely by the opening draft.

I would suggest this to people who want a two-player game they can play in a spare half hour, either against someone sitting next to them or against the AI. It suits players who like drafting, hand management and the small psychological game of guessing what your opponent will keep. The three AI levels give it a reasonable solo life as well.

If you are looking for a long single-player campaign, a large deck to explore or a game that plays well with a group, this is not built for that. It is a two-player card game, and it stays close to that idea. For the right pair of players, though, that narrowness is the point: a compact, repeatable duel at a one-off price, with no ads and no further spending.

What's new in version 1.2.4

Compatibility updates for the latest OS versions