Lex Friedman keeps Strategery alive ↦

A new, but familiar, Strategery. Strategery was always one of our very favorite games in the early days of iOS. And by “we,” I mean large portions of the staff at Macworld, including both myself and Lex Friedman. Lex reviewed the app for Macworld, and we even gave it an award. It was a Hall of Fame iPhone game. Strategery—named for Will Ferrell’s made-up word during his impression of George W. Bush—was a take on the classic strategy board game Risk. Risk is a clunky game to play, with an awful lot of little plastic pieces and dice rolling. Strategery did away with that, resolving battles with a single tap while replacing the map-inspired board with a series of procedurally generated game terrains. It was really great. Now the bad news: The classic Strategery game, which hasn’t been updated for nearly a decade, doesn’t work on iOS 27, which (if you hadn’t noticed) came out today. I hate it when beloved software dies. And so does Lex, which is why he sprang into action and began building a game that could be a suitable Strategery replacement. (It was very good! I have played it a bunch over the last few weeks, via TestFlight.) But then something delightful happened, as Lex recounts: I loved Strategery. I didn’t feel good about knocking it off. So I reached out to the developers…. I had several delightful video conversations with Sumul and Courtland. And I lucked out: I found two of the nicest developers you could ever hope to meet. They still felt a ton of love for Strategery, they loved how many people still felt warmly about the game — but they didn’t have time to devote to keeping it updated. We worked out a deal for me to take it on. The result is that Lex’s game inspired by Strategery has become Strategery! Existing Strategery users will just get it as a free update. And new players can buy it for $5. Lex has added a few new features to Strategery, and with the consultation of the original developers, he’s restored some features he hadn’t even realized that he had missed. What a happy ending. Strategery would always have a place in App Valhalla, but it’s even better if it remains alive and well. Thanks, Lex.