The Kardashev Initiative
Sci-Fi Civilization Roguelite
Free · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Most games end with a score. This one ends with a eulogy — a short obituary of the civilization you led and lost. Free, fully offline, no ads or accounts.
Every civilization is measured by the energy it commands. Yours begins with one world, one star, and a choice.
THE KARDASHEV INITIATIVE is a hard science-fiction civilization roguelite. Guide your species from its first orbital stations to the energy of an entire galaxy — or watch it join the silent majority that never made it.
A COMPLETE SAGA IN 15 MINUTES
Each run compresses a thousand years of history into one session. Technologies emerge, colonies spread, crises ignite — and every ending, triumph or extinction, writes a chronicle worth keeping.
DECISIONS, NOT MICROMANAGEMENT
You won't shuffle build queues. You'll face the decisions that define a civilization: fund the Dyson swarm or militarize its budget. Liberate the AGI or cage it. Terraform the living world or preserve it. Your choices set flags history remembers — and their consequences return generations later.
THE GREAT FILTER IS WAITING
The galaxy is old, vast, and silent. Every run hides a Filter tuned to your civilization's weakness: its machines, its biosphere, its armies, or its own cohesion. Reaching Kardashev III means surviving what silenced everyone else.
MANY ROADS TO VICTORY, MANY WAYS TO DIE
Declare completeness at Type II. Finish a megastructure Great Work. Merge with your machines. Or gamble everything on the climb to Type III — knowing most who try are remembered only as quiet ruins.
HARD SCIENCE FICTION, PLAYED STRAIGHT
Dyson swarms built from dismantled planets. Wormhole gates showing lensed starlight. Matrioshka brains, von Neumann replicators, the dark-forest answer to the Fermi paradox. No magic, no shields, no sound in vacuum.
• Runs of 10–25 minutes, always ending in victory or defeat
• 500+ event cards with visible tradeoffs — no fake choices
• Seeded galaxies: every run a different map, story, and Filter
• A generated literary chronicle of your civilization's rise and fall
• Fully playable in English and German
• Offline and private: no accounts, no data collection
The silence of the galaxy is a question.
Be the answer.
Ratings & Reviews
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The Kardashev Initiative is now a Universal app — with a layout built for iPad and Apple-silicon Mac (a full-screen command console, not a stretched phone), alongside iPhone. English and German throughout.
The developer, Konrad Kern, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Konrad Kern
- Size
- 79.6 MB
- Category
- Strategy
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 18.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 18.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 18.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English and German
- Age Rating
9+
- 9+
- Infrequent
Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Copyright
- © 2026 Konrad Kern