Stellar Horizon 12+

Neat game with solid framework and lots of potential

*Updated review below*
I'm having quite a bit of fun playing this. It's a solid space exploration/sandbox game. It has solid yet basic exploration, combat and trading gameplay. I am looking forward to seeing where this can go. I am surprisingly impressed with the implementation of the planetary landing and exploration. The gameplay is basic but surprisingly engaging. My only major criticisms are the difficulty of selecting stars (the star map doesn't help) and a lack of content, but the latter is understandable given the life of this project. Thanks!

Update: Ive jumped back into this game since I first reviewed this game a year ago, and the author has added a bunch of features. Planets now have flaura/fauna and explorable bunkers. Ships feature power management now. There are some graphical tweaks as well. This game is still fun and I forward to even more features to expand exploration, trading and fights! I really wish more games in the app store had the feeling of exploration that this one does.

My dream features would be:
-Smooth/real-time exploration of planet surfaces
-Selectable planets in navigation map
-More things to interact with in space (minable asteroids, discoverable things in solar systems, etc)

An update would be nice

It’s been a year without update so I’m not holding my breath however this is a great little sim if you can stomach some annoyances. Mainly planetary exploration. I’m good with the old-school dungeon crawling method that they’ve used by hitting a button and moving forward one frame at a time. The problem is the amount of time it takes to do anything on the ground. Maybe it’s just this iPad from 2017 however to move one space ahead it takes at least 10 seconds of the screen sitting there with the wait dial spinning like it’s loading. This is whether you turn or move in a direction. Exploring a planet is near impossible because of the amount of time it takes. No joke it’s like watching the Mars rover move but even slower. Navigation is also lacking, I haven’t found a way to click on a mission and have it pointed towards that star, and there isn’t a search feature so navigating around is a bit of a pain. I don’t understand why you can’t just click on a mission and have it have a navigate button so that at least you’re set to go, like a elite dangerous. It could be a fun little in the same however the developer really has not put in some quality of life stuff making it obnoxious. Planetary exploration really needs to be fixed, I’m OK with it being slow but the wait time to move anywhere is obnoxious enough not to play the game.

Great game, not your regular type of game

This is the only game on an iPhone that can match other games like elite dangerous so well. Most other games are over the top shoot em ups, but this game is so much more. With a whole economy and guild system it gets really in depth. Depending on the player this can be a good or bad thing. It will be a lot harder to learn and master but when you do, it can give so much content in return. It feels like every day I find something new that I had no idea was in the game such as wormholes, dinosaurs/life, monoliths, and so much more so when u find them it feels like you are progressing.
Overall this is a great game that is tough around the edges but if u can get over the graphical quality, controls, and the depth and complexity of the game and want a game to relax to and play any way you want, this is the best to get.

This game is great if you are an avid player of games like elite dangerous and no mans sky.

Developer Response ,

Thanks !!