Uciana 9+

Although it has a long way to go, it is still incredible

This is a relatively straightforward 4X game set to the tune of galactic empires duking it out over ever-decreasing expansion opportunities. You’re offered a good amount of control to balance the push-pull of building defenses or new colonies, versus scientific advancement or exploring. Each new game offers quite a few options to change up what sort of galaxy you’re dealt, nice for replay.

The UI is unorthodox but after some play I got mostly used to it, such as the way it shows tiers of screens as a sequence of buttons so that I can get right to the view I want. The colony screen could use tweaking or improvement; some information I wanted to know like colony income vs maintenance, I just couldn’t find. I also couldn’t quite wrap my head around automated building and never had the courage to leave it to its own devices.

In all I’m more than satisfied with this app for its asking price and look forward to seeing how it improves.

First of, there is a lack of no-microtransaction games out there and I'm glad to say this one is truly free of any p2w mechanics.

The Good: The is is a great strategy game that has a lot of depth and different pathways to explore.

The Bad: There is a certain level of refinement that is expected from a paid game and this game is pretty cluttered. Everything is a button with a loosely-related icon, no text descriptions. This leads to a very steep learning curve at the beginning. There are still some actions I feel like there should be, but I'm still not sure if I'm missing in the sea of buttons or they don't exist. Secondly, there is a whole lot of clicking for each round going on that really should be condensed down somehow. Thirdly, I did find that the audio over bluetooth frequently degrades into nothing over a few minutes.

Should you buy it? Its hard to say no to a 99 cent price tag, but if you are looking to spend I'd probably say find something more refined, otherwise this is still enjoyable and way more enjoyable than all the in-app purchase junk out there.