TerraGenesis - Space Settlers Reviews

by Dhess26253789

I had TerraGenesis for a while, and then deleted it to save space because I wasn't using the game anymore. I recently came back to it, and have been playing a lot. I was working on terraforming both Mercury and the Moon almost simultaneously, and had just about finished Moon. All I needed was some more water, as sea levels were just barely above minimum for habitability, and population to get Culture Points to reach 100% independence. However, I came back today and was hit in total with the "time traveler" event a total of 5 times within several minutes. For those unaware of the nature of the event, it stems from cheating by changing the time on your device. However, I was not cheating in any way and have hardly even been on my phone today. I went from a near-perfectly terraformed Moon with an almost perfect ecosystem to a Moon with over 2,000,000 pressure and total mass extinction of all my 20+ species, not to mention other terribly affected statistics (surprisingly though, oxygen was only a little over 1,000 ppm away from perfect). To top it off, my credits went from around 50,000,000 to 100,000 in a matter of minutes. I understand that the point of this event is to prevent cheating, but by randomly activating without me cheating all it has accomplished is driving away me and my money I was once considering spending on more worlds than the basic three you start off with.

by Chazz Martin

If you’re someone who really loves watching progress happen in simulation games, then this is probably one of the most satisfying games you’ll play. After working for days to set up Mars for sustainable human life, I saw greenery spreading for the first time. I was mesmerized, watching it start from the shorelines and spread inland. And then coming back later to see that as the greenery thickened, it grew darker as well was pleasing.

My only downside is the time. This game requires you to be punctual if you don’t want to spend a lot of time undoing what you should have cams back for earlier to stabilize. I didn’t realize this in the beginning and turned Mars into a gas giant. It took so long to come back from that that it would have actually been better off to restart the game. Now I’m at the point where humans are living amongst Mars life freely, but I’ll be waiting a long time before I finally achieve victory because I put very few culture points into independence before. Now I just have to stabilize everything for the next few days while I wait for enough people to live on the planet before I can claim victory and am able to move on to other planets.

All in all, it’s a great game. Just make sure you pay attention to when you need to log back in to change things, or it’s gonna become a never ending nightmare.

by DramaticInsect

When I saw this game allowing players to use scientific reasoning to terraform planets, I downloaded immediately and spent a day carefully terraforming Mars. I am an environmental scientist who studies algae, so naturally I ate up all of the references to algae terraforming powers.

Now that I am nearly done with Mars, I don’t feel as if there is anything more that I want to do. I wish this game was more complicated to make it replayable. Even starting with a vastly different planet, the strategy is basically the same. I hope that this game will add more features as it develops. I could see a PC version of this where you can see the cities grow and change with architecture styles and building choices, the genetically engineered animals and plants you unleash on the surface, etc.

Some suggestions I have for new indexes are a happiness index increased with entertainment buildings, room in habitations, governor popularity, and whether they eat fruits and vegetables or just plain algae. Maybe plagues and starvation could decimate populations unless you have contingency plans in place. When oxygen rises, temperature should decrease. There could be volcanic eruptions. Maybe you can’t choose governors,but they are randomly elected once an out of game day. You should have the ability to set up natural parks. I just need more choices to make.

by Tweetnmessiah

I don’t even know where to begin with TerraGenesis.
It’s 100% as cool as it sounds. I saw it on Facebook and I never download them but it showed how well it was rated in TerraGenesis Store so I knew it had to be something legit. Gave it a try and now I’m addicted to it. There isn’t really too much I would change to the game other than being able to see ground level and have more control over what happens to the population. As far as what the game is, terraforming a planet, they did an amazing job. I’m sure you can control more but on the basic difficulty level (I highly recommend to start with) you can control the temperature, oxygen, pressure, plant life, money, population size. Everything is highly sensitive. Finding a balance takes time. This is a game that won’t take up too much time at once. You might only play this game a couple times out the day but it’s necessary to check in on your planet every once in a while. Random events and scenarios happen to the population and the planet which I really love.
From a meteoroid on track to hit you, to the population finding a great athlete to honor amongst them. It gives the game a story. You have to make a decision when those things happen immersing you into the game even more. And of course Every action has a reaction. The main task of this game is finding that balance. I’m so glad I found this game. The space nerd in me is ecstatic! I highly recommend!!!

by Lily28s

I absolutely love this game, it really is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. The science that’s incorporated in it is amazing. It’s important and essential to the core goal of the game instead of having the learning on the side completely unrelated. I probably play it a lot more than I should, my favorite part is watching the planets landscape transform as you start to terraform it. And the biosphere feature is complex and awesome. There’s a lot of thought that went to making this game as well as playing it.

I have some suggestions: It would be nice if, once you reach habitability the priority on the main page to stabilize would only show if you’re going away from your goal. Also I agree with some of the other people that the game is a bit of a money grab. You have to pay for almost all of the worlds, Maybe you could make all of the packs where you buy one planet and then have to complete it to unlock the other ones, or buy them with GP? Also please make it compatible with music and other sound. Fix these things and the game will be even better!!

Overall this is a super fun and well thought out game that I would totally recommend to anyone.

by Nakilashiva

While the initial game is free, to unlock the entire game it was $20 for me. Was worth it. Most games are filled with adds that just waste your time because they are free and that's how the game makes money. And then on top of that, most games have your in-game money, which runs out ridiculously fast, and then they have chips that you can buy with REAL cash to get more in-game money. NOT THIS GAME.

Yes, this game has all of those features, but you don't HAVE to use them to enjoy the game. First off, you can have several planets running simultaneously so you can kill time on one planet by just playing a parallel one. Easy. Second, the adds actually reward you for watching them, and they stack too. So you can watch 5 adds for 5 hours of a bonus and then you don't have to watch any more adds for that bonus. If you're REALLY impatient, you can buy more in-game cash, but it doesn't run out ridiculously fast like other games, so just wait a day and you'll have a huge stack of cash again that you can do lots of things with.

Really cool game with lots of in-depth features. It's basically a resource management game with cool graphics and atmosphere. The music is nice too.

by EHeidi

I rarely write reviews, but this game was so well-designed and enthralling that I felt that I had to do so. The graphics are stunningly beautiful and this game has consumed my attention since I downloaded it. It gives you the option to watch advertisements to gain currency, culture, and “Genesis Points,” which allow you to build faster, but offers the option in a very inobtrusive way, unlike so many games with obnoxious ads. I watch them occasionally to speed things along and support the developers. I also purchased Genesis Points because I love this game so much I felt obliged to pay something. At this rate, I’ll likely purchase the options to terraform other planets and moons as well. This is a game that is truly enjoyable without spending a cent or watching a single ad, though, and that can be won simply with some patience— which you’ll need anyway! I love the educational aspect and basis in science, and with just the most basic math and science abilities, you’ll enjoy this game as well. I’m looking forward to the next planets and moons already.

I also loved the book recommendations in the information section! The developers clearly prioritized the quality of the game and educational aspect over making a quick profit. I hope others purchase the optional moons, planets, and GP so the team can keep working on this game and more like it. This is the best I’ve played on iOS to date.

by Black•Star

Honestly, this is one of the few games that I keep coming back to on my phone because it is so satisfying. It’s so cool to watch your planet slowly change into a beautiful habitable world. It doesn’t happen fast, so you definitely have to put some time into it. You can certainly play the game without ever needing to watch an ad, but if you choose to watch the ads it can really speed up the process so that you can play it more instead of mostly AFK. I think that’s my only problem with the game though… I wish there was a bit more to do. You can probably only play for 20 minutes max before you run out of things to do then you have to wait for things to research or to be built. I think it would be cool if you could make one of your settlements the “Capital” and that settlement would have increased population growth or other benefits, and maybe it takes a culture point or two to declare a capital. I dunno, it’s just a thought!

Nonetheless, I really applaud the developers for making this game because there’s really nothing else similar on TerraGenesis store (to my knowledge) and it is right up my alley. Please keep working on this game, you have something great!

by Lloud_smpls

It's a good game! Bout a gross mission came up, offering me 100million if I watch I video. I was only at 5million so I was very happy but then another came up and deleted it. So I have to rate it 4 'cause of that. Also you should get a noifacation if your world has too much of something,

Good game!

Edit: you should also add other planets like proxima b, and that Kepler system with that habitable planet. (Sorry forgot name) and maybe even a solar system generator, and an option for you to find life in the solar system (1 - 4 bodies with life). Of course you would have lots of settings for that and probably only have 3 slots for that. Also the stars are lowest mass E0 to a A4 - 8 star with a usually long lifetime, also have an option to view the moons of gas giants, maybe even moons with 0.05 the size of Luna to view! Even in the solar system. Also have a boost size generator. Will be very expensive but vital for small Enceladus sized bodies which will give the moon 5 miles of land, which will slowly evolve into a average sized moon. But be careful with Phobos as it gets bigger, the more land will be pulled into mars which could devastate both, which could add an option to very slowly extend the orbit, (depending the mass, will change the maximum distance and minimum)

by 🐷PorkyFace111🐷

The title says it all. This game—which is based in real NASA science—allows you to colonize and terraform planets such as Mars, Mercury, Venus, and so on. While fun, this game definitely requires patience! Even the fastest levels generally take a few days. While only the inner solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon, and Mars) is available for free, that is still plenty of playable content, and the many more colonizable worlds are available for cheap prices—this isn’t the type of game that charges you 50 dollars for one level. Speaking of which, while in-app purchases do exist in this game—premium currency and such—they are definitely not needed. It is possible to complete the worlds without spending any money on in-game currency, not to mention that the game will basically donate the premium currency (known as Genesis Points) to you from time to time. That said, I have noticed a few small bugs—namely, city lights on Mars are sometimes blue for some reason, and if you change the language and an event pops up, any logs or history of that event will remain in that language, even if you switch the language again. Overall, however, this game is incredible, and the recent 5.0 update only made it better. Keep up the good work!

by DiloGamer01

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS GAME! I am already obsessed with terraforming planets and this game is fantastic! It might take a while to terraform a planet, but it is so cool! There are 4 factions and there is one faction that hates terraforming, (Sons of Hephaestus) one faction that loves it. (Daughters of Gaia, my personal favorite) One faction that wants you to have a 1 googolplex people, (United Nations Space Administration) and another that wants you to have 100 googolplex dollars. (Horizon Corporation) There are governors that boost or decrease your production of oxygen, water, pressure, temperature, etc. There are satellites that cost a lot of money, but help you a lot. There are no ads, but you can watch ads to boost your population, revenue, or cultural revenue. To win, you have to gain independence, and accomplish your faction’s goal, ex: Paradise habitability. If you select biosphere instead of biomass, you can genetically modify and create animals, plants and bacteria to fit your needs. If I could request something, I would ask for a city view, and make the satellites visible so you can see how it looks on the surface on the planet and how the satellite looks. I respect all the work edgeworks has put on this game, and I absolutely love it! If you haven’t downloaded it already, do it! It’s free!

by LonglivetheConstitution

This is an amazing game, not going to delve deep into that, but I think we can also add a few more things. First it would be cool to customize your own planets like a heat or cold bar or a switch that decides if you want your planet to be tidally locked or not tidally locked ( tidally locked means that the planet has a desert,ocean,or volcanic day side, and a cold and icy night side, reminder that the tidally locked planets never spin horizontally meaning it’s forever day on one side and forever night on the other side). Orbital rings would also be a very nice addition ( both Saturn rings and artificial rings that look like the halo rings from the game of the same name). An energy category like the temperature or pressure category could exist too, with wind,solar,and hydroelectric power plants. Once the planet has gotten a oxygen atmosphere you can also create coal power plants that decrease oxygen levels but can create more heat. Then there are fusion power plants that create massive amounts of energy with no side-effects. Also because you have a governor that created genetically engineered literal treehouses it would be cool if there was a giant tree thingy like the forest stand but BIGGER

by Lloyd_lyle

I honestly don’t know where to start, it’s a great game and I love the idea of it. I like how you get to see the planet change as you add atmosphere or water, I have finished all the planets that don’t require money and I enjoyed the result of seeing the whole solar system terraformed, I like normal mode as you have to check your game often to increase revenue, i like how you have to balance everything.

my overall recommend strategy is to go with the Gaians, and make the planet a paradise, fill it with cities, and fill the cities with coral reefs, coral reefs increase people, revenue, and biomass, so they are the best things in the game. Now for me often society collapses every 2k years or so, but starts back up right away

If I had to add anything it would be more interactions with the people, like taxing them to increase revenue, and they could have like a happiness rate, if it’s to low they could destroy facilities, if it’s higher than facilities could cost less, this happiness rate could also have its toll on how many people move in and move out! You could do a lot with this idea so I’d like to throw it out there. I doubt it will be added as the game is focused more on the planet than the in game people. But still a suggestion nonetheless.

by Swag Man 98

Great game! I just want to point out that the way people talk about the moon, they don’t say “the moon”, they just say “moon”. For example, when I enter the game I see: “Your colonists on Moon have earned 50,000c!” It would be better for them to say: “Your colonists on THE Moon have earned 50,000c!” Obviously it wouldn’t be like that, it would say: “the Moon” not “THE Moon”. Another way you could do it is to name it “Luna” instead of Moon. It looks nicer either way.

One unrelated thing I suggest is to get a notification if your planet is starting to reach inhospitable levels of something. It wouldn’t notify if you are already inhospitable and are going towards hospitable, only if you are hospitable and going to inhospitable levels of something. And also notify if you are at a perfect level of something and should balance the loss and growth so you don’t go towards inhospitable levels.

Another one (sorry I just keep getting new ideas), please make it so you can link two devices progress. I only play it on my iPad, but I want to play it on my phone too, but it's separate. If you could make it so we can link two devices progress that would be great. And when I say "link", I mean if you do something on one device, it automatically puts it on the other device, once they are connected to the internet.

by Trig Student

Yes, TerraGenesis is as cool as it sounds, if not cooler. While apps across TerraGenesis Store get simpler, and frankly, more boring, this app will bring life back to your game list. Literally! TerraGenesis truly has the depth of a computer game, and it runs great. It is very realistic and everything generates very slowly and visually so that you can truly see your planet, whether it be in our solar system, on the moons of the gas giants, dwarf planets, or many many other options (at least thirdy, each with its own intense description, plus randomly generated planets). It is visually appealing, and very high quality.

This being said, the game may not be for everybody. You have to have SOME kind of interest in Geology or Astronomy to truly fall head over heels for TerraGenesis. It’s still a great building and idle app if you don’t, but you may not be as fanatical about it as me. Also, as I said, it is mostly an idle app. You can have the moon’s atmosphere pressurizing in your pocket, but while on TerraGenesis there isn’t a WHOLE lot to do other than manage everything for about 10-20 minutes a couple times a day. You will not be on TerraGenesis all day, but TerraGenesis will be on all day. Keep this in mind.

Overall, if you’re thinking “this looks pretty cool”, GET IT. Seriously. It is NOT pay to play, it’s not cheap, it’s not buggy, it’s not boring, but it is sexy. Do it.

by Bobalinka

I really was enjoying this game a lot. I finished a few planets and then it was time to do earth. When I started earth it was already inhabited and everything was where it was supposed to be with oxygen, etc. I thought this strange. So I started doing research and mining. Went to bed. Got up next morning and my mines were lost to rising seas and all the inhabitants were gone. So I checked all the stats and everything was still perfect with oxygen,water, etc. Weird. So I built the thing that causes minus 4 water and built more mines. Next day it said they were lost to rising waters but that was impossible since the water had actually gone down a couple of hundred. So aggravating. So now I’ve been waiting for the population to build back up. My next culture point is at 4 billion so I’ll be waiting a while. Lol Was really enjoying this game until this happened. You have to be able to do math and figure out actions and counter actions. Taxes the brain. But when the game just erases things built and people for no apparent reason it’s frustrating. If you judge this game on the first few planets I played it is an amazing game. I was actually going to buy one of their packages but decided to wait after this earth catastrophe. If it goes back to normal I will probably wind up purchasing a package. It’s that good a game when it plays right

by Loard Of Ball

I didn't want to like this game, because I've never really been into terraforming or sci-fi games. this app is an exception to that, and with good reason. This game offers the challenge of having to balance environmental, socio-political, and economic challenges in a way that really makes it come to life. The attention to detail does stand out, with how different levels of Temperature, Pressure, Oxygen, and other things will change the appearance of your planet. The best thing about this game is easily watching your planet change. Watching as the structures and cities you build and all the facilities can change a barren planet like Mars slowly change into a beautiful, thriving planet like Earth, or even watching as Earth slowly decays from a tropical paradise to another copy of Mars. Whats more is the developers aren't greedy with in-game purchases. The difficulty curves can be overcome without the help of Genesis Points (though it is not preferable,) the developers offer frequent ads that in turn boost credit revenue or give the player free Genesis points (Pretty rare for devs to hand out special currency like that) and the ads aren't very intrisive either. The game doesn't require an internet connection so it can be played on the go, the game will continue to change, so if you are playing a volatile world remember to pause when needed, and start on Mars, the easiest planet.

by Ilovecatvideos

I love this game. I’ve been playing for a few months. I also love how doing things in the game can help the planet by planting trees. However, I have two suggestions. One is that you should be able to transfer credits back and forth between games. I’m currently in the process of terraforming two different planets, and one is really struggling economically while the other is doing great. It would be really nice if I could loan myself some money to build the space elevator, or even just to demolish existing depleted mines so I could build new ones and get myself out of the hole. My other suggestion is that you should be able to get new planets and moons to terraform without paying for them. I finished with all five terrestrial planets long ago and now I’m just stuck with them. I want to terraform the moons of other planets and planets in other solar systems. I want to terraform a planet with a native population detected, to see what it’s like. But no. I love this game but I as a rule do not make in-app purchases. Why bother making people pay for planets anyway? Maybe you can make them cost gp so people will pay for that but could also save up for it if they didn’t want to spend real money?
Overall, though, it’s a great game. I really love how you just give out special currency for the price of watching an ad. Keep that up! And please consider my ideas!

by KyleJH1995

I’ve been playing this game on and off for two years and it never gets old, and there are plenty of world to play with. If you’re playing with a simple developing biosphere you can terraform a moon/planet in 4-5 days without spending any real money for in-game boosts (called Genesis Points or GP), 2-3 of you do buy these boosts. If you play with a biosphere you can fine tune it’s definitely more of a challenge and terraforming this way might take you 4-5 days with boosts, a week or a little longer without. WATCHING ADS IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL, YOU WILL NEVER BE FORCED TO WATCH AN AD 🙌🏻 (putting that in all-caps because ad trap games are everywhere these days) but watching the offered ads gives you bonuses to your income and even 1-3 GP sometimes. Watch enough ads and you could have income bonuses for days (literally). Random positive and negative events that can affect your income, structures, organisms, or culture keep you on your toes if you leave the game open, but you don’t have to worry about bad events happening while the game is closed and the terraforming continues when closed, so this game is great for people who don’t want to have to play all the time to succeed. The game can also be paused so you don’t have to worry about letting things go for too long and accidentally destroying your progress. Graphics are pretty and the game runs smoothly. Definitely earned my 5 star rating!

by Phantom Basilisk

Hey, this is the single most epic game on TerraGenesis Store right now! I love how technical this game gets. When you increase air pressure, the temperature goes up because of atmospheric thickening. Same thing happens when you thin the atmosphere, only the temperature goes down! I still only have the terrestrial planets + the moon, and I’m having a blast! There is so much to do in just the base game that you don’t need the expansions to enjoy the game to its utmost potential. I love the fact that natural disasters like quakes, meteors, and plagues happen. It makes the challenge that much more awesome. I think it would be amazing if you guys could make it so that you can set up trade routes between your planets to give a little boost to your economy or population growth. I also think that adding more disasters like occasional volcanic eruptions from the Martian volcanoes, violent dust storms, or even wildfires (when you actually have biomass). Maybe also sea trade routes is a good idea for cities along the coast line? That would be so awesome!

I only have one bug to report. I went back to review Mars after I had moved on to Venus, and all of the plantlife had disappeared. 4.6 billion people had left the planet because all the biomass disappeared. It was very confusing. Other than that, I have no problems with the game! Keep up the good work!

by Ellaegon

When I saw this game allowing players to use scientific reasoning to terraform planets, I downloaded immediately and spent a day carefully terraforming Mars. I am an environmental scientist who studies algae, so naturally I ate up all of the references to algae terraforming powers.

Now that I am nearly done with Mars, I don’t feel as if there is anything more that I want to do. I wish this game was more complicated to make it replayable. Even starting with a vastly different planet, the strategy is basically the same. I hope that this game will add more features as it develops. I could see a PC version of this where you can see the cities grow and change with architecture styles and building choices, the genetically engineered animals and plants you unleash on the surface, etc.

Some suggestions I have for new indexes are a happiness index increased with entertainment buildings, room in habitations, governor popularity, and whether they eat fruits and vegetables or just plain algae. Maybe plagues and starvation could decimate populations unless you have contingency plans in place. When oxygen rises, temperature should decrease. There could be volcanic eruptions. Maybe you can’t choose governors,but they are randomly elected once an out of game day. You should have the ability to set up natural parks. I just need more choices to make.

by RLeighA

I’ve played this game for years off an on and I’ve always loved it. I still do. A while back I had to get rid of it to free up some space and just recently came back to it. I have to say, I’m very disappointed that they’ve added a “forced tutorial”, ie, one that can’t be exited early or avoided altogether. I do appreciate them adding a bit of guidance for new players, but there needs to be an option to skip the tutorial. I have played the game before and don’t need a guide dragging me around and forcing me to do things. It doesn’t help that you can’t cancel actions except by exiting the game and fully closing out of it. With no way to be precise—especially when choosing where to put your cities—it’s really obnoxious to have to close and reopen the game to reselect where you want your first city. That’s to say nothing of not being able to pick where to put your first mine.

The game is great, but it still needs a few tweaks, such as being able to skip the tutorial, and maybe arrows that you can tap to be more precise in location selection (these already exist in the mining interface). Some planets have very little “safe” area to build on—so they aren’t destroyed as the water level rises—so precision is pretty important.
Otherwise, it really is an excellent game that I have had and will continue to have loads of fun playing.