Pixel Starships™ Reviews

by Cheesepk

This game could be great, but isnt due to poor decisions by developers. Its a shame that a great concept is ruined by crappy execution. Every decision made by developers makes the game less fun for players. Stop adding features no one wants and fix the bugs. The developers do listen and make themselves available for comment, but the problem is that they completely ignore the good advice we give them. Dont waste your time or money.

Edit: The developer response just makes my point. Why implement something like ammo used on defenses when it forces people to reload for an hour before they can play after being away? Because it was suggested to you? Dont do things that break your game. And by the way having a playable crew that is a bug everytime the game is full of bugs is funny the first time but gets old fast when it is for sale a couple times a week. I appreciate the fact that you read reviews and respond but take the game back to six months ago when it was playable. New stuff is fun but only if it works and still lets you play the core game.

by Hana Song186

I’d used to play this game a few years ago- and I just recently picked it up again. It’s sad to see that the issues still haven’t changed. First of all- the metric amount of pure data and information this game needs is bloated. I’ve reinstalled this game- and it’s somehow hit the 20gb threshold on my data and Wi-Fi. The game also runs horrendously in that your phone will turn into an oven after a few minutes of playing. Seriously- it got so hot that my battery has stopped working. I’ve needed to have a fan blow against my phone it’s that scolding hot. For reference- I’m using an iPhone 11. A mobile game like this should NOT be using that many backend resources.

The game has delved deep into that whole “battle pass” scheme which is quite sad… and the whole “daily shipment” and “ad blimp” flying across your ship every single minute is incredibly infuriating. Stop shoving ads down my throat. I’m deleting the game- I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. Just go play a game on the computer- one that doesn’t use up all of your CPU usage and cram ads down your throat.

The only good thing I’ll say is that it’s fun for the first couple hours- then the game loop sort of dwindles. The devs constantly pressure you to watch ads to speed up build times it’s infuriating.

by Egg5201@

Don’t get me wrong, this game has so much potential and has so many awesome aspects to it but there is just one problem. The time it takes to do anything. PixelStarships Store is filled with games that you pay to win and I really thought this was going to be an exception... But what I found out is that its doused with build time exceeding 12 hours or even days, and the only way to get past it is by paying for bucks, not even the monthly membership for $4.00 helps you with the build times. This wait time for anything to build would be such a problem if say you could use your shield, lasers, or anything besides reactors while they were upgrading, but you can’t. You either pay the bucks or wait 12-14 hours for something to finish upgrading, just to upgrade another thing for 12-24 hours. Especially in the higher levels. If you want a 5 hour distraction this is a fun game but if you want to play it for a couple days, be prepared for a waiting game. I hope the developers see this and know that they truly have a nice game but it is a money pit that could’ve been fun if the developers were not so hungry for the next $1 in micro transactions.

by Dokowals

So far I love this game! And honestly, besides pvp battles and base building, the functionality of the Apple Watch app and the great convenience of what it has to offer, is what really fixed my attention. HOWEVER: For some reason, With Apple Watch Series 7, with the most applicable and up to date OS version, the Apple Watch app randomly QUITS upon tapping on the “view stats” option almost inevitably and instantly. This is very very upsetting. It seems to randomly bring me to the “stats” page only sometimes if I keep reloading PixelStarships manually on the Watch and tapping the function. However then, if I’m feeling lucky and tap the “update stats” option, I will only find myself even more upset than before as PixelStarships will instantly quit again.. Please, with everything you have to offer, I will gladly pay to play this game once this issue is resolved. And give a perfect rating as well. Thank you for your time and understanding.

by LiquidFurby

The graphics and sounds are quite pleasant. I really love the feel of this game overall, but one thing may stop me from playing very quickly...

Hear me out, I’m not anti-in app purchases. In this game some items and cosmetics cost Starbucks. Starbucks are a currency you can either buy or watch ads to get. That’s perfectly fine.

HOWEVER... there are two issues:

1. The ads are very rare and you have to spend quite a while just staring at space and unable to do anything else because you can’t see inside your ship while waiting on space balloons to fly by to tap and watch ads. Purchases in this game range from $150 space bucks to thousands. One ad grants you 3 space bucks. (which is what you’ll usually have in a couple logins throughout your day, maybe two ads)

2. With ads being so rare, and purchases being so expensive and absurdly time consuming to grind, it’s important that they actually reward you what they promise. I’ve encountered quite a few instances where I will watch an ad and not get the tiny reward of three space bucks. If I’m going to have to watch about 700 ads to get one mediocre ship, I’d expect each ad to actually award me something. That’s really disheartening.

My recommendation: fix the ad rewards and add a daily login bonus that goes up each day the more consecutive days you login, at least up to 30, to keep your player-base happy and active.

by Eslmm

This used to be a great game with a live community, developers that listened to their playerbase. Over time, it has become more and more p2w. There are few testers that dictate the changes in the game into paths that favor their own preferred strategy, killing all others. Creativity is not appreciated.

The update on April 8, 2024 was told to balance the game by implementing a rush change that affected every single strategy except teleport (telespam). Kildare's answer on this was, teleport change will come in later, and in the testing server later is anywhere between 1 month to 1.5 year. There is no system for checking these "testers" or "community managers" to ensure they don't absolutely abuse their power and disregard the opinion of members except few on top. If you disagree with them, you will get gaslight and joked with on the Discord.

They already announced pss2 and had a kickstart for it. Do not start playing this dying game with really corrupt testing mechanism. Frustrated players are leaving the game day by day. Save your time and play something where you are valued. I think with the shifting focus to the new game, this is just left to scavengers to look over.

by Hauntedpickles

This is a really great game, and as a really big starbound fan, Im so glad a game like this exists! I do think there is a little flaw with the timing limit when attacking ships. I don’t think that it is long enough, and sometimes, its kinda unfair that if you destroy most of their ship, and they barley do any damage to yours, I feel like the player should get some sort of credit. Maybe if the time runs out, then whoever has the most rooms lost or lower HP, would loose. If it is the same, then it will then be a draw, and neither players gets rewarded. Other than that, this game is great

Edit: This game also has a few bugs, whenever you are moving rooms in your ship, or if you buy a new one, the scrolling sensitivity is turned up wayyy to high. I drag the room halfway across the screen to place it, and the camera zooms 100mph all the way to the left to where the ship is out of sight, which I find very annoying. And is there a way to keep the camera still while attacking other ships instead of it tilting up and down slowly? Its very annoying when trying to target rooms when their on the top or the bottom. And as I said with the time limit, this NEEDS to be tweaked somehow. pls respond, thank you

by Eiraneth

I was having fun starting out, but the second I left my starting system, the enemies went from 1 gun light frigates with 2-3 crew, up to 4-6 gun maximum upgraded medium and heavy destroyers with 8 crew. That means that I went from fighting an enemy that takes down my shield in 2 volleys and I can go blow for blow with with ease, to an enemy that goes through all of my shield and half of my hull in one volley, and has a shield that recharged faster than I can damage it. I didn’t come here for an Idle game where I leave it for a few hours, come back, upgrade one thing, and do a quest once every two weeks, and I am most certainly not spending money on this, because of this is indicative of the future, money won’t be enough. Also, fix the UI, it takes almost a full minute to disable my engines so that I can enable my missile launcher, which is so long that against a PROPERLY SCALED enemy, they fire after I have disabled the enemy and target the first thing I destroyed, wasting the missile and my time.

by Lalsmen

I personally really enjoy base defense games like this one and Clash of Clans, but I think that this game blows all others like it out of the water! In clash of clans, you can't really control where your troops go once you place them, or which specific troops your defenses will target, but in this game, it's all you. You can choose to target individual subsystems, weapons, and even, to an extent, crew members! You can set up an ai to defend your ship, add stickers to your ship, and change the color of your ship. There is a lot of personalization, which is nice, and just so many feature that make this game a worthwhile download! 10/10 Great game!!😀
(Edit: I do have one problem with the game. One of the things that you can do with your ship, is that you can spend a substantial amount of the games premium currency, and be able to change the color of your ship. I was excited about this, and I saved up to get that. However when I did this, I found that it basically averages the color. For example I tried to do red, and it gave me orange. That is frustrating, and I hope that that could be patched, if this is fixed, I will change my review back to five stars. Please take heed to this devs! Thanks!)

by Wixonswr

This was my first time playing online, interacting with other players. I am an older gamer, fortunately with disposable income. I was cluelessly roped into Vice Admiral of a fleet, right away, of very nice people but my only way to guide them was to advance by pay to play, (because I had no clue what I was doing so had to rush process to learn and instruct others aka a “whale” but with the intent to instruct lol). Happy to contribute to game/programmers blah etc etc. More so, Still enjoyed the camaraderie, awesome folks, later my fleet merged with great group when our original Admiral flaked on us. New group quickly Surpassed my limited guidance thank goodness. Then...A year later, I flaked. Regret it still. Awesome people. But I play video games because I am nonsocial. In the end it was too much pressure for me to keep up with “strangers/friends” a world away on a daily to weekly basis. How sad is that? I couldn’t deal with all the random beautiful people caring about me. I still think wonder about them all the time. Ps none of this is required by fun game just my experience.

by Imploding Ninja Waffle

It’s a decent concept with decent execution. Ship l designing is fun, plus the concept of creating your own simple AI for other players to fight is amazing! The missions are an interesting way to do a sorta daily task type thing, but they can be a little boring at times. My biggest issue is that the time to build escalates very quickly. The price to build is fine the whole way through. I also wish that all the interesting stuff wasn’t only easily achievable through the special in game currency that every game has. It’s not incredibly difficult to get, but all the coolest stuff is way to expensive to ever hope to save for. The majority 99.9% of players won’t ever see any of it. I’m ranked something like 65,000 out of 5,500,000 players, and I certainly couldn’t ever hope to unlock the cool stuff. Anyways, most games are like that, so whatever. The rest of the game is great.

by JBalagz

A great game that lets players design and program their starships. However, there are still many issues with Pixel Starships. One problem is how unpredictable teleporting crew members onto other ships can be. With some crew having overpowered abilities that can instantly kill many others, boarding enemy ships could instantly secure a victory or have very little effect. Often very random and based on chance, depending on ship layouts and other “random” factors. Another problem that upset me very much was disconnecting often with a pop-up telling me to reconnect. It happened once while I was collecting profit from selling on the market. I find a few hundred of my “starbucks” missing. That’s quite a chunk of change. Help a player out and give me back my resources or my rating for this game will never go above 3 stars. Thanks for reading, develepors. I really hope you improve this game further because I have been enjoying it until now.

by Gibson Gamer

Hello there! I’m writing this here because I can’t from the game itself (bug 1#,) to report a bug about the ground battles. To make a long explanation short, I found a glitch where you enable auto-battle in the middle of an attack one of your crew made after they are going back to their starting point, making said crew attack again and essentially kill the enemy. This means your entire team can completely sweep any ground battle without a single hit (bug 2#) Also, quick side note, why do some upgrades take MORE THAN A WEEK?! I get it, you need people to spend more time on your game for more money, but A WEEK?! That’s just absurd! If you want to even skip it, you have to spend like 1000 Starbux, which isn’t a lot for people with 100k, but for people like me in mid-end game, that’s just a dream for us! Please fix your game, and when you do, my rating will be 5 stars.

by AidenRoc

Before i start, i must say. I LOVE THIS GAME!! When i first downloaded it i was hooked instantly, from the art style , to the gameplay, this game is an absolute gem. But there is one issue.

The wait time for constructing / upgrading is insane in my opinion, upgrading anything at this point will take upwards of 3-4 hours not to mention the wait time for a ship upgrade. I dont wanna wait multiple hours a day just so i can upgrade one of my mining lazers. I absolutely hate this type of mechanic in other games to the point where i will just give up a game completly right after seeing that there is a timer thats over an hour or two for something so simple. And im not asking for a decrease in cost for upgrades, i just want the wait time to decrease. If this were to be fixed then this game is getting a 5/5

by Elipsis906

I’ve been playing for over 3 years now and it is still my favorite mobile game. It’s easy to pick up and game progression is fast paced and non grindy. Adds are optional you can play forever without ever needing to see a single advertisement. You can watch adds to speed up upgrades by 15 minutes! The longest adds you can get are 30 seconds long. I have never seen such a generous time save from watching a single add. Plus the game has an active dev team who consistently release new holiday events and receive feedback from the community and implement it into their game. My favorite part of this game is the spaceship combat hard to explain here so you’ll have to check it out for yourself. The only thing I wish was better is the ground combat but I’m sure the game will continue to grow.

by DigitalReb89

I never expect much from mobile games. I played a lot of Clash Of Clans and Mobile Warfare or whatever it’s called. Grindy games where you build out a settlement and send armies to fight PvP and PvE. I stopped both of those when I inexplicably couldn’t access my accounts after a phone upgrade years ago. My phone remained gameless for many years.

Then…

Instagram targeted an ad at me for this game and it was cool enough at first glance for me to download. I started playing and then I couldn’t stop. It’s pretty well thought out and I loved the space element. I don’t love the grind but I don’t hate it either. It’s got depth and a lot of different playstyles to choose from. Building a crew is a strategy in and of itself, the options are incredibly diverse and fun to learn. There is just a lot to unpack in this little game. Unlike other tower defense games your ability to bring the pain in PvP is not limited to your level. I have been taken to school by ships 3 lvls below me due to a stacked crew and maxed out, efficient rooms. If you got an ad for this and think it looks cool give it a try. It’s the only mobile game on my phone &ipad and I don’t see that charging any time soon.

by TypicalType!

Overall this game is perfect. However I have a few requests, when I got a crew-member from missions, i had received a nurse... all that I saw though was a floating torso, nothing else. If anyone can fix this I will be pleased. Also, when I got this game it reminded me of Terraria CPU’s , and I look at the crew members and how they move when not fighting, they don’t leave their rooms, I feel like if you let the crew members to freely move around the ship and mace even have conversations with one another , it would enhance gameplay. But because whey won’t stay in the rooms assigned to them, you’ll have to create another menu to select which rooms the characters will start at when initiating a ship battle. This will make them much more appealing and entertaining to watch them move around a bit more, rather than them pace back and forth while being isolated from the crew. Either way, great game. Highly recommended. At least give it a shot, I’m sure you’ll love the game once you try it.

by Rich Moneys Guy

First off let me just say that this game is really fun. I have been playing for months now and I haven’t grown out of it like I do to a lot of the games I get. But some things could be changed to make the game better. First off there needs to be way more things to buy using gas. I know to research you have to use gas but sometimes it doesn’t take up that much. At this point I am level six and I am playing as a Quantarian. Most room upgrades are like 90 k minerals and I don’t normally get as much minerals as I do gas even though all of my gas collectors and mineral miners are the same level. And let’s not forget about the mineral mining lasers that also add to my mineral collection. Another thing is that the special offers in the shop are kinda pay to win. I was destroyed by a level 5 ship because it had 2 multi- missile launchers. Overall the game is good and very fun. I recommend this game to everyone. The only things that need to be fixed is what I just explained. Great game.

by SillySAMM

I’ve been playing this game for about a year and a half now and I love it. My favorite parts is probably the fact that you don’t have to wait years to upgrade something like you do in clash of clans. Not to mention you have a steady supply of starbux, if you choose to watch ad blimps that is, (can be configured in game settings). I feel as though the combat system is unique and different and requires more thought than most other strategy games. I’ve read other reviews talking about hackers and glitches but to be honest I really haven’t seen any hackers and not many glitches. The only complaint I have is that most of the pixel starship accounts are inactive which makes it hard to compete in fleet battles in such. Maybe one day this game can be as popular as clash of clans .

by SuperBeeTNT

I love this game and enjoy playing it everyday, but I wish there was some way to have a faction war. Like a 3v3 or a 5v5. This may need new type of craft that could heal allies or act as a shield. I always thought the idea of a craft that your crew could board and infiltrate the enemy ship in mass numbers would be cool. Another idea would allow you to buy 2 small frigates that would fight with your ship, and have separate power and crew That would make this game completely amazing! I do wish the leveling up of your ship was easier. I seem to have gotten stuck at gold+, where the only way to level up would be to pay money or grind for 16 hours straight, and I don’t have the time for that. The nanopaint is awesome idea, but does not work at all and is a waste of Starbucks until it’s fixed, thank you for your first valiant attempt. I also really want a private faction for friends, but I don’t have enough friends to get a starbase, if possible lower the amount of people required for a starbase, that would make this game be a 6/5. This game is totally awesome. Keep up the great work! :)

by Grymalkyn

This game is awesome. I still only played an hour or so; yet like driving a car that long, you get the feel of how it runs and how good it is. Dude! You build your ship as you like (within the limits of the frame). You recruit, place, and train your crew. You have missions that include PvE and PvP. You have guilds, exploration, and development. It probably is F2P; however!, if you have a couple of bucks (yes, that low!), you can get great deals that will impact the entire game you play. You can be as serious or casual as you want. This is only the (my) beginning! DUDE! (LOL) If you’re a gamer, check this one out. Give it a good tryout. (Half an hour) You will at least have fun for that long. I’d guess you just may fall in love with this game like I did. If you see “Nibbin”, say “Hi!”. Have fun!!!

by Zatysw

The game is well put together. Takes the best of the MMO style phone games, where players can interact with you by means of pvp and trade, while taking the best of games like Fallout’s Vault manager and base building games.
The Pay to win is there, but only in skipping game time. If you want to actually play the game, there’s nothing stopping you from being completely F2P and enjoying it. You can pay to get to higher points on the leaderboards quicker, but so far in a few days of play time I haven’t encounter a P2W encounter that ruins the gameplay.
It’s a great time killer and a good way to distract yourself for a few minutes at a time, even though you can sit there for hours and micromanage everything and get the best ship layouts and crew organization.
Good for all types of players.

by Dontbother With This Game

This game is very unique. Never have a played anything like it. There’s a lot of detail. For one, there is a lot of strategy involved, and many different ways to build your ship, program your ai with cmd commands. its not real time battles but if their AI is good enough, its gonna feel like one. There’s building times, but they feel rewarding. Visual level ups, noticable increase in what ever it is you upgraded.

The Community is fun, kind of vulgar, watch out kiddies, But over very nice and helping. If you have a question, all chat will be there for you. You cant fit everything on your ship, you will have to sacrifice rooms from time to time depending on what you need to focus on (i.e battles or resource production)

Lastly, one of my favorites. There is a sort of economy syestem. Virtually any item you find on your adventures, you can sell. And also buy. If you find a very valuable item, you can sell it for the resources in the game, and also PAYED currency. So there is no need to spend money on this game, you can do very well without any money spending. But maybe pop a $5 here or there just to help them out. They definitely earned it.

Please let us remove an item from the market when ever we want. That would be great. Update the UI for the market, its gonna be so fun to just sit back and merch

by That Guy+pi

This game gets it right in every way and I hope the developers can keep at it. I’m only in the early part of the game so far and it’s already got an adorable pixel aesthetic that I can’t get enough of, solid and easily understandable mechanics, and enough strategy involved with combat to give the player some options on how to approach any situation. The only issue I see so far is the melee combat is a little off: the menu options are too close together (wouldn’t worry if this was on pc or console but this matters on a touch screen). I’d like to see damage output have a range instead of a set amount every time; critical strikes and misses should be possible. Overall combat needs to have some variables thrown in to make it less monotonous. Other than that this is a solid game that deserves more attention.

by Whatabeast1027

I’ve played probably thousands of online games on my phone and ipad just to pass the time. This game is by far the ABSOLUTE BEST game I have played. It is fun and exciting and the strategy and Ai aspect is amazing I just love it. The community and alliance I have joined (Nod Empire) are literally some of the best people I have ever met. We have voice chats on discord about the game and strategy and I feel that this is by far the best game community I have been a part of. My only negative comment is it takes a while for the game to be fixed with all the bugs after a big new update. Also they have a crew room which is only available for money which I think is kind if pay to win but otherwise its a pretty balanced game and if you put in the time you can be number one without spending much money at all.

by Shqipeboys

This is one of the best strategy games on PixelStarships store. It’s got an enormous amount of depth with the AI programming, different item combinations and equipment, different styles. Even different factions. There’s tons of crew, each has their own stats that improve a certain type of room. There are various abilities to be used while in battle. Want to board an enemy ship, but getting destroyed by critical strike defenders? Equip some HP items or train HP on your crew! Getting destroyed by boarders? Place some mines on your reactors. Everything is fully customizable. You can make your own layout however you want, fitting to the strategy you have. There’s no way to even begin explaining how awesome this game is just with writing a review, but i’ll end it with the note that the community for this game is also very helpful and it’s common for complete strangers to help each other out just out of generosity.

by Every Where

I agree with everyone saying this is a good game it really is all but there is one thing I have to is there a way to get snyies parts (if your confused it’s a quest you get at the start and you get an ai head and sorry if I spelled the real name wrong) I’m just asking if there’s a better way to get them besides the merchant guy and if there is already in the game can you tell me ok besides that this is a really good game

Edit:so I found another problem I bought some star bucks but they didn’t show up I was supposed to have 532 star bucks by now but it still says I have 32 not only that but I tried to sell some stuff for minerals but when I collected them I was still left with the amount I had can you please fix this problem besides that I still love this game