# Paragon Pioneers — user reviews > 97 indexed App Store user reviews of Paragon Pioneers by Tobias Arlt, rated 4.80/5 from 327 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/paragon-pioneers/id1599308482/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/paragon-pioneers/id1599308482.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 288 · 4★ 23 · 3★ 9 · 2★ 1 · 1★ 6 ## What do users think of Paragon Pioneers? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Great game - 👍 Offline, chill, and forgiving - 👍 No ads or in-app purchases - 👍 Balanced gameplay - 👍 Addictive and engaging - 👍 Excellent value for price - 👍 Responsive developer - 👍 Reminiscent of classic city-builders **Cons** - 🐛 Persistent production bugs - 🐛 Crashes and compatibility issues - ⏱️ Long wait times for ships and battles - 🤔 Unclear tutorial and documentation **Commonly reported bugs** - Production issues with farms and booze - Inability to edit placed buildings - Crashes on older devices or with many islands **Most requested features** - World map view of islands and trade routes - Ability to move and rearrange buildings - Random events, missions, and achievements - Faster progression options (e.g. turbo mode) ## Newest reviews (15 of 97) ### 4/5 — Love this game *2024-01-21* Edit: I had to come back and edit because this game is by far my favorite. I’m on round 3 and it’s every bit as fun as the first time. It’s the right amount of everything. Definitely addictive, but doesn’t distract you *too much* from your daily life. Challenging but not frustrating. The developer is working on a new game and I can’t wait for him to publish it. *************** I’ve only been playing this game for about a week but I’m hooked. Raves: 1- The game play is simple, yet complex. It involves strategy and brain power to manage your resources efficiently. As soon as school starts I will recommend this game to my students. I’d much rather they play this than be on Tik Tok. 2- No ads, no in-game purchases, no subscriptions. I am sick of playing “free” games that require you watch ads. $3.99 is an incredible deal. 3- Community support. The developer has a discord channel and a wiki page for support. I like what the developer is doing. He seems invested in his game and listens to feedback. As soon as I’m done with this review I will be looking to see if he has other games. Cons: I feel like I have to put something, but honestly there aren’t any, other than a suggestion for a feature. It would be nice to have a world map view of your islands and trade routes. Edit: After playing the game for a little while longer, this “con” isn’t feasible. Having this feature would be impossible. I’ll have to get back with you for a real con. I simply cannot think of anything negative to say! ### 5/5 — Great city building game! *2023-03-17* This reminds me a lot of those old Anno games. The game runs at a good pace, and it's a great value for the price with lots of hours of entertainment. The fact that this game doesn't have paywalls or endless IAPs is phenomenal. I certainly recommend it, and I look forward to future updates as well. ### 5/5 — Fünf Sterne für Fairness *2023-02-25* Rezension updated: Keine Datenschnüffelei, faires Bezahlmodell ohne iap. Das Spiel selbst ist anfangs ein tolles Anno mit teilweise recht langen Wartezeiten. Dennoch finde ich die Bezeichnung idle game nicht ganz korrekt, da es sich doch mehr um ein Aufbau Spiel handelt, bei dem alles durch Lager-, Garnisons- und Schiffsplätze limitiert ist. Das typische inkrementelle Spielprinzip eines Idle Games kommt erst sehr spät zum tragen. Die Paragons generieren am Ende Gunst und nach Bau eines Palastes kann man für den nächsten Durchlauf mächtige dauerhafte Verbesserungen freischalten. Das ist toll! Leider artet das Spiel je weiter man fortschreitet in immer heftigeren Grind aus. So muss ich die Festungen der Orks immer und immer wieder mit den stärksten Einheiten attackieren, da ich nur mit 100 angreifen darf, die Orks aber 250 stationiert haben. Idlen geht auch nicht, da meine Armeen nur auf Befehl angreifen. Also ist man lange in der Schleife Armeen bauen, hinkarren, verheizen gefangen. Das muss ich meiner Meinung nach zu viele Male machen bis ich endlich eine weitere Insel erforschen (und behalten!) kann. Die Inseln die ich erforsche sind zudem oft nicht nutzbar. Zum Beispiel habe ich 12 Gebirge ausgewählt, 2 verschiedene Vorkommen (Gold, Kohle) und 10 zusätzliche davon. Meine Erwartungshaltung wäre dass ich 6 Gold und 6 Kohle Vorkommen erhalte. Stattdessen sind es oft auch mal 4 Gold und 8 Kohle und damit ist die Insel nicht effektiv nutzbar. Das sehe ich aber erst wenn ich schon viele 100 Soldaten verheizt habe. Ansonsten macht es Spass und jegliche Spiele ohne iap und mit fairem bezahl Modell unterstütze ich gerne. ### 5/5 — Great game *2023-02-21* So far only a day in but it’s a great game. I play Anno 1800 and I’m a big fan of the similarities. Hopefully in a future update we can see battles or a battle recap screen to see what happened and how the units performed. Otherwise great game. Been searching for something like this for a while. ### 5/5 — Sehr gutes Aufbauspiel *2023-02-18* Ich habe Paragon Pioneers einmal durchgespielt. Es macht mir unglaublich viel Spaß. Technisch funktioniert es sehr gut. Was es für mich herausragend macht: Ich bin bisher weder auf Werbung gestoßen, noch auf die Möglichkeit in der App zusätzlich Geld auszugeben. Das ist heutzutage leider selten. Grade für ein potentiell süchtig machendes Spiel. ### 5/5 — Anno Mobile *2023-02-10* I can’t compliment this game enough. Tobias (dev) charges $3 for the best game I’ve played on iOS since 2007. Tobias could succumb to micro transactions for ships, or to speed time up, or anything else, but he doesn’t. You just have to spend a bit of time to learn the game. For Anno lovers, this is a phenomenal mobile port to satisfy the itch. I only need to check in once a day to monitor routes and production. T5 in one month. Pop crashes not possible with the current base mechanics. Looking forward to updates or a new release. ### 5/5 — Best game ever *2023-01-31, version 1.0.112* So many hours put in to this game ### 5/5 — Best Idle Game Ever *2023-01-14* Idle game that’s not pay to win!! Revolutionary!!! ### 5/5 — Schöne Pixelart *2022-12-29* Ich habe noch nie rezensiert, aber das muss mal sein. Einmal kaufen und langer Spielspass. Komme langsam dahinter wie man die Lieferketten und Automatismen aufbaut. Sehr schönes Pixelartspiel. Bin mal gespannt, was noch kommt ### 5/5 — Loving this game! *2022-12-15* It‘s perfect for today‘s life style: whenever you have time, you play a little bit. And when you’re busy, you just let it sit. Nothing bad will happen, you cannot ruin it, many different strategies to finish the game. And when you made it to the end-you find out a special something and decide to Start over from scratch… awesome. If you like strategic games settling and the like - try it out! Even my 9 yr old is hooked now. I put a 15 min timer though - good for his mental health - and for mine as well. Fair enough… 😄 ### 5/5 — Sehr schönes, strategisch anspruchsvolles Spiel. *2022-12-12* Kurz und knapp: das Spiel ist jeden Cent wert. Keine Werbung, guter Spielspaß, eine mega Community wo man auch Hilfe bekommt wenn man mal hängen bleibt. ### 5/5 — Ganz toll mit hohem Suchtfaktor *2022-12-07* Update: Nachdem ich das Spiel nun einmal komplett durchgespielt habe, möchte ich meine Bewertung ändern. Meine Kritikpunkte lasse ich inhaltlich unverändert, aber das Spiel hat mir über viele Wochen derart viel Spaß gemacht, dass die volle Punktzahl meines Erachtens absolut berechtig ist. Ursprüngliche Bewertung: Mir hat das Spiel anfangs wirklich sehr gut gefallen, deshalb habe ich mir auch schnell die Vollversion gekauft. Was mich im Laufe der Zeit aber zunehmend stört ist, dass es zu kaum einem Feature eine detaillierte Anleitung gibt. Trotz der sehr zeitnahen Antworten des Spieleautors komme ich z.B. immer noch nicht mit den Handelsrouten zurecht. Die Spieldokumentation der Community in einem Wiki zu überlassen, gefällt mir auch nicht. Wenn man dort nicht findet, was man sucht, weil niemand dazu eine Anleitung schreiben wollte, hat man Pech gehabt. Für ein Spiel, das sich Zeit lässt (was ich grundsätzlich sehr mag), finde ich das „Trial-and-error“-Prinzip mitunter auch sehr mühselig, da man Stunden bzw. Tage vorher wieder aufsetzen muss, um Fehler zu korrigieren. Zum Beispiel dann, wenn man beim Design einer neuen Insel einen Fehler gemacht hat: Spielstand wieder neu laden, Insel neu designen, erobern, versorgen etc. dauert halt lange und macht in der Wiederholung nicht mehr so viel Spaß. Deshalb gibt es von mir für das eigentlich tolle Spiel doch leider nur drei Punkte. **Developer response:** Hey DudeNo1! Tut mir Leid zu hören, dass du Probleme mit meinem Spiel hast. Ich habe versucht detaillierte Informationen in den blauen Fragezeichen-Menüs zu hinterlegen, die in jedem Menü oben rechts zugänglich sind. Das Wiki ist eher eine optionale Quelle für Informationen, wenn du weitergehende Fragen hast würde ich dir immer empfehlen entweder mir direkt an tobias@paragonpioneers.de eine Mail zu schicken, oder meinem Discord beizutreten, da sind viele nette Spieler die auch gerne Fragen beantworten. Außerdem kannst du mir auch gerne schreiben, welche Artikel im Wiki nicht ausreichend sind, dann versuche ich diese zu verbessern :) Zu dem Trial-and-Error-Prinzip: Ich würde dir empfehlen auf keinen Fall deinen Speicherstand immer wieder zurückzusetzen und alte Speicherstände zu laden. Du verlierst dadurch wertvolle Zeit und Ressourcen, die deine Insel dir permanent erzeugt. Alles im Spiel ist so designed, dass es nicht schlimm ist, wenn man etwas nicht optimal baut, da Baumaterialien und Geld schnell wieder aufgefüllt werden, wenn du mal nicht spielst. Am Besten wenn etwas nicht so klappt einfach abreißen und neu bauen. Inseln die nicht so gut sind, freikämpfen und an die Paragon übergeben, um mehr Kartographie und Gunst zu bekommen, was folgende Inseln auch wieder leichter machen. Die Speichern-/Ladefunktion ist hauptsächlich für einen Gerätewechsel, aber nicht für den normalen Spielfluss. Viele Grüße, Tobias ### 5/5 — やべーくらいはまって三周目 *2022-11-29* リソース配分を考えて放置見たいなゲームですが、なかなか自分なりにうまくいかない。 もっと上手く島の開発ができるのでは？とおもいつつ、やってます。おすすめ！ ちなみに日本語化は一回断られてます まぁそんなに文字出てこないんですけどね ### 5/5 — Great game *2022-11-24, version 1.0.109* Great for playing now and then. No coins or pay to win shenanigans. Loading time of the app could be improved. Or buy a newer device 😁 ### 5/5 — Great city building game! *2022-11-18, version 1.0.109* This reminds me a lot of those old Anno games. The game runs at a good pace, and it's a great value for the price with lots of hours of entertainment. The fact that this game doesn't have paywalls or endless IAPs is phenomenal. I certainly recommend it, and I look forward to future updates as well. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Not for me! *2023-05-17, version 1.0.112* I tried the game. I felt it was a waste of time. ### 1/5 — Portrait only *2022-11-04, version 1.0.109* Doesn’t support landscape on iPad, making it unplayable ### 1/5 — Worst game? *2022-07-12* The worst game i have ever played. I won’t purchase any money on stupid things like things. Im sorry for the creator of the game but i find it horrible **Developer response:** I'm sorry that my game did not meet your expectation! I would be happy if you could tell me more on why you dislike it so much. Maybe I can give some help or improve something you stumbled upon! Feel free to contact me at tobias@paragonpioneers.com, I'm always happy to chat and help! If it is just not the right game for you, you can try to request a refund on https://reportaproblem.apple.com/. Best wishes, Tobias ### 1/5 — Buggy *2022-06-29, version 1.0.91* Pretty buggy game. No way to edit after you place an item and crashes often. Perhaps will get better but for now it’s not the best. ### 3/5 — great but a bit buggy *2024-02-09* I’ve experienced a couple persistent bugs related to production. For example, the farm that produces material for rope/paper wouldn't begin production unless i removed the farm and placed it again. Another one that is more persistent is the production of booze. I would come back to the app the next day and see that pioneers weren’t happy because they didn't have enough booze. i would build another farm and think i have it resolved. next day same thing… I began to notice that when i returned to the game after a break their production was halted because they had no available storage. How could that be though if the people don’t have enough? I then noticed that if I tap on the farm it would clear the error and production would resume. This bug was a bit of a dealbreaker for me… I couldn’t progress to the next level bc the Pioneers weren’t happy enough to upgrade. Sad because it had a ton of potential. Im going to check out the sequel… hopefully these bugs were resolved. **Developer response:** Hey Dustin, I'm sorry about my late response and that you encountered an issue. I was busy with the upcoming release and checked the review a bit rarely lately. When you place a factory the green bar starts to fill, but that does not show that the building is producing, but that is the cooldown until the next production cycle. If it does not produce anything after the bar filled it is probably missing goods and need either a warehouse in its range to fetch the input materials from the island storage or the supply of those is too low. If a building halts the production, because of no available storage it might miss a warehouse nearby to collect the produced goods. It is important that the range of the warehouse contains the building and not the other way round as buildings always fetch goods, but never send them. You can always send me a mail at tobias@paragonpioneers.com for more help. If you send me screenshots or your savegame I can also look deeper into any problems you encounter :) Best wishes, Tobias ### 3/5 — This isn’t a city building idler… *2023-06-24, version 1.0.112* It’s a cleverly disguised puzzle game. You have to selectively build structures nearby other structures in a random-ish map. Almost every building has its own blueprint that is required by or from other buildings. As a casual gamer that loves idlers, builders, clicker games and similar, I should have went with my gut when playing the lite version. This is definitely not for everyone. ### 3/5 — It’s ok. *2023-06-21, version 1.0.112* The thing is. I don’t know what I am doing. Doesn’t make things clear and after 4 days trying to figure it out. I am disappointed because I still can’t. I don’t know how the trade routes go, I don’t know how to even trade, and gold is very very hard to get. The tutorial was some what helpful BUT not really at same time. It doesn’t have a look here to know how to do things. Suggestion from me? …. A detail tutorial. With at least a place where you can read how to do things. But the good things, I love the concept of the game. And it has potential.. ### 3/5 — Nichts für Spieler mit Ehrgeiz *2022-11-10* Positiv: Geniale Bedienung. Durchdachte Gebäude, Einheiten, Abhängigkeiten. Wirklich tolles Spiel. Negativ: Idle, Game Spielprinzip. Ständig muss man warten. Schiffe, die 2h für eine Richtung benötigen. Kämpfe, die mal 2min oder 1,5 Stunden benötigen. Ich weiß nicht, ob dem Entwickler klar ist, wie viel Lebenszeit man verschwendet, wenn man nah dran bleiben möchte. Gerade wenn man sich große Welten zusammenklickt, heißt es warten. Das ist unerträglich und führte für mich dazu, die App zu löschen. Und evtl. einen Refund zu beantragen. Was ich extrem selten mache. Was sollte besser werden? Keine Wartezeiten mehr. Oder ein Vorspulknopf. Erst dann ist es für mich ein wirkliches Spiel. ### 3/5 — Suggestion for turbo mode *2022-06-30* There is limited things to do whilst the wait time is long in a sense that it doesn’t draw the gamer in long enough. There is a lot to do but limited due to wait time. My suggestion is have another mode to make battles and things happen a lot quicker.. I get bored not having enough to do while waiting for the game to gather material or even finish battles. On the positive I love this kind of art style, I believe u have content just the speed to access it is very slow. And having multiple save slots and rng island would be a very good plus. If both conditions are met to my satisfaction I will gladly give you 5 stars. Thanks for reading! Response : first of all I wanna thank you for your reply. Multiple save slots would definitely keep this game intriguing as an idle game. Just that we are stuck with 1 island to start and progress is slow to me, multiple save slots would definitely fix that problem. Don’t get me wrong I love the aesthetics and the depth of the game! Sometimes we love the game to the point we want to see more progress towards it. Rng = random island generator is what I meant. I actually deleted the save file and reset the game, so forget what I said about rng, the islands are randomly generated, I just got a bad one to start lol. **Developer response:** I'm sorry that my game does not meet your expectations. As an idle game it is designed to be enjoyed by multiple small session alongside the day, when you got not much time to play at once. I really would like to meet your conditions to make you happy, but I'm afraid that the kind of genre my game tries to be, may be not for you. I'm sorry that the game description didn't explained it properly. At least your request for multiple save slots will be possible in the near future, as I'm planning an export and import of save games, so you could change between them. I'm not sure what you mean with rng island, but if you want to talk further, you can reach me at tobias@paragonpioneers.com. Best wishes, Tobias ### 3/5 — Game speed *2022-06-26* Nice game, but the game speed is way too low. **Developer response:** I'm sorry that my game does not meet your expectations. As an idle game it is designed to be enjoyed by multiple small session alongside the day, when you got not much time to play at once. If you want to be able to do more in one session, I would suggest to build a bigger island storage so your production can prepare more for you to use when you open the game again. But surely that won't help, if you expected another game type. I'm sorry if the game description is a bit misleading in that regard. If you want to talk further about it, you can reach me at tobias@paragonpioneers.com. Best wishes, Tobias ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Eine lohnende Investition *2025-10-20* Wer ein Aufbauspiel ohne viel Bohei sucht, ist hier richtig. Kein Internetzwang, keine IAPs, moderater Stromverbrauch und vor allem ein richtiges Idle Game, das nicht die ganze Zeit laufen muss und bei Abwesenheit die Produktion auf ein Minimum herunterschraubt. Mein erster Durchlauf dauerte knapp 100 Tage und ich habe direkt den nächsten gestartet. Die Pioneers kommen auch ohne einen ganz gut klar und wenn man mal zu wenig Ressourcen hat, dann bricht während einer längeren Abwesenheit nicht gleich die gesamte Wirtschaft zusammen. Die Menüs und die gesamte Oberfläche ist klar strukturiert, durchdacht und schnell begreifbar. Ich bin begeistert von der Knuddelgrafik und freue mich schon auf den 2. Teil! Volle Empfehlung! ### 5/5 — This is a great game *2024-03-04* I’ve been playing over a year now and have wrapped it a few times to unlock new custodians. Will buy the 2nd game when it launches :) ### 5/5 — The perfect mobile game *2024-01-12* I love so many things about this game. It’s offline, super chill and forgiving, it gets better and better the longer I play. I’m hooked. Thank you Tobias for this game 🙏 ### 5/5 — Sehr gut umgesetzt *2023-08-28* Wirklich sehr gutes Spiel , was ich jetzt über zig Monate gespielt habe . Da ich jetzt durch bin , versuche ich mal alles auf Maximal zu Leveln , da muss ich mal schauen wieviele Inseln , Kaufleute, Goldmünzen usw. möglich sind . ### 5/5 — Fantastic - Hidden Gem *2023-08-22* This is a great game - highly recommend. On round 2 and have found it to be reminiscent of Settlers from the old Commodore 64 days with regards to well thought out gameplay and build chain sequences. You can jump in when you want, no stress or pvp nonsense. Can’t wait for the developer to come out with their next game. ### 5/5 — Surprising depth and interest *2023-08-16* If you’re the type of person that gets a lot of satisfaction out of making optimally efficient systems, this game is for you 😂 This is so fun and requires a nice kind of patience that I enjoy. There are waiting mechanisms built in, you can’t pay to speed them up, and they’re part of the lore and gameplay. There’s no fall off in terms of production when you don’t have the game open. So it can lend itself to an hour or more of tweaking and analyzing your network of islands, redistributing resources - and then maybe 10 minute chunks a couple times in the day, to check in and tweak as needed, with the system you built running along in the background. This is a long-running game, and the only way to speed it up is to get better at it. I’ve been playing for a week and still feel like I’m in the very early stages, getting my first few islands set up, but as I learn my systems get better and my growth gets faster. SO satisfying. Also, play with the music on if you can, the soundtrack is stunning. ### 5/5 — This is a really great app worth every penny. *2023-08-01* I really love playing this app. I enjoy the world building that it provides it doesn’t get boring. It actually gets more complex as time goes on as your master more and more skills you can actually really get into building a really diverse world. Well done to the developers! ### 5/5 — Love this game *2023-06-18* I’ve only been playing this game for about a week but I’m hooked. Raves: 1- The game play is simple, yet complex. It involves strategy and brain power to manage your resources efficiently. As soon as school starts I will recommend this game to my students. I’d much rather they play this than be on Tik Tok. 2- No ads, no in-game purchases, no subscriptions. I am sick of playing “free” games that require you watch ads. $3.99 is an incredible deal. 3- Community support. The developer has a discord channel and a wiki page for support. I like what the developer is doing. He seems invested in his game and listens to feedback. As soon as I’m done with this review I will be looking to see if he has other games. Cons: I feel like I have to put something, but honestly there aren’t any, other than a suggestion for a feature. It would be nice to have a world map view of your islands and trade routes. ### 5/5 — It’s great *2023-06-04, version 1.0.112* It’s an idle town building game without the in app purchases! One thing I think would be cool is if you could add little people waking around, so it’s more like a town. :) ### 5/5 — Excellent Incremental *2023-03-18, version 1.0.112* Really fun especially with the trade route waypoint system, tons of freedom and opportunity to customize your supply chains and economic empire. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-30.*