Pocket City 2 vs Lanternfall
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pocket City 2
Construct and explore a vibrant 3D metropolis, managing zones, landmarks, and special buildings. Live the life of a mayor, from building your own house to surviving disasters and hosting events. Enjoy a dynamic world with seasons, a day-night cycle, and engaging minigames.
- Build unique cities with zones and special buildings
- Explore your city as an avatar
- Dynamic environment with seasons and day/night cycle
- Play minigames like street racing and plane flying
- Survive disasters and host fun events
- Customize avatar and become a homeowner
- Collaborate on cities in real-time
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Build and explore your own city in this 3D sequel to the original Pocket City! Create using roads, zones, landmarks, and special buildings. Drop your avatar into the world and roam freely. Buy your own house, host events, survive disasters, and live the life of a successful mayor! No microtransactions or long wait times, everything is unlocked and rewarded through gameplay! FEATURES - Build a unique city by creating zones and new special buildings - Explore your city by controlling your avatar directly - Enjoy a dynamic environment with seasons and a day night cycle - Play minigames like street racing, plane flying, and much more - Trigger fun events like block parties, or disasters like tornadoes - Complete quests to earn XP and money - Customize your avatar with clothing and tools - Become a homeowner and furnish your own house - Visit buildings in your city to buy items and find loot - Invest and build long-term mega projects - Encounter and help NPCs around your city - Spend research points to gain valuable perks - Invite a friend to collaborate on your city in real-time - Unlock special rewards by competing against rival towns - Unleash your creative side in Sandbox Mode - Play in both landscape and portrait mode
Lanternfall
Engage in a turn-based tactical combat game where your lantern is your primary weapon. Navigate eight floors of a dark forest, outsmarting enemies with perfect information and strategic use of four core actions. Unlock new abilities and customize your lantern to overcome increasingly challenging foes.
- Turn-based tactical combat
- Perfect information gameplay
- Four core actions: step, strike, shove, flare
- Dynamic forest environments
- Unlockable boons and lantern types
- Daily challenges and leaderboards
- Offline play
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Your lantern is the weapon. Raise it and everything beside you backs off a hex. Whatever has nowhere to go, against a tree, the forest's edge or another creature, is cornered: it burns, and it staggers. Lanternfall is a turn-based tactics game for one thumb. Eight floors of dark forest, one action a turn, and every enemy announces exactly what it will do next. Wolves show the claw. Archers draw the line. Boars show the charge. If you get hit, it is because you ended your turn somewhere you shouldn't have. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT • Perfect information. No hidden dice, no surprise damage. Every loss is readable. • Four verbs: step, strike, shove, flare. The shove moves the board; the flare stuns everything within two hexes. • A forest that changes shape. Wolves hunt in packs. Archers back away when touched. Boars charge down lines and throw you. Weavers web the way to the gate. Crows drive the pack. Stumps wake under your feet. From floor 3 an old one walks every floor. • Two named encounters. Floor 4 is barred until the Old Bear falls. Floor 8 is the den: when the Den Mother falls, you have walked out. TWENTY-ONE BOONS, LEARNED ONE WALK AT A TIME Four families: Flame, Blade, Cloak and Light. Keystones change what a verb does. Pairs appear only when you hold both halves. Every walk that ends, win or lose, teaches the next boon, so there is always something new in the forest. THE CAMP Embers come back from every walk. Spend them on five ways to carry the lantern: the Wanderer, the Lamplighter, the Duelist, the Warden, the Torchbearer. Each starts something in hand, costs you something, and tilts the gates toward its family. THE DAILY One shared forest a night, the same for everyone, with a nightly board and a weekly ladder. One missed night a week is forgiven. DEEPER NIGHTS Walk out of a depth and its nights open: no keepsake, two hearts, a bold pack, no second chances, each for more embers. MADE THE HONEST WAY Depths 1 and 2, the Camp, the kits, every boon and the daily are free. One optional purchase, Lanternfall Deep, opens depth 3 and everything below it. A small Supporter Pack adds lantern colors and your name in the credits. No subscriptions, no ads, no consumables, no energy timers. Nothing is collected about you. Works offline. Sound follows your silent switch. Every walk is written down in the Chronicle, and any page can be shared.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Lanternfall at Free against Pocket City 2's $4.99. Lanternfall also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.6). Pocket City 2's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and ratings volume (808 vs 1). On update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Lanternfall is free to download; Pocket City 2 costs $4.99 up front. Lanternfall sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Pocket City 2 asks for nothing beyond the download.
Lanternfall holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pocket City 2 has 808 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pocket City 2 | Lanternfall |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (808 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 79.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 808 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #28 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 304 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Codebrew Games Inc. | NICHOLAS DANIEL MINIERI |
Customer experience
Pocket City 2
Lanternfall
Bugs and requests
Pocket City 2
Reported bugs
5 issues- Crashes when entering certain buildings
- Graphical glitches and disappearing elements
- Freezing and performance issues with larger cities
- Bugs with regional city and money transfer features
- Issues with road building and placement
Requested features
6 requests- More building styles and architectural variety
- Improved traffic management and transportation options
- Expanded regional city functionality
- Mayor customization and more interactive features
- Better save/load and cross-device syncing
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- Optimization for older devices
Lanternfall
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Pocket City 2
No in-app purchases
Lanternfall
- Supporter Pack$2.99
- Lanternfall Deep$4.99









