Magic Research vs Unnamed Space Idle
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Magic Research
Lead a new magic institution to discover the secrets of magic and achieve fame. Research spells, build your campus, manage staff, and uncover hidden storylines to win the Tournament of Magic. Enjoy a complete game experience with no ads.
- Cast over 100 spells
- Research magic in various schools
- Build and manage campus
- Manage researchers and apprentices
- Discover hidden features and storylines
- Retirement bonuses for faster progress
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In Magic Research, you are the headmaster of a newly-created institution of Magic with one goal: to learn as much as possible about this power and get enough fame to be able to compete, and win, the prestigious competition of schools: the Tournament of Magic. But what will you discover along the way? * Cast over a hundred different spells with various effects * Research magic in various magical schools to discover new, surprising ways to use this power * Accumulate resources and build the school campus * Manage a team of researchers and apprentices to lead your school to fame * Discover tons of hidden new features - when will you unlock the next one? * Find over eight dozen secret storylines with permanent, game-altering effects * Restart the game and make faster progress each time with retirement bonuses * Optimized both for iPhone and iPad * No ads! This is the full, complete game. You can transfer save data from the demo by using the Export / Import Save feature available in both the demo and in the full game.
Unnamed Space Idle
Engage in an endless sci-fi idle game battling alien waves. Customize your ship with unlockable weapons and defenses, and strategically upgrade various systems to increase your power. Make impactful decisions to counter enemy types and progress through a well-paced unfolding experience.
- Destroy alien waves
- Customize ship with weapons/defenses
- Unlockable systems and upgrades
- Strategic decision-making
- Progression and prestige systems
- Craft and improve modules
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No ads! Destroy unending waves of alien ships in this long form, unfolding, sci-fi idler. Unnamed Space Idle is an unfolding sci-fi idle game that plunges you into a relentless battle against an alien menace that has decimated humanity. Voted r/incremental_games "Best F2P game" 2024 & 2025. Customize your ship with an array of progressively unlocked weapons and defenses, strategically tailored to counter specific enemy types. With a plethora of unfolding systems and abundant options, you'll face crucial choices as you steadily increase you power through progression and prestige. A Myriad of Different Systems Discover over 10 distinct systems, each offering unique mechanics that evolve and expand over time. Core - Upgrade your Weapon, Defense and Utility cores with salvage gathered from enemies. Compute - Improve your combat stats over time in traditional Idle Game fashion Synth - Craft and improve modules and recipes to increase your power in various ways. Void Device - Slot in void shards dropped by enemies for different combinations of upgrades. Prestige - Unlock different ships, weapons, defenses and utilities. Reactor - Feed void matter into your reactor to power various system boosts. Research - Harness the research data obtained from different sectors to unlock various upgrades. And More... Impactful, Understandable Decisions Choose wisely when equipping your ship with weapons and defenses, selecting power-altering modules, or determining the optimal combination of shards to use. The distinction between optimal and sub-optimal choices can significantly impact your progress. But while there are a lot of decisions to be made, they are all plainly understandable so that the optimum, or at least very near optimum decision making is within your grasp! Consistent Progress and Unlocks Well paced progression combined with the amount of different systems, upgrades and enemies, means something new is frequently just around the corner.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Unnamed Space Idle at Free against Magic Research's $3.99. Magic Research's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and review sentiment (95% vs 77%). On rating, ratings volume, 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
Unnamed Space Idle is free to download; Magic Research costs $3.99 up front. Unnamed Space Idle sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Magic Research asks for nothing beyond the download.
Magic Research holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 186 and 243 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 95% of Magic Research's written reviews are positive against 77% of Unnamed Space Idle's.
Magic Research ships an update every 4 days, Unnamed Space Idle every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Magic Research | Unnamed Space Idle |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (186 ratings) — better | 4.6 (243 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 95.1% of reviews — better | 77.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 186 | 243 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 15 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 25 MB | 126 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Matias Ezequiel Colotto | JDOG CORP |
Customer experience
Magic Research
Unnamed Space Idle
User reviews
Magic Research
From 186 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great idle/incremental game
- 💡 Deep and complex systems
- 🚀 Well-paced progression
- 💰 Worth the price
- ✨ No ads or microtransactions
Room to improve
- 🐛 UI layout issues
- 🐌 Can be grindy
- 🔋 High battery consumption
- 🐛 Text running off page/scrolling issues
- 🐛 Wood resource bug
Unnamed Space Idle
From 243 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Addictive gameplay
- 👍 Deep and complex mechanics
- 👍 Constantly evolving game
- 👍 Frequent updates
- 👍 Free-to-play friendly
Room to improve
- 📱 Tiny UI elements
- 📱 Small font size
- 📱 Unreadable text on mobile
- 📱 UI not optimized for mobile
- 📱 Difficult to interact with buttons
Bugs and requests
Magic Research
Reported bugs
8 issues- On new iPhones, switching away and back causes UI unresponsiveness
- Text running off the page, preventing interaction with buttons
- Wood resource counting backwards
- Becoming stunned for a full minute, unable to act
- Bosses running away from fights
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- Exploration difficulty jump
- UI layout issues on iPad Pro (long scrolling panels, cut-off inventory views, difficult spell favorite scrolling, useless event panel)
- Text pages not scrolling, making discoveries unreadable
Requested features
12 requests- Add background music
- Add Chinese language support
- Make monsters pixelated
- Adjustable times for apprentice auto-casting
- Display monstium collection counter during exploration
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- Allow apprentices to auto-craft potions
- Make the game accessible to the blind
- Add a way to start further into dungeons
- Automate crafting
- Improve quality of crafted items (armor, weapons)
- Add a 'Magic Smithing' school
- Allow players to avoid or cure silence effects
Unnamed Space Idle
Reported bugs
15 issues- UI is too small on mobile devices
- Font size is too small, making text unreadable
- Game crashes during fleet auto battles
- Cannot open on iPadOS 14.8.1
- Game freezes when playing on mobile network
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- AI Smart Crafting not working
- Module queue automation doesn't correctly identify materials
- Buttons for base upgrades not working after last update
- Small text and UI elements make interaction difficult
- Game stuck in landscape mode
- Dark red text on black background is hard to read
- UI elements overlap or are difficult to press
- Some text and buttons are too small to read or interact with on smaller phones
- The game is not optimized for mobile screens, leading to unreadability and difficulty in control
- Inability to copy and paste
Requested features
12 requests- UI rework for mobile
- Improve UI readability
- Optimize UI for smaller screens
- Add French translation
- Add Turkish language support
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- Option to restart game
- Better mobile screen utilization
- Adjust module queue automation
- Fix AI smart crafting
- Improve collision detection for projectiles
- Consider fantasy-oriented theme
- Add audio to the game
In-app purchases
Magic Research
No in-app purchases
Unnamed Space Idle
- 200 AI Points$1.99
- QOL Bundle$2.49
- Spacemas Bundle$2.99
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- Spaceversary Bundle$3.99
- Steampunk Cosmetic$3.99
- 550 AI Points$4.99
- Essentials Bundle$4.99
- 1200 AI Points$9.99
- Advanced Bundle$9.99
- 2600 AI Points$19.99
Questions
Is Magic Research free?
Is Unnamed Space Idle free?
Which has better reviews, Magic Research or Unnamed Space Idle?
Do Magic Research or Unnamed Space Idle have ads?
Which is updated more often, Magic Research or Unnamed Space Idle?
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