Barrel Defender vs SicTransit
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Barrel Defender
Defend your energy barrels from alien invaders in this retro arcade space shooter. Enjoy simple, intuitive controls and blast through waves of enemies with various weapons and challenging boss fights.
- Two game modes: endless and wave
- 25 alien-filled waves
- Variety of aliens and movement patterns
- Boss enemy battles
- Weapon power-ups
- Easy finger-slide controls
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Barrel Defender is an old school retro Arcade Shooter. Protect your Energy Barrels, collect extra weapons and blast away waves of aliens! Barrel Defender is easy to control. Your spacecraft follows the slide of your finger and is in 'auto shoot' mode. It is the ideal game for the casual player and retro fans. Enjoy blasting aliens... Features: - two game modes ( 'endless' and 'wave' mode ) - fight your way through 25 alien filled waves - tons of different aliens and movement pattern - fight boss enemies - collect extra weapons - beautiful space sci-fi environment - easy to control - quite easy, well known game play
SicTransit
Engage in a retro-style space shooter with procedurally generated levels. Master inertial controls to destroy debris, avoid obstacles, and survive enemy encounters. Customize your gameplay experience and unlock powerful upgrades.
- Procedurally generated levels
- Inertial flight controls
- Asteroid and debris destruction
- Enemy bases and combat
- Force fields and portals
- Highly configurable gameplay
- In-app shop for upgrades
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SicTransit provides endless hours of fun with procedurally-generated levels — never play the same game twice! SicTransit throws you a classic retro-style challenge: can you fly a ship inertially within a closed level, without bumping around like a flipper ball, and just stay alive? To complete a level, you have to destroy all its rocky debris (asteroids and planets) within a certain amount of time, so the most important thing is to get acquainted with classic inertial controls — rotate left, rotate right, thrust. Plus shoot, of course: make sure to have a look at the Ctrl screen before playing. Once you've cleared a level, just return to the starting spot, and you'll advance to the next level. That is, assuming you still have enough shields for your ship — every collision hurts, so make sure to avoid all obstacles. Each level may contain any quantity of debris, as well as any number of force fields: these come in several types, and each type will seriously affect your ability to fly (and possibly to shoot). Levels also contain enemy bases, which might be triggered in several ways — once a base spawns an enemy and it starts chasing you, your best bet is just to blast it away. Levels also contain portals, which allow you to jump around to fixed positions much like a teleporter would do... just remember to watch out when jumping through a portal — who knows what's on the other side... Furthermore, levels may also contain electrified fences — while you can certainly cross them, it's not particularly recommended. SicTransit is highly configurable: the Pref screen contains all sorts of options that support playing in radically different ways. For instance, you can decide how and when enemies are spawned or force fields are activated. Actually, you can also change how a level is completed — you're highly encouraged to try out the various options, in order to find the combination that best suits you. Finally, when you're ready to start playing *really* seriously, have a look at the Shop — you'll find all sorts of powerful lasers, which will be of invaluable help once you reach a certain level size. Not to mention the absolutely crucial retro-rockets, which will allow you to fly really anywhere, in any situation... including the most intense combat ones! ••••• ORIGINAL MUSIC: Suddi Raval — https://www.suddiraval.com Davos Live Music — https://www.facebook.com/Davos.Live.Music Vincenzo Lucarelli — https://www.facebook.com/vincenzo.lucarelli.58 SOUND FX — https://www.freesound.org SPRITE MODELS — https://www.turbosquid.com UI FONTS — https://www.dafont.com
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: SicTransit at Free against Barrel Defender's $0.99. SicTransit also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.0) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 39 months). Barrel Defender's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5). On review sentiment, ratings volume, ads and device support 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
SicTransit is free to download; Barrel Defender costs $0.99 up front. SicTransit sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Barrel Defender asks for nothing beyond the download.
SicTransit holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Barrel Defender ships an update every 39 months, SicTransit fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Barrel Defender | SicTransit |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 39 months | Fortnightly — 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, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 12.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 33 MB | 83 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Stefan Preuss | Dario Accornero |
Customer experience
Barrel Defender
SicTransit
In-app purchases
Barrel Defender
No in-app purchases
SicTransit
- Double Lasers$0.99
- Triple Lasers$1.99
- Antimatter Lasers$2.99
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- Ray Lasers$3.99
- Retro-rockets$4.99
Questions
Is Barrel Defender free?
Is SicTransit free?
Which has better reviews, Barrel Defender or SicTransit?
Do Barrel Defender or SicTransit have ads?
Which is updated more often, Barrel Defender or SicTransit?
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