Sidius Nova vs PixelFlip
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Sidius Nova
Lead your species to survival after a homeworld destruction. Collect resources, build ships, and engage in epic space battles. Choose to play as humans or an alien armada, unlocking new ships and strategies as you conquer galaxies.
- Resource collection
- Ship building
- Epic space battles
- Playable factions (humans/aliens)
- Unlockable ships
- Galactic conquest
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by Stefan Schmitt and Ben Jelter -YOUR HOMEWORLD HAS BEEN DESTROYED- Your remaining motherships are the only way to guarantee the survival of your species. Collect resources to build ships for epic space battles. "has the same 'one more turn oh god one more turn' hook that its grander siblings on the PC have" -KOTAKU Also featured on Space Sector! HOURS OF STRATEGIC DEEP SPACE GAMEPLAY Sidius Nova is a strategy game designed from the ground up to provide a deep and satisfying experience on your iOS device. PICK A SIDE Play as the last humans alive or an alien armada. UNLOCKABLE SHIPS Earn new ships as you play! Conquer entire galaxies and expand your fleet by researching new units. New units dramatically expand the gameplay by offering new defensive and offensive strategies. Follow @sidiusnova on twitter to find out more and give us feedback!
PixelFlip
Experience a unique arcade challenge where failing in one game drops you into another. Master Pinball, Breakout, and Hurdle in a descending sequence, with increasing difficulty and surprising twists. Save your progress and compete for high scores.
- Three stacked retro arcade games
- Descending challenge mechanic
- Random flipper swaps and traps
- Progressive difficulty
- Save and Quit functionality
- High score tables and achievements
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PixelFlip is three retro arcade games stacked on top of each other, and the only way out of one is down into the next. You start on a pinball table. Drain the ball and the game doesn't end. You fall into Breakout. Lose the ball there and you drop again, all the way down to Hurdle, where you run, jump and try not to crash. Make it through and you can climb back up to where you started. A single game can take you through all three, more than once. It starts out friendly. It doesn't stay that way. The longer you survive, the faster and tougher everything gets, so every run is a race to bank as many points as you can before it all catches up with you. Only a crash in Hurdle costs you a life, and you get three. PLAYS GREAT ON iPHONE DUO PixelFlip now supports both screens on iPhone Duo. Play folded on the outer screen, or open it up and use the big inner screen for a wider view of the table. The table, the bricks and the controls are sized to fit either one, and you can pause, fold or unfold, and pick up right where you left off. PINBALL Flippers, bumpers, targets and a launcher, the way you remember them. Light up all three wall targets if you can. Rack up enough points and one bumper starts pulsing. Hit it and your flippers swap sides until you sort yourself out. It isn't the only trap on the table, either. BREAKOUT A circle of bricks waiting to be knocked out, with gates behind them. Some gates help you. Some really don't. Breakout remembers which bricks you've already broken, so coming back is never quite a fresh start. A short 3-2-1 countdown before every serve gives you a second to get your paddle in place. HURDLE A run along the bottom of everything. Jump the hurdles, grab gold rings for bonus points, and hang on as the pace keeps climbing. KEEP SCORE • A top-10 high score table with three-letter initials, just like the arcade. • A Game Center leaderboard to see how you stack up against friends and everyone else. • 14 achievements. Some are obvious. A few only make sense once you've earned them. • Save & Quit in Pinball before any launch, with two save slots so two people can each keep a run going. Each save can be used once. THERE'S MORE IN HERE PixelFlip has hidden games tucked away in it. We won't tell you where. Poking around and finding them is half the fun. TRY IT FREE Play a full game before you spend anything. If you enjoy it, one small purchase unlocks everything for good: saving, every hidden game, and all future updates. No ads, no subscription, no account, and no tracking. PixelFlip is made by one independent developer. Thanks for giving it a try.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Sidius Nova at 4.4 against PixelFlip's 3.7. Sidius Nova also leads on ratings volume (49 vs 3) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 26.0). PixelFlip's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 3 months) and review sentiment (100% vs 84%). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Sidius Nova sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and PixelFlip sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Sidius Nova holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sidius Nova has 49 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 84% of Sidius Nova's written reviews are positive against 100% of PixelFlip's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Sidius Nova ships an update every 3 months, PixelFlip weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Sidius Nova | PixelFlip |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (49 ratings) — better | 3.7 (3 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 84.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 49 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 190 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Stefan Schmitt | Robert Laramee |
Customer experience
Sidius Nova
PixelFlip
Bugs and requests
Sidius Nova
Reported bugs
5 issues- Occasional crashing
- Repeated crashing during combat
- Crashing when fighting mothership
- Game progress not syncing between devices
- App leaves residual files after uninstallation
Requested features
16 requests- Add multiplayer/hot seat/skirmish
- Add longer single player campaign
- Add more frequent dialogue
- Add meaningful player-driven plot choices
- Add 'back' button for dialogue
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Option to skip mothership death animation
- Rework research point system
- Add bonus for multiple fleets
- Improve mothership strength/abilities
- Add iPad version/support
- Add iPhone 5 screen support
- Add Game Center support
- Add cloud saving system
- Add endless mode
- Add asynchronous multiplayer
- Add fast forward button
PixelFlip
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Sidius Nova
- Genius (RP earned x2)$0.99
- Laboratory (8,000 RP)$1.99
- Singularity (Unlock Everything)$3.99
PixelFlip
- Full Unlock$0.99









