Comparison

Elemental Sands vs Swarmfall

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Elemental Sands

Build and automate a magical business empire in a fantasy world. Harness elemental powers to boost production and profits, collect rare items, and expand your reach to become a legendary CEO. This idle clicker game blends strategy with enchanting visuals.

Highlights
  • Build and automate business empire
  • Harness elemental power for production
  • Collect magical items and abilities
  • Increase company valuation and profits
  • Explore a fantasy world
  • Strategic management gameplay
Read full description

ELEMENTAL SANDS: WHERE MAGIC MEETS INDUSTRY Welcome to Elemental Sands, the ultimate idle clicker game where you build your business empire in a vibrant, magical world! Powered by ancient elemental magic, you’ll rise from a humble entrepreneur to a legendary CEO. With colorful fantasy themes and strategic corporate gameplay, this medieval futuristic idle game offers endless opportunities to expand, automate, and dominate. BUILD AND AUTOMATE YOUR BUSINESS EMPIRE In Elemental Sands, the power of elemental sand fuels your growth. As you build and automate the production of rare items, watch your profits soar. The stronger your operations, the more powerful you become. Unlock upgrades, improve your factories, and let the profits roll in—even when you're not playing! HARNESS ELEMENTAL MAGIC Collect and control the elements to produce rare magical items. These enchanted resources will boost your productivity, earning you faster profits and increasing your empire’s reach. With each new element, you can unlock new upgrades and special abilities ;) EXPLORE A COLORFUL FANTASY WORLD Step into a beautifully designed world where fantasy and industry collide. With medieval, industrial, and powerful corporate themes, your business empire will rise and thrive amidst the magical regions you encounter. Experience the unique blend of corporate strategy and magical elements in this one-of-a-kind idle clicker game. GROW YOUR EMPIRE AND BECOME MORE THAN A CEO You’re not just managing a company—you’re leading an empire. As your business grows, you’ll unlock new magical items, expand your reach and control, and increase your profits exponentially. This is a game of strategy, management, and magic. Can you rise to become the most powerful CEO in the land? KEY FEATURES - Build and automate your business empire in a magical world. - Become rich and Increase your company's valuation - Harness elemental power to boost production and profits. - Collect magical items and harness special abilities to grow faster. - Enjoy stunning visuals with a mix of fantasy and futuristic industrial themes. - Perfect for fans of idle games, fantasy settings, and strategic management. Start your journey as a magical business tycoon now. Download Elemental Sands today and experience the perfect blend of magic, industry, and automation! And become a titan of industry.

About

Swarmfall

Defend your planet in this roguelike where your turrets automatically attack. Focus on strategic menu decisions, upgrading your defenses, and choosing powerful synergies to survive waves of alien creatures. Decide when to bank your earnings or risk it all for greater rewards.

Highlights
  • Automatic turret targeting and firing
  • Strategic menu-based decision making
  • Level up and choose from card-based upgrades
  • Synergies to rewire build behavior
  • Eight unique turrets with distinct abilities
  • Eighteen evolutions to fuse turrets
  • Risk/reward banking system
Features
Read full description

The swarm has taken every other world. This is the last one with anything living on it, and it is yours to hold. Swarmfall is a planet-defense roguelike where the shooting takes care of itself. Your turrets acquire and fire on their own. You never aim, never tap a target. Every decision that matters happens in a menu, under pressure, while the swarm closes in. LEVEL UP, CHOOSE ONE Kills feed experience. Every level deals a hand of cards and takes one: a new turret, a planet upgrade, or a synergy that rewires how the whole build behaves. Deep Roots makes anything latched onto the planet take triple damage from every source. Living Mantle regrows the ground under you. The dive you get is the dive you drafted. EIGHT GUNS ON THE RIM The Reef Lance locks one target and ramps to 2.6x the longer it holds. The Ember Spitter lobs shells that detonate and leave survivors burning. The Tide Coil chains arc bolts through anything that clusters. The Spore Launcher sends homing seekers that pick their own victims. The Shard Battery shreds at point blank and nowhere else. The Blight Garden plants a rot that leaps to whoever stood nearby when its host dies. The Tide Anchor rings like a struck bell and slows everything its wave passes through. The Rime Lattice stacks cold until a body hard freezes, and a heavy hit shatters it into everything around it. TWENTY EVOLUTIONS Raise a turret to level 2 with the right partner mounted and the two fuse. Reef Lance and Ember Spitter become the SOLAR LANCE, a beam that sets its victims on fire. Ember Spitter and Spore Launcher become the BROODFIRE MORTAR, artillery that releases seeker drones on impact and cleans up after itself. Finding them is most of the game. BANK IT, OR PUSH Half of every haul is at risk until you get it out. Extract whenever you choose and you bank every credit. Die down there and the deep keeps half. Kill a monarch and it pays a bounty and knits 30% of your planet back together, and the next wave is already coming. No other decision in the game costs as much. A SWARM THAT CLOSES IN Thirteen creatures, from cinder mites up to the Deep Mother herself, drawn in bioluminescent deep-water dark. Elites rise wearing afflictions: Veiled, Frenzied, Gorged, Budding, Weeping, and the first of each in a dive is called out the moment it surfaces. Everything resists one damage family and folds to another, and the briefing shows which for everything you have already killed. The swarm reveals itself a species at a time and comes at you from wider angles as the dive goes on: one front, then an arc, then a pincer, then a full ring. Telegraphed, never cheap. THE DESCENT Clear the dark and it gets darker. Eight depths each add one permanent modifier as you unlock them. The mantle holds less life. The swarm moves faster. Monarchs rise in pairs. Elites carry two afflictions at once. The swarm's numbers swell by a third. How deep you can still hold is the real score. EVERY DIVE COUNTS Turrets unlock through lifetime kills, never purchases. Daily directives pay out for specific work: burn down 150 fire-family creatures, hold the line to 6:00, slay a Deep Mother. Records keep your season. The bestiary fills in as you meet what is down there. NOTHING BETWEEN YOU AND THE GAME No ads. No in-app purchases. No energy timers. No account, no login, no server. Swarmfall never touches the internet and collects nothing about you. Your save lives on your device and nowhere else. Under a quarter mantle, every gun on the rim opens up at once. Last Stand is not something you buy. It is the world screaming.

Screenshots

Elemental Sands4 screens
Swarmfall4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Swarmfall at none against Elemental Sands's 32. Swarmfall also leads on ads (none vs shown) and rating (4.7 vs 4.2). Elemental Sands's advantage is ratings volume (69 vs 3). On price, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Elemental Sands sells 31 one-off in-app purchases. Swarmfall asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Swarmfall holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Elemental Sands has 69 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Elemental Sands ships an update every 3 weeks, Swarmfall weekly. Both last shipped on October 25, 2026.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Elemental Sands versus Swarmfall: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterElemental SandsSwarmfall
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.2 (69 ratings)4.7 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews44.1% of reviews—
Number of ratings69 — better3
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksWeekly — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size222 MB24 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperTapTide InteractiveAUSTIN ALLEN NORMAN

Customer experience

Elemental Sands

All ratings69 ratings
Positive79.7%
Neutral4.3%
Negative15.9%
Written reviews34 reviews
Positive44.1%
Neutral17.6%
Negative38.2%

Swarmfall

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Elemental Sands

Reported bugs

10 issues
  • Progress lost twice due to account issues
  • App fails to load (tuning transmission frequencies)
  • Updates bricked progress
  • New patch reset sand capacity and spawn rate
  • Game is locked with question marks on start
Show 5 more
  • Tutorial buttons not working
  • Game broken, buttons not pressable after tutorial
  • Error code: Exception: Failed to get server time
  • Constant crashing, especially during export
  • Losing progress due to crashes

Requested features

5 requests
  • Convert excess sand to vials offline
  • Increase level cap
  • More content and end goals
  • Formal suggestion channel (Discord)
  • More mechanics in future updates

Swarmfall

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

31 purchases

Elemental Sands

One-time31
  • 24 Gold$0.99
  • Study Bundle$2.99
  • Enduring Study Bundle$2.99
Show 28 more
  • Volatile Study Bundle$2.99
  • Scorching Study Bundle$2.99
  • The Water Pack$4.99
  • High Tide Event Pass$4.99
  • Energy Surge Event Pass2 variants$4.99
  • The Vitality Pack$4.99
  • Lifeblood Event Pass$4.99
  • Auto Buy$4.99
  • The Strength Pack$4.99
  • Heavy Hitters Event Pass$4.99
  • The Nature Pack$4.99
  • Wild Growth Event Pass$4.99
  • The Electric Pack$4.99
  • No Ads Boost$4.99
  • 135 Gold$4.99
  • 310 Gold$9.99
  • Research Bundle$12.99
  • Volatile Research Bundle$12.99
  • Enduring Research Bundle$14.99
  • Scorching Research Bundle$14.99
  • Volatile Proficiency Bundle$24.99
  • 740 Gold$24.99
  • Enduring Proficiency Bundle$29.99
  • Scorching Proficiency Bundle$29.99
  • Mastery Bundle$49.99
  • Scorching Mastery Bundle$49.99
  • Volatile Mastery Bundle$49.99
  • 5200 Gold$99.99
None

Swarmfall

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Elemental Sands free?
Elemental Sands is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Swarmfall free?
Swarmfall is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Elemental Sands or Swarmfall?
Swarmfall is rated higher. Elemental Sands averages 4.2 out of 5 from 69 ratings, while Swarmfall averages 4.7 from 3 ratings.
Do Elemental Sands or Swarmfall have ads?
Elemental Sands shows ads; Swarmfall does not.
Which is updated more often, Elemental Sands or Swarmfall?
Elemental Sands ships an update every 3 weeks, and Swarmfall weekly. Most recently, Elemental Sands was updated on October 25, 2026 and Swarmfall on October 25, 2026.

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