Comparison

Flocking Simulator vs Surface Explorer

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

Head to head
About

Flocking Simulator

Explore emergent behavior and steering rules with a "boids" simulation. Adjust forces like separation, alignment, and cohesion to create lifelike motion. Experiment with visual options and observe instant reactions to your changes.

Highlights
  • Adjustable flocking forces (separation, alignment, cohesion)
  • Customizable perception radius, speed, and steering
  • Visual options: boid shape, color modes, debug overlays
  • Real-time swarm reaction to parameter changes
  • Learning emergent behavior and steering rules
  • Generative visuals and relaxing motion
Features
Read full description

Flocking Simulator is a real-time “boids” playground where simple rules create surprisingly lifelike motion. Build your perfect swarm by adjusting the core forces: • Separation, Alignment, Cohesion • Perception radius, max speed, max steer • Drag (friction), noise (jitter), bias • Optional wall bouncing Visual options: • Triangle or circle boids • Color modes: Solid, Velocity, Rainbow • Debug overlays: vision radius, direction vectors, stats/FPS Great for: • Learning emergent behavior and steering rules • Generative visuals and relaxing motion • Quick experiments—change a slider and watch the swarm react instantly Note: Fast motion and bright colors may affect users sensitive to motion.

About

Surface Explorer

Features
Read full description

Surface Explorer is a high-performance visualizer for intricate mathematical surfaces — 2D manifolds embedded in three- or four-dimensional space, and 3D slices of four-dimensional hypersurfaces — bringing abstract geometry to life with real-time GPU rendering. KEY FEATURES • Cross Section — slice four-dimensional hypersurfaces and watch their 3D sections change shape as you rotate them in 4D or slide the cutting plane along the fourth axis, even along a 4D camera path. • Ray Marching Engine — real-time rendering of implicit surfaces and signed-distance fields, with procedural displacement, transparency, adjustable shells, and a precise mode for high-degree equations. • Multi-Mesh Surfaces — build figures from several independent grids, set with a single field or a script, each with its own color, transparency, texture, image and domain. • Solid Curve — write a curve in 3D or 4D and see the tube drawn around it, with adjustable thickness; several tubes from a script. • Surface Borders — add a tube along the edges of a parametric surface, with its own color, texture and thickness. • Geodesic Flow — explore intrinsic geometry on curved manifolds (S³, H²×R, SL(2,R) and more), integrating geodesics from initial conditions. • 4D Spatial Exploration — dedicated controls for hyperspatial rotation (Omega, Phi, Psi), projection, and 3D and 4D camera paths. • 4D Lighting Models — Directional, Observer, and Slice lighting designed for hyperspace. • Dynamic GLSL Scripting — write custom shaders for procedural textures and surface logic in the built-in editor. • Backgrounds — images and procedural effects, fixed on screen or wrapped around the scene as a sphere, cylinder or cube. • Audio-Visual Synthesis — synchronize geometric parameters with a mathematical sound synthesizer. • Video Recording — capture your explorations directly in the app and save them to your device. A library of ready-made presets ships with the app, from classic parametric surfaces to black-hole ergospheres, curved-space tori and slices of the 3-torus, together with a searchable built-in manual. Built with Qt and Metal for smooth, native performance on iPhone and iPad.

Screenshots

Flocking Simulator4 screens
Surface Explorer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Flocking Simulator at 15.1 against Surface Explorer's 17.0. On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Flocking Simulator versus Surface Explorer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFlocking SimulatorSurface Explorer
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequency—Every 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size43 MB62 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperVictor RodriguezGAETANO MOSCHETTI

In-app purchases

None

Flocking Simulator

No in-app purchases

None

Surface Explorer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Flocking Simulator free?
Flocking Simulator is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Surface Explorer free?
Surface Explorer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Flocking Simulator or Surface Explorer have ads?
Neither Flocking Simulator nor Surface Explorer shows ads.

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