Comparison

Emergent vs CodeBastion

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

Head to head
About

Emergent

Shape barren worlds with hyper-realistic fluid and particle simulations. Terraform landscapes, create ecosystems, and mine resources to power your connection to other players' realities. Balance creation and destruction to keep planetary hearts beating.

Highlights
  • Hyper-realistic fluid and particle simulation
  • Terraform mountains and carve rivers
  • Paint life onto barren worlds
  • Remote viewing of other players' realities
  • Send and receive gold with other players
  • Mine resources to maintain connection
  • 10 unique explorable worlds
Features
Read full description

Your planet is your canvas. Sculpt a living world like clay. Raise mountains with a finger, flood the seas, and let rivers dig gold out of the rock. Where the water goes, life follows — and evolves to fit the world you made. Other players' planets orbit alongside yours. Visit them. Chat with whoever's home. Send gold in an envelope that isn't anyone's until it's opened. WHAT YOU DO • Sculpt terrain in real time — one finger raises land, two fingers fly • Seed life and watch it spread, species by species • Mine gold. Every gram costs the world something. • Fly satellites — 107 of them — that steer weather, growth, and fortune • Gamble at the Cosmic Arcade: slots, blackjack, carts, snow tubes • Top the leaderboard by wealth, or by how much life your world holds Your world keeps living while you're away. Rivers flow, ore returns, and eleven planets wait in the dark. One account, every screen. Start on your phone, continue in any browser at emergent-d.com. Same world, same wallet, same friends.

About

CodeBastion

Forge a city from a humble camp into a lasting bastion through strategic idle clicker and incremental city-building mechanics. Manage resources, assign citizens to jobs, research new technologies, and embark on expeditions to expand your legacy.

Highlights
  • Idle clicker and incremental progression
  • Resource and citizen management
  • Deep skill tree with research
  • Expeditions and exploration
  • Timed defense challenges
  • Offline progress
Features
Read full description

Build a city from its first camp into a lasting bastion in Code Bastion, a strategic idle clicker and incremental city-builder. Begin in Summary, where every tap matters. Gather wood, stone, food, and science through quick actions, manage your energy, watch your population, and keep your city moving even while you are away. Your resources continue to grow through citizen jobs and buildings, while seasons, incidents, and storage limits keep every plan under pressure. Move to Development to unlock a large skill tree across economy, construction, society, and expeditions. Each research choice opens new buildings, improves production, increases storage, strengthens manual gathering, expands your population, and prepares your city for the frontier. Turn a fragile settlement into a reliable system of farms, sawmills, quarries, mines, warehouses, markets, universities, barracks, walls, and more. Use the Resources screen to assign citizens to the jobs that matter most. Balance food, wood, stone, iron, coal, steel, gold, science, and influence. Build capacity before production overflows, keep enough workers in essential buildings, and adapt to changing seasons. Missions give every stage of the city a direction. Complete daily tasks, pursue a weekly campaign, and progress through a five-chapter city legacy: found the settlement, grow it into a city, open the frontier, endure its threats, and build a lasting legacy. When the city is ready, enter Expeditions. Train citizens, assign roles, craft preparation items, reveal a procedural map tile by tile, recruit from camps, discover points of interest, and research a catalogue of hidden treasures. Beyond the walls, every expedition can bring resources, experience, discoveries, and risks. Prepare for incursions with passive defenders and a timed defense challenge. Gather temporary materials, build defenses, create weapons, and decide how to hold the line when the frontier strikes back. CODE BASTION FEATURES Idle clicker and strategic incremental progression Quick actions, energy management, and offline progress Deep skill tree with research, upgrades, and unlocks Resources, citizen jobs, buildings, storage, and seasons Daily tasks, weekly campaigns, and city-wide goals Procedural exploration map, expeditions, equipment, and loot Treasure research, defense roles, incursions, and timed battles Five supported languages: English, Spanish, German, French, and Italian Build deliberately, explore carefully, and defend what you have created.

Screenshots

Emergent4 screens
CodeBastion4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: CodeBastion at none against Emergent's 1. Emergent's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 10 days). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Emergent sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. CodeBastion asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Emergent against 5.0 for CodeBastion. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 4 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Emergent ships an update every 3 days, CodeBastion every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Emergent versus CodeBastion: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterEmergentCodeBastion
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings24 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 10 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB40 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJoseph SmithGines Ortiz

Customer experience

Emergent

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

CodeBastion

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Emergent

One-time1
  • 10,000 Gold$0.99
None

CodeBastion

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Emergent free?
Emergent is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is CodeBastion free?
CodeBastion is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Emergent or CodeBastion?
Emergent and CodeBastion are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2 and 4 ratings respectively.
Do Emergent or CodeBastion have ads?
Neither Emergent nor CodeBastion shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Emergent or CodeBastion?
Emergent ships an update every 3 days, and CodeBastion every 10 days. Most recently, Emergent was updated on October 16, 2026 and CodeBastion on October 8, 2026.

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