Comparison

Daybound Tower vs HexStride

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

Head to head
About

Daybound Tower

This idle RPG transforms your daily physical activity into in-game progress. Walk, climb stairs, or complete workouts to ascend a tower, collect loot, and build powerful character loadouts. Enjoy a fresh start each day with no ads or pay-to-win mechanics.

Highlights
  • Steps convert to tower floors
  • Stairs boost boss fight chance
  • Workouts unlock power-ups
  • Collect equipment from Common to Legendary
  • Build passive skill loadouts
  • Daily fresh starts
Read full description

Your steps fuel a daily tower climb. No ads. No account. No pay-to-win. Daybound Tower turns yesterday's walking, stairs, and workouts into today's idle RPG run. One climb per day. Every morning is a fresh start. WALK → CLIMB → LOOT → REPEAT - Steps become floors — 10,000 steps = 1,000 floors - Stairs boost your boss fight chance - Workouts unlock daily power-ups - Collect equipment from Common to Legendary - Build passive skill loadouts with daily-rotating prices Free to play. Pro unlocks expanded inventory, extra drops, and passive slots. Requires HealthKit (steps, stairs, distance, workouts). All data stored locally. Your health data never leaves your device.

About

HexStride

Features
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Where you walk becomes yours. HexStride turns the streets you already walk into a board of hexagons, twenty-seven metres across. Walk a street and the hexagons under your feet are yours. Close a loop and everything inside it is yours too. Walk through a rival's ground and you take it, one layer at a time. The biggest patch leads, and the board never resets. EARNED ON FOOT Every hexagon on the map was walked by somebody. Claims count walking or running, and a walk at vehicle speed, or one your phone's step counter says you didn't walk, claims nothing. No clock ever holds ground for anyone: what defends a hexagon is walking it again, which hardens it, and a rival needs one walk to crack a layer and another to take it. How claims are checked is public at hexstride.app/fair-play. A GAME THAT STAYS KIND Your score only goes up. Losing ground stops it climbing, never subtracts. Two rest days a week are free, and a short week is never called a failure. One nudge a day at your usual hour, nothing between ten at night and eight in the morning, no red badges. WALK. RUN. LOOP. Start counts you down and follows you through real 3D streets. During the walk the hexagons you'd claim light up as outlines; tap End and they sweep in along your route. Runs count too and are saved to Apple Health as runs. THE BOARD A board for every district, city, region and country, with a podium at the top and your own row pinned wherever it falls. Tap any patch to see who holds it: their name, their photo and how much ground they hold against yours. Send a wave. Invite a friend to the same streets. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account and no sign-up. Your routes never leave your phone; only the hexagons you claimed do. Nobody, including us, can see where you walked. No ads, no analytics that track you, no data sale. Delete everything from inside the app, any time. ON YOUR LOCK SCREEN A Live Activity for the walk in progress, and widgets for the week's days out and the ground you hold. Share a walk as a story or a post, or send it to Strava. A city with nobody in it is yours for the taking. Bring a friend and it's a rivalry.

Screenshots

Daybound Tower4 screens
HexStride4 screens

Verdict

The call

Daybound Tower and HexStride are too close to call on the numbers: across 8 compared parameters — price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. Daybound Tower sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and HexStride sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Daybound Tower against 5.0 for HexStride. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Daybound Tower ships an update every 3 days, HexStride every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Daybound Tower versus HexStride: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDaybound TowerHexStride
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews50.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings11
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 5 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size5 MB30 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTakumi KanzakiBEN DUSHNITZKY

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Daybound Tower

One-time4
  • Coffee Tip$0.99
  • Pro Unlock$4.99
  • Lunch Tip$4.99
Show 1 more
  • Dinner Tip$9.99
3 purchases

HexStride

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly14 Days trial$3.991 Month
  • Annual14 Days trial$29.991 Year
One-time1
  • Lifetime$79.99

Questions

Is Daybound Tower free?
Daybound Tower is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is HexStride free?
HexStride is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Daybound Tower or HexStride?
Daybound Tower and HexStride are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do Daybound Tower or HexStride have ads?
Neither Daybound Tower nor HexStride shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Daybound Tower or HexStride?
Daybound Tower ships an update every 3 days, and HexStride every 5 days. Most recently, Daybound Tower was updated on October 25, 2026 and HexStride on October 24, 2026.

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