Comparison

Celestile vs Foundermode

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

Head to head
About

Celestile

Engage in turn-based space conquest with deterministic combat. Expand your empire, research technologies, and outmaneuver rivals to achieve victory through domination or ascendancy. Features unique factions, strategic combat, and a deep tech web.

Highlights
  • Deterministic combat with no luck
  • Expand, build, research, and out-think rivals
  • Two win conditions: Domination and Ascendancy
  • Eight unique factions with strengths and weaknesses
  • Strategic tech web across five disciplines
  • Fog of war that hides fleets, not geography
  • Portrait mode for one-handed play
Features
Read full description

A turn-based 4X strategy game with no dice. Every attack shows its exact result before you commit, and that number is what happens. No luck. Just the plan you made. Claim a cluster of space one tile at a time — expand, build, research, and out-think up to fourteen rival empires. TWO WAYS TO WIN Domination — hold every planet on the map. Ascendancy — finish ahead of every rival inside 40 rounds. DETERMINISTIC COMBAT The forecast above your units is the outcome. Attack, defence, terrain and tech resolve to one number, and you see it before you commit. A fight you lose is a fight you misread, not one the dice took from you. EIGHT FACTIONS, EACH WITH A COST Every faction has one real strength and one real weakness. Hive Mind builds mines for 1 energy and pulls 50% more out of them. Swarm fields cheaper units and one extra per planet, but defends 10% weaker. Nothing here is a straight upgrade, so choosing is an actual decision. TERRITORY YOU HAVE TO EARN Every planet projects a zone of control, and you can only build inside your own. Put three Moon Lasers in a planet's zone and that zone widens. Growth is a build order, not a land grab. A TECH WEB THAT FITS ON ONE SCREEN Five disciplines — Warfare, Doctrine, Aeronautics, Stellar and Lunar — three tiers each. Fifteen technologies on a radial web you read at a glance instead of scrolling. FOG THAT HIDES FLEETS, NOT GEOGRAPHY You see your own zones plus a tile, and a tile around every unit. Ground you have already explored stays on the map, dimmed. An enemy fleet standing on it does not. AN ECONOMY YOU CAN LEVERAGE Deposit energy in the bank and draw interest. Or borrow against the future and settle a balloon payment five rounds later. Miss it and the Galactic Bank sends dreadnoughts to collect. EIGHT UNIT CLASSES Scout, Marine, Rover, Fighter, Bomber, Mech, Artillery, Dreadnought. Build a military university for a class and every unit of that class attacks 10% harder for the rest of the game, anywhere on the map. BUILT FOR A PHONE, NOT PORTED TO ONE Portrait, one-handed, low-poly worlds on deep space navy. The board scales with the field — a tight 12x12 grid against a single opponent, up to 24x24 against fourteen. Four difficulty levels. WHAT IT DOES NOT DO No account. No login. No internet connection. No chat. There is one interstitial ad, and only from your third match of the day. Buy any faction and it never appears again. Players in the EEA, UK and Switzerland never see it at all. WHAT IS FREE Two factions — Hive Mind and Swarm — and the whole game around them: every map size, every unit, every technology, both win conditions, all 63 achievements. Six further factions are a one-time purchase each. No subscription. 63 achievements, a five-star rating for every faction, and a career record that persists between games. Nine languages: English, Spanish, Russian, German, French, Portuguese, Hindi, Korean, Japanese. Frosty Robot Studio.

About

Foundermode

A challenging single-player simulation where you guide a startup from its inception to a potential IPO or sale. Manage hiring, funding, product development, and crucial board decisions in this realistic business simulator.

Highlights
  • Startup simulation from inception to IPO
  • Manage hiring, funding, and product
  • Realistic business challenges
  • Single-player experience
  • Offline gameplay
  • No ads or tracking
Features
Read full description

Founder Mode is a single-player startup simulator. You take a company from a spare room toward an IPO or a sale. Most runs do not get there. The whole simulation runs on your phone. Saves stay on the device. There are no ads and no tracking. You hire, you raise, you ship product, you sit in board meetings, you decide whether to take the deal. Cash runs out. The board can remove you. Competitors ship. Difficulty is set when you create the founder and does not change. This is meant to be hard. Surviving should feel like you earned it. No in-app purchases, no subscription, no energy timers. If the game crashes, an optional crash report can leave the device. That is off if you turn Crash reports off in Settings. Details: the privacy policy URL on this page.

Screenshots

Celestile4 screens
Foundermode4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Celestile at Free against Foundermode's $4.99. Celestile also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.0) and ratings volume (5 vs 1). Foundermode's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 6) and ads (none vs shown). On review sentiment 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

Celestile is free to download; Foundermode costs $4.99 up front. Celestile sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Foundermode asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Celestile holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Celestile has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Celestile versus Foundermode: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCelestileFoundermode
PriceFree — better$4.99
Rating4.8 (5 ratings) — better4.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings5 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 11 days—
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.0 — better16.4
Further details — not scored
Size17 MB43 MB
Age rating9+12+
DeveloperFrosty Robot Studio, LLCStefan Sathianathen

Customer experience

Celestile

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Foundermode

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

6 purchases

Celestile

One-time6
  • Collective Faction$1.99
  • Nomad$1.99
  • Wardens$1.99
Show 3 more
  • Ascendant$1.99
  • Warbound$1.99
  • Forge$1.99
None

Foundermode

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Celestile free?
Celestile is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Foundermode free?
Foundermode costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Celestile or Foundermode?
Celestile is rated higher. Celestile averages 4.8 out of 5 from 5 ratings, while Foundermode averages 4.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Celestile or Foundermode have ads?
Celestile shows ads; Foundermode does not.

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