A small space empire, in a game you can play on your phone.
Small Suns brings a compact space empire onto an iPhone: twelve connected locations, sixteen rounds, two factions and one rival. Orders show their costs before commitment, and three Empire Charters give an empire a different direction.
I’ve been giving the worlds more life through fleet travel, colony development and a sunrise sequence, with written results and adjustable motion. I sent a graphics build to private TestFlight and am still refining it through playtesting.
Along the way
What’s changed, what I’m trying, and what comes next.
Fleet travel, living biomes and a more readable sunrise give each round a visible sequence of consequences.
The twelve-world game was playable, but the board still needed to show more of what was happening. I have been rebuilding the feedback around each order: fleets travel between worlds, colonies develop a visible identity, and discoveries, repairs and conflict receive their own small responses. The aim is to make a decision feel connected to a place.
Sunrise now walks through the changes in a round instead of simply replacing the numbers. Income, construction, research, growth and other events have a sequence, followed by a written account of the actual result. View all and Inspect keep the details available afterwards. Skip settles to the same saved outcome, so watching the presentation is a choice rather than another requirement for taking a turn.
The art pass adds living versions of five biome families, clearer fleet headings and different states for construction, population and recovery. I have been tightening captions and action placement alongside that motion, especially on smaller phones and at large text sizes. Normal, Fast and Instant playback, Living worlds and independent sound preferences give the presentation room to suit different players.
I sent version 1.0 build 2 to private internal TestFlight on 4 October. I’m still refining the presentation locally and testing those changes. I need to play it to decide whether the pace is clearer and the worlds feel more alive. I’ve put the larger game and additional platforms aside while I finish the iPhone version.
Small Suns has a new pixel-art iPhone game, with clearer rounds, forecasts and Empire Charters.
I have rebuilt Small Suns around a smaller, more deliberate contest: twelve connected locations and sixteen rounds, with two factions and one rival. The new pixel-art board gives planets, colonies and fleets a clearer identity. For now I am concentrating on the iPhone game and finishing this slice before widening the map or adding more content.
Orders now show their costs and consequences before commitment. Colony development, growth, research and recovery move forward at the round boundary, followed by a sunrise recap of what actually changed. Guided play follows the work of establishing a second colony, while varied geography and rival planning offer different ways into another run.
Three Empire Charters add another decision to the contest. Industry can strengthen a chosen colony, Knowledge rewards connected research sites and relics, and Common Hearth supports growth and relay arrangements. The preview shows which sites benefit, what depends on a route and what will be lost when revising an earlier choice. Saves keep their recorded rules, so earlier expeditions can still be resumed and replayed.
I’ve fixed the round controls on smaller phones, checked that saves survive closing and reopening the app, and moved audio-session work off the interface thread. My automated checks cover the rules, save recovery and main flows on smaller and larger phone simulators. I still need to play on a physical phone and work on comfort and balance.
Earlier versions of the project. Select any image to look closer.