Last updated on January 15th, 2026 at 09:15 am
Beyond the Chiron Gate – Strategy Game Review
Beyond the Chiron Gate is a Strategy/Roleplaying game from John Ayliff, first launched in 20th May 2022.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 63+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Beyond the Chiron Gate Stand Out
Explore an endless universe filled with exotic planets, strange life forms, and ancient civilisations in this text-based space exploration game. Manage a crew of space explorers and upgrade their ship with new technology. Brave dangerous worlds to gather the data you need to reach the home system of the mysterious Gatebuilders.
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Beyond the Chiron Gate is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 7th August 2025
Recent improvements include:
1.1.6 PATCH NOTES
- Fixed a couple of discoveries with no tooltip
- Several typo fixes
- Fixed bug where volcanic sulphur dusting could spawn on high gravity planets that were former gas giant cores
- Fixed "ocean surface nanites" revealing alien "Planetary engineering" civ trait rather than "Nanotechnology"
- Added my new games studio name to the credits page!
Download & Availability
Beyond the Chiron Gate is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Beyond the Chiron Gate on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Worth every penny, its a book you help write.
Buckle up. Do read the "How to play" section. Remember, you can click on the highlighted words during your journey, which will take you to new scenarios. Looking forward to the next game. 5 Stars.
Really enjoyed the mechanics and the focus on exploration, like the Out There chronicles. We were a little disappointed by replayability, after playing through 2-3 times (which took maybe 1-3 hours), we felt like Ive seen pretty much everything.
We really wanted to like this game. We love the creators other game, Seedship, but BtCG doesnt quite live up to it. The narrative aspect is too weak for an entirely text based game. Every star system is essentially the same, every interaction with an alien civilization will play out the exact same way, and even every playthrough is going to be virtually identical. If it just had more variety this would be a much better game. Its still a nice little space game, but its hard to justify $10 for a text-only game that fails at the only thing text-based games are supposed to be good at. We do hope this game gets updated, and maybe someday this will really be an awesome game, but right now it just isnt.
Seedship was great, but lacking in narrative depth. This game somehow manages to feel even more narratively sparse, probably because the expanded adventure highlights the repetitive gameplay even more. The systems play out like mad libs in space, you land on a [hot/dense/rocky/icy] [planet/asteroid] and then discover some [ruins/anomalies/microscopic life] that has been destroyed by a [cosmic ray/weather event/interstellar war], and on the way your [engineer/pilot/scientist] is imperiled by some [radiation/heat/cold/crushing atmosphere] and your other [engineer/pilot/scientist] has a [25/50/75%] chance of saving them from [injury/death]. All of these situations play out identically, with identical impacts from your pass/fail result. Get some biology points, or don't. Get some xeno points, or don't. Repeat for the entire game, like multiple times. In a single play-through your engineer is going to fix a space suit radiation leak like a dozen times, identical dialog, identical choices, maybe 5% bump to success because you gained a level. Every system description ends up reading the same. Once you've read the description for a gas giant, you've read every description for a gas giant. Completely soulless dialog, probably assembled on an excel spreadsheet. $10 is just a joke of a price for this game. It's a shame, the concept is there, but the execution completely misses the mark. 2/5.
Strategic and challenging. Really engaging. Strongly suggest going slowly and reading the immersive descriptions.
Space is vast and mysterious and wildly interesting but it is also cruel and unyielding. This game captures space exploration better than nearly any Ive played, and that includes $70 AAA titles. This game is at heart a random number generator with a text adventure overlay. The theme is sci-fi: humanity has discovered a way to travel to other systems. Like the authors other game, Seedship (which is free but nowhere as developed as this – but will whet the appetite), you must explore the galaxy on a ticking clock. You will mess up. You will lose lives. You will make incalculable messes. But eventually youll learn from your mistakes, and you will learn about the universe and yourself. Dont stop just buy this game.
A fascinating and fun game. We played it non stop on a long flight. We know the price seems high, but its just like a long, replay-able choose your own adventure novel. Pick it up before a long flight: you wont regret it.
Ive played a lets Ply of Beyond the Chiron Gate! This game was complex, to us, at first, but, then, we discovered how to play it. We slowed down, read the text, took our time to understand the interface, tutorial, game play and rules. Then, we began to min-max everything, getting our scientist up to level 6 and discovering weird science from all over the universe! We love this game and we cant wait to unlock further game modes! Unfortunately, there is a small, but nasty bug, that makes you choose actions without your consent after picking the continue option. This has lead to us losing valuable crew members! We hope this bug can be fixed. We play on iOS iPhone 13. Mobile. We use voiceover, as we are blind and visually impaired. Ive also trouble shooted the problem by turning off background apps, etc. The bug remains and keeps choosing options for us. We hope this can be fixed! Its a sad mark on a beautiful game, thats incredibly accessible to the blind and visually impaired! Thanks.
Whenever we play either of this solo developers games we feel instantly transported. We transcend far beyond the medium of our phone and inhabit the intimate narrative of humanitys journey to survive, learn, grow, thrive. Cant wait to see where this developer continues to apply his passions. Well worth the price.
We love the story to this app, but VoiceOver clicks on links when we're trying to read the story. It actually ended the game once. This game really deserves 5 stars, but we're not playing it again until the error with VoiceOver is fixed.
This is a great balanced game for a turn based text adventure. Minimum graphics, but great content. Scifi Kirk Star Trek style adventure mixed with Stargate SG1 and a few others. This is a hidden gem.
Ie, everything your typical mobile game is not. If you are a fan of any sort of text based, story heavy game – get this immediately. $10 is well worth it for a gem in a sea of crap. Hope the author will continue to add content or produce more games in the future.
This is a great space exploration story game. Our only wish is for even more unique endings so we can keep replaying this! Maybe Ill check back some months later.
Much like Seedship, this is another fun game in the text based RPG sphere. Explore different solar systems as you jump through a wormhole. Upgrade your ship. Find new technology to research. Encounter other alien species. Very fun.
Ten bucks seems steep at first, but then you realize its a passion project. Im looking forward to seeing the game progress, update, and improve its amazing foundation over time. We think the creator of the game has a lot to work with here. Hoping for more success and popularity for him down the line.
Finished on our second play through. Not much replayability. Worth it to us, as the story was great. We felt the stress getting to the end with one jump left.
We are writing this after our first win. This game is just so intricate and replayable. We loved Seedship, we love this game, and if you are reading this you should play it.
We love scifi and roguelikes. This is those things done super well. A nerd made this game, in the best way.
If you liked seedship you will absolutely love this game. It is so immersive, we absolutely could not put it down until we were done. The creator must have put 1000+ hours into building this game. So beautifully descriptive. It is well worth the money spent.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.1.6
- Size: 103.49 MB
- iOS: 11.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence
- Developer: [John Ayliff]()
Last updated: 7th August 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Roleplaying | Developer: John Ayliff