Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 05:40 am
Barnard's Star – Strategy Game Review
Barnard's Star is a Strategy/Board game from Pollywog Games, first launched in 6th June 2022.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 46+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Barnard's Star Stand Out
Snipe your friends, electrocute your enemies and rain down acidic slime in the Barnard’s Star system, 6 light years from Earth. A multiplayer, turn-based tactics battler with no micro-transactions and no random chance — ingenuity is the only way to victory!
Features:
- Choose between 3 warring factions: Humans, Robots, and Critters
- Do battle with 30 characters using dozens of unique attacks and abilities
- Conquer 18 different maps set on space stations and intergalactic ships
- Play offline vs. AI or locally against a friend
- Challenge friends and strangers with online multiplayer
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Barnard's Star is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 12th September 2025
Recent improvements include:
Adds mini ability demos to help visualize what abilities do before you use them! Long press on any ability icon to view them.
This release also adds some balance changes and new abilities! Check out the in-game patch notes for details.
Download & Availability
Barnard's Star is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Barnard's Star 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:
We have a group thread of 6 of us and play this all the time on team or solo matches. Takes strategy but also has an undo so you can try out different moves until you find the one you want to do. Also the developers are very active on discord so its great to get quick feedback.
Wonderful theme awesome game! Made by a couple people that we think have a knack for fun ideas. We love that it is a single purchase with some progression unlocking stuff as you play. Really enjoy that the strategy is pretty deep. Excited to get this player count up. Telling all our friends and family about it this Christmas.
We love this game. Takes us back to FFTs and Disgaea, but we like that it is based on classes like starcraft and that it is game to game rather than a level-up system. Something new and fun. Their game Card Crusade is also great.
Just got this game, and Im having a ton of fun with it! Its a super enjoyable strategy game with tons of different loadout varieties. Not only that, the dev of the game is a super cool and nice person. Amazing.
Amazing strategies, creative chemistry between characters, asynchronous turns gives you time to think. We love this game a lot (favorite one on our phone ).
Hands done the best Async PvP strategy game on mobile. If chess is your thing and you want something different, this is it, hands down. Additionally the Dev is one of the nicest and open minded we have ever met in our life. This game will take off mark our word, get ahead of the curve.
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Unfortunately its not ours and we either didnt understand from the description or made assumptions that it was in the vein of card crusade – which we love and got here from the link in CC. Unlock new characters using multiplayer! Well, we really dont want to do multiplayer so no new characters for us. A skirmish isnt a satisfying single player anything.
While its not super polished like titles such as Into the Breach, its an amazing turn-based strategy game for mobile. The mechanics feel like the have just the right amount of depth to them. We love the multiplayer system. You dont have to wait for them to make their move, just simply make your move, and put your device down to do something else, then come back and make your next move. We really hope this game gets expanded on with more characters and mechanics.
While its not as polished as titles such as Into the Breach, its an amazing turn-based strategy game for mobile. The mechanics feel like the have just the right amount of depth to them (although maybe there should be a cap on the extra turn when you kill someone). We love the multiplayer system. You dont have to wait for them to make their move, just simply make your move, and put your device down to do something else, then come back and make your next move. We really hope this game gets expanded on with more characters and mechanics! (And maybe a campaign too, because multiplayer gets a little boring) There is a small bug: The Amphibians water spray attack and the Mad Scientists Electric Grenade have the wrong descriptions. They must have been nerfed during the beta but not had their definitions updated.
Im really surprised by the simple mechanics and yet intriguing strategy and gameplay. This is a fun gem that is definitely worth checking out. Kind of have an X-Com vibe yet it also reminds us of Uniwar. Although Uniwar has more boards and units.the gameplay gets tedious on those insanely large boards. However, Banards Star is refreshing, challenging and not overwhelming. Its fun and worth the price. Check it out.
We immediately started playing the AI on hard difficulty and we love the game and the focus on action economy, but there is simply to challenge even on hard difficulty level. Please make this game a little more challenging so that we fell like we are accomplishing something when we win. The other game by this developer has exceptional challenge on the higher difficulty levels, so not sure why they made this one so easy. Other than that, we like this game and look forward to updates that will make it more fun a rewarding to play.
It is kind of like if chess had fewer pieces and the pieces all had different guns and they were all in space. Very fun.
There are so few smart asynchronous tactics game, and even fewer on mobile. The developers are responsive, the player community is crushing us (in a good way) and we are grateful that this game exists.
We love the art style and strategy games are among our favorites! Its like playing a pixel version of XCOM.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 20f
- Size: 121.83 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: Pollywog Games
Last updated: 12th September 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Board | Developer: Pollywog Games