Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 11:35 am
Blast Waves – Roleplaying Game Review
Blast Waves is a Roleplaying/Strategy game from Kyle Barrett, first launched in 15th December 2021.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 42+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Blast Waves Stand Out
Blast Waves is a tactical arcade shooter where time only moves as you move, and every shot counts.
Play through the rogue-like Survival Mode as a fresh recruit. Rapidly gain new weapons and abilities while trying to make it through an intergalactic conflict.
Most troopers won't make it. The few that do survive become permanently playable as clone squad commanders. In the auto battler-like Command Mode, players build and organize squads while fighting to last as long as possible against overwhelming odds.
Key Features:
-Survival Mode: Build a character from the ground up across multiple battles.
-Command Mode: Characters that make it through Survival Mode can be selected to lead squads against increasingly overwhelming odds.
-100s of weapons, armor types, and gadgets to unlock.
-6 unique biomes with destructible terrain and distinct environmental challenges.
-Dozens of allied and enemy troop types to learn and master.
-Skill-based joystick shooting and tap-to-target control schemes.
-Holotags record the unique exploits of every character.
This Roleplaying game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Blast Waves is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 10th January 2023
Recent improvements include:
New Years Update!
-New world, Gorria Ultima, added
-Endless survival mode added (can only be accessed at the end of a run)
-10 new primary weapons to unlock (laser bazookas, shotgun pistols, bayonet rifles, etc)
-Fixed an issue where some runs got locked out of upgrades
Download & Availability
Blast Waves is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
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:
Takes a minute to get the hang of the controls/cadence, but once you do, the challenge becomes addictive. We limit ourselves to one phone game at a time, requirements being no in game ads / no internet required. This didnt just fit the profile, this game exceeded our expectations in almost every way. Great work, KB. Recommendations are as follows: make more games.
We were happily surprised by the new update and thought it was crazy how close it came out to the release of Ultra Blade! We have been enjoying the added weapons and Gorrian home world level! Already said it before but this is a great and unique game, and Kyle Barret is an amazing dev! If you like this game check out his other stuff, especially the first one we played by him, a century spanning vampire rogue-like called Rogue Immortal.
Game would be 5 stars it is so fun but the command mode only saves the first 42 characters you beat the game with so youre stuck without any of the fully Upgraded characters you beat it with later.
Kyle Barrett is a solo developer who is passionate about the games he makes. He literally makes the games he wants to play, and wow, we want to play them too! Every one of his games is a gem. Heres to many more Kyle Barrett games! We are in our first playthrough now, and we are loving the game. We are using the default controls Kyle created, and we find them intuitive and fun. Just gotta get used to not starting on your character when you want to move the camera, and always starting on your character when you do want to move. The backstory of our character is cool, and it is fun to see his impressive list of accomplishments grow. We always love unlockables, and Blast Waves has tons of them! Going rogue now. Get the game and have a Blast.
This is a great game and it has lots of potential. We do think that there should be more to the survival story than just ending with command mode. We think there should be like a campaign of some sort where you can continue to grow and conquer worlds and win battles. There should be some kind of end goal. Maybe you could make a mode where you are actually fighting a war and have to liberate the planets and continue fighting and liberating planets until your commander dies. The commander mode has no weight to it, you just endlessly fight until you die and then do it all over again. There should be other modes and other campaign style elements just to give the game a lil more spice. We do think that its a pretty good game though. Will there be any updates in the future.
Its a great game with amazing action and strategy its like FTL on the ground.
But the movement scheme needs some work. Maybe allow us to have a joystick to move instead of dragging. Shooting has a joystick oddly enough.
Blast Waves blasts onto your device with waves of exceptional gaming. A truly new take on the rogue like game, Blast Waves manages to squish several unruly mechanics into its portable dimensions. Our favorite is the writing. Yes, yes that isnt a mechanic but the simplistic approach of adding a little back story to the characters is much appreciated. There is a great amount of world building thats garnished from reading the description of battles, worlds and characters. The use of time and action is prominent from the get go, the world around you only moves when you do. Its great for anyone who is tired of the frantic pace of most games of this ilk. We want to be able to take our eyes off the screen to think without dying, in Blast waves, we can. The loop is a little short at first but we expect that will lengthen once the main character gets stronger. We have only just delved into this foray but -Im hooked. A couple qualms: When trying to move the screen we almost always make our guy a path by mistake. We wonder if having an option for a path confirm would alleviate that. Frankly, we would love an RPG(ish) game with these movement /combat mechanics. We want to wander the world, hunt some prey, fend off some road brigands, and try different weapons and armor then sell them in different towns Night and day? Dynamic weather? Sorry about the wishlist. From what we understand this was made by one person, no mean feat! We look forward to trying other games from this creators library. Thank you! PS we played a game about a thousand years ago called Mars Saga which parts of this remind us of. We played that for hours waaay back in the day. We think we found its spiritual successor and we look forward to delving deep into Blast Waves.
Concept is good, but the control is too clunky. Why not give us a virtual joystick to control moving, and an emergency fire button to shoot the closest enemy.
The game is overall good. The only thing that needs to be fixed is the camera control. Every time we try to love the camera it doesn't move and we die and it's extremely frustrating.
We got duped into thinking this may be good because it was pumped up on the AppStore rankings to top 2(!) of paid games. The clip in the ad looks great, but it plays really badly. It drops you in a rogue like play through with literally no tutorial, and the gameplay is slow, lacking fine control. We were thinking it would be turn based, but you get a time-stop superhot type thing. But the game is so shallow and clunky theres no way to really outplay the enemy with your extra time to think. Its easier to accidentally drag too far and walk straight into every bullet. Come on, these rankings are being manipulated.
While the game does well in channeling the look and feel of the early turn based games on an Apple II, the game lacks a training mode and instead relies heavily on trial and error. Combined with the clunky controls and the frustration at not having a trial version and instead paying to support what resembles a college CS term project just isnt what is expected from a seasoned developer.
Do not buy this game. Its unbelievably low-effort garbage, from the half-baked concept to the clunky controls, this game gets low marks across the board. Theres nothing resembling precision to the controls, which completely defeats the concept of progressing time only when the player moves. All of the levels are roughly the same. There is a serious lack of care in designing the interface. This is just a shameless, quick and dirty cash grab banking on an idea with lots of potential. They could have turned the basic concept behind this game into something truly worthwhile, but were too lazy and greedy to do so. What a waste.
This game is soo good we dont know were to start wish there was a way this could be multiplayer also it would be nice to have like a amory to see what weapons we need to unlock still and more starting weapons would be cool too but yeah overall this game has us hooked.
We like this a lot and it keeps getting better as we try new strategy/moving styles. Its a turn based shooter with level perks and if you get a charachter to complete 5 levels you can then clone/play him in the Squad mode.which seems like a difficult version of the main game but you can purchase soldiers/ammo drops, you have movement control of any purchased soldiers and the character you chose starts with all the weapons theyve unlocked. Ive managed to get 4 characters to squad level but have only beaten a couple of those levels. Also as a roguelike you spend found gems on new equipment that becomes available and new armor sets that have perks like loot magnet, faster movement etc. Its not easy And if u dont watch your moves games can be super fast. Meaning you diebut its easy to put in a few games real quick as even completing a level successfully only takes a few minutes, maybe 5. Highly recommend! Different, fun, quick like a shooter yet you can stop and plan your move as action stops until you move or shoot, like a turn based. Awesomeness!!! Support devs like this and Keep up the awesome work brother.
Love the dev, this plays unlike anything Ive ever seen. Somehow scratches our real-time and turn-based itch at the same time.
Blast waves is challenging and fun. We really enjoy this game. Provides hours if entertainment without getting bored.
This developer is great! We love the art and effects! So satisfying to take out targets! Really great storyline and world yielding. Every character you play as, has a unique backstory.
We were excited to see a new title come out from Kyle Berrett, because we very much enjoyed his previous title, Immortal Rogue. We still play it today. We love the end game content that was added to that game, bringing endless fun to the Vampire Roguelike. We enjoy how it plays and would love to see more like it or expanded upon. With Blast Waves, we were hoping for something fresh, built on top of what made Immortal Rogue so great. The sci-fi theme, suit and weapon upgrades/unlocks, various planets and locations you can travel to, 2 different play modes, we think are great new ideas that drew us in to pick this title up. However, the problems mostly become apparent in the UI system and control scheme. We play on an iPhone 12 mini so, out the gate, Im already playing on a smaller screen, which makes the UI look a bit convoluted. There are a lot of options you can click through but everything, from the typesetting to the icons, are rather tiny. Even smaller than Immortal Rogues UI. Its definitely less intuitive from our perspective. Then there is the control scheme. We honestly wish it was in real time, and wish the game played more like Immortal Rogue when it comes to controlling your character and attacking. We understand that Kyle was going for a tactical approach, but it feels like its dragging down the fun factor imo. Playing the game makes you want take actions in real time, but it feels more like a crawl. Especially when youre trying to move your character to another position. You have to be careful not to fat finger your waypoint or your character will run in circles before it commits to the path you initially meant to lay out. Painting the waypoint feels hectic even though the game pauses while trying to make the action. We had to switch to the joystick option for shooting weapons. It works better for aiming. It also helps with dialing in the distance of your shot (by moving the crosshair along the aim line before letting go to shoot), but that alone is part of a learning curve since you wont know how far the projectile will go until you see it in action. This can waste ammo for weapons/items that require it. These are our current thoughts on the game. Overall, it has some great ideas, combined with mechanics taken from previous titles. We also love the theme/genre, but the UI and control scheme needs improvement. IMO, if this was more like Immortal Rogue, a hack n shoot maybe, it could be more fun. But thats not what Kyle was probably going for.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.1.6
- Size: 108.91 MB
- iOS: 9.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: [Kyle Barrett]()
Last updated: 10th January 2023 | Genre: Roleplaying, Strategy | Developer: Kyle Barrett