Last updated on January 17th, 2026 at 09:09 am
Lead Wars – Simulation Game Review
Lead Wars is a Simulation/Strategy/Entertainment game from DemonStudios, first launched in 19th November 2010.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 48+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Lead Wars Stand Out
Lead Wars is a turn-based strategy game requiring smart thinking and physical skill. It simulates the real life paper war games played in the days before portable gaming devices which needed only a pencil, some paper and lots of imagination!
• Charted #1 Strategy Game in 60 countries!
Control a fleet of planes, tanks and artillery units by taking turns to flick a pencil around a hand-drawn battlefield on a piece of paper, making long curve shots and strategic moves to try and outwit and out-skill your opponent.
Reviews:
• "The execution is what makes Lead Wars shine. Startlingly unique, a fabulous little game." 4.5/5 – MacReview.com
• "Surprisingly deep … from a strategic perspective, Lead Wars is a beautiful achievement” 4/5 – iOS Game Of The Day, GamePro.com
• "Some battle are easily solved puzzles, while other start to feel more like chess games." 4/5 – PadGadget Recommended! PadGadget.com
• "You'll definitely love this game." 4/5 – TouchReviews.net
• If you're looking for a great game to play with friends, we suggest grabbing this one … it really shines on the iPad” – Amber Neely, MacNN.com
• “A brilliantly implemented game" – iPhone-Experience.com
• iTunes review – djflippy: "Lead Wars has a rare quality; the simulation is actually better than that which it simulates." 5/5
Note this is not your typical path-drawing game – this is a simulation of the real life game played with a real pencil.
The flick mechanic works just like it does in real life (try it!): Point a pencil straight down onto some paper, holding it by the top with just one finger. While pressing down firmly, slowly tilt the top of the pencil – beyond a critical angle the tip will suddenly slip away leaving a line drawn on the paper. This line determines your move or shot on the battlefield.
Lead Wars simulates this mechanic using the touch-screen as if you're touching the top of a real pencil. See videos of the real life game and Lead Wars in action:
http://www.youtube.com/DemonStudiosOfficial
Main Features:
• Online Multiplayer – battle asynchronously or live real-time
• 2-player tabletop / pass 'n' play
• Single-player vs-CPU
• Single-player Campaign – rise up through the Army ranks
• Map Creator – create your own battlefields
• Instant Replays – replay all moves and shots in latest turn
• 27 Game Center Achievements
• Game Center Leaderboards
• Training missions and 250+ Campaign missions
• Visual 'MoveAid' system and tips for beginners
• 16 built-in battlefields, store up to 75 custom maps
• Have up to 25 local games on the go at once
• Have up to 30 Asynchronous online games on the go
• Highly configurable Game Setup
• Choice of 4 paper styles + 3 pencil leads
• Doodle graphics and verbal sounds – just like the real game!
Technical Features:
• Universal app supporting Retina Display
• Share maps via the system Clipboard
• Game Center turn alert push notifications*
• Auto-rotating interface – play in any orientation
• Allows iPod music in the background
- Turn alert sounds and settings can be controlled in Settings | Notifications | Game Center
The best thing about playing Lead Wars on your iOS device though is you're not having to rub out your previous moves, there's no arguments whether a shot hit or not and no dangerous flying pencils! The physical dexterity required to make your move makes the game challenging but ultimately more fun and rewarding, particularly when you make that near-impossible curve shot around a wall to win the battle!
This Simulation game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Lead Wars is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 2nd April 2022
Recent improvements include:
• Fixed game speed for devices running at 120Hz
• Added game assets for devices with 3x Retina screens
• Other updates to support all the latest devices
Download & Availability
Lead Wars 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:
We love this game so much! Us and our friend would play this irl all the time but you cant carry a big enough piece of paper wherever you go. Thats why we especially love the pass n play feature. You just need one phone! However, we always have some new ideas for maps, but the map creator is kind of hard to use. We have an idea that might make it easier. We think that the buttons at the top that change the type of sprite should be removed altogether. We think that pressing the sprite button should select whatever type is default, then tap it again to open a list of the types of sprites. Then when you select the desired type, you can then place and maneuver as desired. So, tap once to select sprite, then tap again to open the list of sprite types. It would also be nice if it were that way for units as well, just for simplicitys sake.
This game offers a fun challenge every time. It is our favorite game app and it always transports us to our childhood when we used to play this with paper and pencil.
This excellent and completely unique game now supports the iPhone Xs native resolution. Nice.
Neat concept, but AI never misses. For a human the controls are not easy to master. Its not like playing against a human, its like playing against that robot girl in Ex Machina that killed everyone.
Beyond frustrating to play. Cant get passed the airplane tutorial. The most unfun gaming experience Ive ever had.
This is a staple on our iPhone and iPad. Fun with friends and against the computer. If a game is easy, is it really any fun to play? Highly recommend.
This game is great! We've had it for quite a while, and it's one we consistently go back to to play. PvP is really enjoyable, campaign as well. The controls aren't hard to use at all, once you figure out what you're doing. Developer is also really responsive if ever you have issues. Would absolutely recommend; and have so for several friends.
Y'all need to add more stuff like people.
Great game all around. Simple and challenging at the same time. If you played as a kid, you'll love this game. No more erasing and re-drawing, no more arguing if it was actually a "hit" or not. The only thing we can say bad about it, is that it is sometimes inconsistent about whether or not your tanks are destroyed due to moving over water. Sometimes it only takes a sliver and boom, other times you can get away with half your tank riding in the water! Other than that small complaint, this game is a steal for 99 cents.
Okay, a lot of reviews complain about the controls. And yes, the controls are hard. And they're hard for the AI, too. We have seen the AI drive tanks into rivers and flub what should have been easy shots. The thing here is, if you ever actually played the paper version of this game, yes, it really is sort of hard to control a skittering pencil. That's what the game is trying to simulate. And it absolutely is sort of hard to control, but that turns out to be fun once you get a bit better at it. We think there's some quirks (collision detection seems to have a consistent bias in one direction, but it's paper-direction, neither for nor against the human player), but overall this is really nicely done and has a lot of fun and depth.
Really fun due to the simplicity.
We work In the cartridge department of Nintendo and this game is amazing! It's. Shame it would have been a huge hit back in the day.
Just don't. Controls never work the way you want them to. Very inaccurate with how it reads what your intended shots were. It's more of a frustrating game than anything else. There's so much better on the app store that you can spend your money on. Just a trash game trying to appeal to your youth, apparently.
Doesn't make any sense. Way too much work and way too difficult to use.
The way you move units and shoot is just bad DO NOT BUY THIS.
Beautifully made. Nostalgic graphics. Simple gameplay. Tough AI. Love it.
We think u should add boats,cargo planes,soldiers,and helicopters but still an awesome game.
Great game and fun to play with friends.
This is by far our favorite app we have so far out of about 20 , once you play lead wars on your phone you can play it with pencil and paper wich is realy cool, this game has a awesome map editor- you can add objects and vehicles , and you can adjust the sizes of the map. We like that it has a campaign as well as a single player mode because if you want to play with more of a story line you can and if you want to customize your own game you can to, we got this game like 3 months ago and am still playing it- if you looking for a good app that will keep you occupied , this is the perfict one.
What fun! Takes us back to junior high study hall–but holds our attention now as a middle aged grandpa. We can't wait till our grandson is old enough to play.
Love this pencil and paper based strategy game. We've gone through the Campaign twice. And, we'll keep doing it to improve our execution so we'll be ready for new levels when released.
An absolutely terrific time waster with no downfalls whatsoever! An absolute must for any part-time strategists.
We recommend this to anyone that likes strategy games and wants something a little different. The dev keeps updating it too, though its a solid game as is.
If you played this when you where young you probably will love this game. There is a cool map creator. We wish they would add some objective modes like capture the flag or conquest. We use to draw circles dots for infantry and we got even more ballsy and added helicopters!! How am we suppose to sign in to play multiplayer.
It would be a great game but the whole pencil sliding thing to move it is annoying and frankly too hard. We usually mess up 90% of moves that are meant to curve or be longer.
We love the idea and the gameplay. One of the most enjoyable games we've played. The issue we have is that after we open the game, we'll often times want to restart a level. The only way to do this is pause, and click on the missions menu. That's fine, but the game often crashes when we do that, and when we reopen, it's typically to a level or two prior, and our progress hasn't been saved. We've tried to save and quit to prevent this, but that hasn't been working right either. Frustrating.
This game is actually the type of game that we love, however the pencil fling thing is ridiculously difficult. We will succeed or get lucky once then mess up three times then succeed then back to messing up. This game is very rage inspiring.
Fun concept. It'd be nice if there was more strategy and less skill/uncontrollable fine motor skills though. We spend too much time going back and forth to get to one spot or taking way too many turns to move each piece into place.
It said you could ram things every time we try it doesn't destroy the thing and it is really hard to make the curved and longer shots.
We downloaded this game, expecting some simple 'draw the line to where you want to move', but instead, we got a 'game' made for, we're not sure. The 'think: touch-slide-move-touch', or whatever it was is far too tedious. We move much faster on folding a piece of paper and using a pencil. With that said, even though we played it only for 45 seconds in training, we loved the graphics and music and animation FIVE thumbs up which is what got us download it. If the Dev's can't give us 'draw path to move', at least give us onscreen controls like UP = LEFT and DOWN = RIGHT, then PRESS BUTTOM. To MOVE FOWARD or BACKWARDS. If you can, check out ATARI 2600's COMBAT the tank levels. Yes, we're an old gamer. We'll check back in February 2015, we hope control input is better. We'd LOVE to share this game then, if so.
Great concept ! But the controls are so complicated and poorly designed that it just killed it for us. We like the simple graphics and turn based gameplay and we really wanted to like this game. :/.
Do not get this game. We got it and it took our soul, it made us cry with frustration. The controls are absolutely the worst we have ever seen. In flappy bird at least all you had to do was tap! This game is THE WORST.
Based off a game with a great concept, but poorly designed for mobile devices.
We absolutely love this game. Everything it is meant to be. Very fun. It makes us want to play the actual tabletop version! Some people have complained about the difficulty, but if you pay attention to the instructions and practice, you'll be fine. :) definitely worth the purchase. The developer is very adamant about his game and works hard on it. Very dedicated.
As the other reviewer noted, the 4th training mission (curve shots) is impossible. And the game is locked and won't let you play actual battles until you complete all the training missions. So, enjoy your 1st 3 training missions. Developers, please remove the lockdown – game concept looks like a lot of fun, but your training mission lockdown is killing your game.
It's a fun game until you get to the campaign mission where it tries to teach you how to do curve shots. That mission is IMPOSSIBLE. We tried numerous times but ended up ragequitting.
We really love this game as a kid we always played a starwars version of this game .and think it would be awesome if you could make a starwars lead wars .and you could have ocean levels with aircraft Carriers warships and submarines.that would be really awesome just like you guys.
Overall a great game, well done.
We never played this game before, so while we understand the physical gameplay, we have no idea why on earth someone would want to replicate it on a digital medium. It's so volatile, random, and annoying, that we could only imagine it being fun when you're eight in 1980, stuck in school or at church, and have no other amusement. If you played it, you'll probably enjoy a few minutes of nostalgia. If not, you'll probably give up baffled about why someone would make it. It is pretty well made for what it is, though.
We had this game pop up on Genius so many times that we finally gave in. Played for 10 minutes and promptly deleted.
Full of glitches and hard to get from point A to B won't be able to hit anything.
To Dam confusing save your money.
We really wanted to like this game, but the controls or horrible. This is coming from a gamer. We can barley do the tutorial. The concept seems like o much fun. Please fix.
This is a very comprehensive game, we're impressed that its free.
We picked this game up on a whim and to our surprise this game is all we want to play in our free time. Once you take the time to learn the controls and physics of the game, it becomes increasing fun. It takes strategy like chess and hand eye coronation to master, and from hen on, the challenges never get old. We applaud the creators for a great game.
Easy to use, and learn. We haven't stop playing since installed last week. Hopefully SSgt isn't last rank.
Awesome game guys!!! One thing can you please add "Restart" button. Keep up the great work! Hope to see more updates and improvements. Thank You!!!!:).
Very fun challenging game! We totally recommend it.
This game is extremely fun online, we couldn't stop laughing our first game. Reminds us of elementary school.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.1.2
- Size: 22.74 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: DemonStudios
Last updated: 2nd April 2022 | Genre: Simulation, Strategy | Developer: DemonStudios