Best mobile games like Settlement Survival
Settlement Survival recently hit the App Store, and it seems fair to say that players are a little disappointed by it. There’s plenty of reasons to be less-than-thrilled with this city-building/management game, but luckily it isn’t the only option for getting this kind of experience on iOS.
See below for our top picks of games like Settlement Survival. They might not be as close to providing Banished-style gameplay as promised by Settlement Survival, but they’re also generally way more enjoyable.
TheoTown (Free)
TheoTown is the premier modern city-builder game on iOS. Borrowing heavily from genre classics like Sim City, it gives you an isometric view of a landmass that you can build up into a thriving metropolis over time while being careful to manage resources and maintain a certain level of citizen happiness.
This game has also been incredibly well-supported since launch to the point many of the stability concerns cited in our initial review are no longer issues.
Click here to read our TheoTown review
Paragon Pioneers ($3.99)
Paragon Pioneers is a great management game to pick up if you are particularly fond of titles that allow you to manage your civilization into a perfectly optimized equation. This game may not feel particularly realistic, but the way it distills settlement management down to some essential components makes it both satisfying and very easy to pop in on and instantly know next steps to take.
Click here to read our Paragon Pioneers review
Project Highrise ($3.99)
Where a lot of management games work on the scale of whole cities, towns, societies, etc. Project Highrise focuses in on having you manage the tenants of a single building. You map out the uses for the spaces on all of your floors and manage all of the maintenance, utilities, and amenities you want to offer to your tenants.
This zoomed in approach to the city-building genre gives the game a lot of character while making sure not to shortchange you on depth.
Click here to read our Project Highrise review
Square Valley ($1.99)
Real-time games—even ones with pause buttons—can sometimes be too troublesome to try and manage on a phone, so Square Valley is our pick for anyone looking for a purely turn-based affair that you can play at your leisure.
Aside from its easy pace, Square Valley is a unique take on city-building since it is more a puzzle game than a management. You score points based on how you place certain features into your valley settlement, and the game has such a good sense of internal logic that scoring aligns just about perfectly with making sensible and good city-building decisions.
Click here to read our Square Valley review
Kingdom Two Crowns ($6.99)
In all of the other games on this list, the stakes are somewhat low in the sense that doing poorly is fixable. If you don’t fortify your settlement in Kingdom Two Crowns quite right it can lead to your death and the destruction of your people.
This game is perhaps the most bizarre take on city-building and management, as it is a side-scroller with practically zero menu-driven gameplay. But, it’s these kind of against-the-grain decisions that make Kingdom Two Crowns so compelling as a management game. It is truly unlike anything else in the genre, and mostly for the better.