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Crying Suns

Space tactical rogue-lite

Ratings

Age

13+

Category

Strategy

Languages

English

Crying Suns is a tactical rogue-lite that puts you in the role of a space fleet commander exploring a mysteriously fallen empire. Inspired by sci-fi classics like Dune and Foundation, the game features a deep, six-chapter storyline where every successful run brings you closer to the truth. Navigate a procedurally-generated universe, engage in tactical grid-based battles between massive battleships and their squadron fleets, and encounter over 300 unique story events. With the 'Advanced Tactics' expansion included, players can access new factions, weapons, and units for a truly deep strategic experience.

Dinsun Expert Review

Our Expert Score

89/100

Crying Suns is frequently compared to FTL, but that comparison only scratches the surface. While it shares the 'rogue-lite' ship management core, Crying Suns leans much harder into its narrative, weaving a story inspired by sci-fi giants like Dune and Foundation. You play as a clone of a legendary Admiral, and the mystery of why the Empire has collapsed is genuinely gripping, told through over 300 possible story events.

The tactical combat is where the game truly defines itself. Battles between capital ships and their squadrons take place on a hex grid, requiring a high degree of positioning and strategy. The 'Advanced Tactics' update added even more depth with new factions and battleship systems. It is visually stunning with a dark, atmospheric pixel-art style and a haunting soundtrack. It’s a challenging, melancholy, and ultimately rewarding experience that proves mobile games can have as much soul and complexity as their PC counterparts.

Dinsun reviewed on: Sat Sep 14 2024

Features

1

Procedural space exploration

2

Tactical hex-grid combat

3

Over 300 unique story events

4

Advanced Tactics expansion included

Tips & Walkthrough

Gameplays

Screenshot

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Q&A

Yes, the game features a deep 6-chapter narrative with a focus on world-building and mystery.

Ratings & Reviews

I never thought I would be sitting for over 6 hours
Tue Sep 22 2020 Asked_Alexandria

I this is one of the best games I ever played man thank you for this game🥺 you guys put so much story and badassery it’s just so fun and challenging you build up good stuff and lose it when you die so you go again and each time you never know will this pay out or will my crew and I die? Is machine some sadistic construct to that I’m doomed as well as the crew to do this forever? Have I been at this for 20 years?holy crap it’s been 7 hours ?! Really thank you guys for this game!i never write review you didn’t ask for one but it would been a sin not to it’s so deserving and how clever of a little game this really is! Genius really. Any sci-fi, strategy, etc gamer get this game I just can’t believe how fun it is. I know the devs prob won’t read this but I gotta ask?make me a character? Jk I’m jk no but I am curios the battles feel inspired by the civilization game starships I think it’s called not sure but better, also The going to different worlds like you do I’m away in this game idk why made me feel like a captain in star track but way cooler honestly my guesses were so much better than what I stated and I had a third but I’ve been playing your great game so long I honestly can’t think straight haha ima take a break more like force myself too thanks again guys this game is a gem I just finished the game and holy crap was it hard even on easy but now I’m gonna replay on harder settings to have those bragging rights lol... this game is one of my favorites now and I’m glad I bought this game you all have worked so hard and the sacrifice shows, I’m humbled and truly grateful that such an beyond excellent game exists. Thank you devs for this game I’ll enjoy for years to come and anyone if any who read this review..buy the game it’s so great and honesty five stars don’t even begin to give it justice this games just so great

A dark take on FTL, with RTS elements
Sat Jun 27 2020 PatrickEverson

Really love how they make you feel like a starship commander and the storyline so far, and I’ve only finished chapter 1! A few things keep it from being 5 stars. 1. The graphics feel a bit small and are sometimes hard to parse, I can’t imagine this playable on a smaller screen than 11”. Would love some kind of zoom when selecting tiles, even just a little would help a lot. I don’t need to see both ships when I’m telling my drones where to fly for example. 2. Some of the pixel art doesn’t seem to scale down right, like the terrain on surface missions looks like a mess of pixels, I tried the PC demo and they were clear there. Not sure what resolution this is running, but give us a higher resolution level for iPad pros! 2. The controls are mostly well implemented, but I can’t figure out how to cancel ship weapons without restarting their timers, and I’ve accidentally bought things in shops because I swiped too slow since there isn’t a confirm box there. Little things like that are frustrating. Overall though I recommend this game to anyone who enjoys spaceship combat, strategy, or who loved FTL. Can’t wait to play more!

Read Pls Devs (Crashing issues causes found)
Thu Aug 03 2023 IGN-T

Dear developers, the game is experiencing very frequent crashes, mostly during battles when multiple units were individually selected for different targets. Please do a hot fix on this since certain events (Dual enemy ship encounters or triple like the final chapter boss) are utterly unplayable due to reloading from the start, if this cannot be fixed, please consider adding an auto save right after one of those fights during the encounter, thank you! Edit: The game crashes when double tapping a unit on the battlefield, so far it yields an 100% crash rate, additionally, squadrons like parasite, juggernaut will also cause game to crash when using their abilities. When more than 5 or more squadrons are engaged in asteroid terrains, the game also seems to crash too. Also, a few times the game crashed when the enemy is using ship weapons against my squadrons. Hopefully this helps, I’m still testing to see if there were other crashing triggers.

Great game, but I wish…
Mon Jan 15 2024 ErandaWeezurd

Bought the game a couple days ago and I love it. The combat flows and scales nicely depending on what difficulty you pick. The story and lore is a slow drip with an interesting twist. I only really have two complaints. Every now and again the game boots me out when I’m about to win a fight and will continue to do so if I approach it the same way again and again. It’s not a big deal on a lower difficulty as all I have to do is change my tactics, but on a higher challenge it’s a nuisance and makes quick runs demoralizing as this bug is more common than I’d like to admit. My second is the length of the game. This game is SHORT. A handful of hours and you’re done. It’s a bit disappointing giving how much attention went into the world building. I feel an expansion would give this game the time it needs to feel even better. If you like post apocalyptic Sci-fi this game is an easy grab.

Too many long-presses; too little reward
Sat Jul 29 2023 Steve 1592

I hate long-presses. This game is a lot of long-press and tap sequences, for little reward. Annoying. My hangar has two ship slots. Filled. Lets change deployed ships. Tap “squadrons”. Expands that command area. Tap a ship. Details come up. But the list of replacements doesn’t. Even though there is plenty of room. Tap ship in hangar again, maybe that will give option to replace. Nope, closes the detail popup. Long-press ship dock. That removes the ship. Doesn’t bother to open the list of undeployed ships! Click empty dock. Finally get ship list. Tap one. All that happens is details popup. Seriously?! Gets worse in battle. Because I frequently need to long-press dock-with-ship, I accidentally long-press a long-range weapon that has been charging for ten seconds. Instantly undeploys, without any warning. Fine, time is stopped, so do the multiple steps needed to get it back. Of course the 10 seconds of arming starts over. Land on planet. Watch a sequence of random events that you have no control over. Having fun yet? No. Uninstall. Story is mildly interesting, so I gave it 2 stars.

Great game, just one suggestion
Sat Jun 25 2022 iwritegamereviws

I downloaded this game because of the App Store recommendation, and I was not let down. The visuals and story are mysterious and interesting and the music is great. I love how some elements are clearly influenced by other science fiction games/films/books such as the intro cutscene, which appears to be heavily inspired by The Matrix. The combat takes some getting used to, partially because I have not discovered a way to review old tutorials, but once you gain a basic understanding it becomes much more fluid and engaging. One suggestion: I would greatly appreciate if you make it so that you can select a ship’s target/route before it actually spawns on the battlefield? I find it annoying to have to pause the action to place the squadron, unpause to let it spawn, and then pause again to select enemy squadrons or systems.

It’s OK
Sat Apr 23 2022 IronGiant

The story kept me engaged enough to finish on easy. But the combat is not much fun. When I was done on easy I went back to try the game on normal. Even when you get some synergy it’s just not very satisfying. The ships should not be called “battleships”, they don’t have hardly any capital ship weapons just anti fighter guns and the whole combat revolves around a rock, paper, scissors of different fighter types. The graphics would have looked great 20 years ago but I’m not a huge fan of the “hey let’s go retro for the graphics” look that is popular now. Though some of it is attractive, like seeing an enemy ship blow up and some of the artistic cutscenes. Also, long before I finished the game I was already seeing many of the same NPC stories repeatedly. The game needs: Battleship weapons More of the random story content A better combat system I will continue to try the combat on medium but it’s really not feeling fun now that the story is done.

If you like being frustrated, this is your game.
Tue Nov 10 2020 ZeeZoy

There are five chapters and three sections for each chapter. As you go along you collect scrap which is used for upgrades. You also need to collect fuel which is also used for upgrades. The dumbest part of the game is that after each chapter you start the next chapter completely from scratch. You don’t have access to anything you collected besides maybe an officer (still can’t figure out how they determine that non-sense). If you die during the chapter, yep, start over from scratch. And then to top it all off, a lot of “missions” are a coin toss but good luck coming out ahead even 50% of the time. This has to be one of the lamest, most frustrating games I’ve ever played and I wish I could trade it in or at least snap the disk so no one else has to deal with my mistake. The reason it gets the one star instead of zero, is because the story is somewhat engaging. Good luck trying to get through it though.

Some Youtube Videos found!

News found!

Humble Bundle brings sci-fi roguelite Crying Suns to the Play StoreHumble Bundle brings sci-fi roguelite Crying Suns to the Play Store

Crying Suns is an indie sci-fi roguelite often compared to FTL: Faster Than Light, but that's only half the picture since the game also...

Android Police Wed Jul 29 2020

Crying Suns lands in stores, a grim story-driven FTL-likeCrying Suns lands in stores, a grim story-driven FTL-like

Crying Suns bills itself as a tactical rogue-lite, and bears no small similarity to the high-stakes spaceship management sim, FTL.

PC Gamer Tue Oct 29 2019

Mobile Indie Game Crying Suns Launching On June 25thMobile Indie Game Crying Suns Launching On June 25th

Humble Games, creators of the Humble Bundle, is working together with Alt-Shift to bring Crying Suns, a new indie rogue-lite game,...

Bleeding Cool News Wed Jul 29 2020

Crying Suns ReviewCrying Suns Review

Crying Suns is cut from the same cloth as a game called FTL: Faster Than Light. If you're aware of Subset Games' sci-fi roguelike,...

Gamereactor UK Fri May 29 2020

Crying Suns Surpasses One Million Players On Mobile And PCCrying Suns Surpasses One Million Players On Mobile And PC

The game was released on September 19, 2019, on Windows and macOS, and on June 25, 2020, on iOS and Android.

TheGamer Thu Apr 29 2021

OPINION | GAME ON: 'Crying Suns' is like ‘FTL’ but with a real storyOPINION | GAME ON: 'Crying Suns' is like ‘FTL’ but with a real story

There's something compelling about ironman play-throughs and rogue-like games, where one misstep can ruin your game and force you to start...

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Mon Mar 29 2021

Crying Suns: 7 tips to help fix your strategy and win battlesCrying Suns: 7 tips to help fix your strategy and win battles

Here's 7 great tips which will turn you from a struggling strategist into a competent commander in tactical roguelite Crying Suns.

Big Boss Battle Fri Nov 29 2019

Crying Suns reviewCrying Suns review

What is it? An FTL-inspired roguelike with a lot of story. Expect to pay: $25. Developer: Alt Shift Publisher: Humble Bundle

PC Gamer Tue Oct 29 2019

Crying Suns (PC) REVIEW – A Brutal Trek Through A Dying EmpireCrying Suns (PC) REVIEW – A Brutal Trek Through A Dying Empire

Crying Suns is a solid story-driven take on the sci-fi strategy roguelite.

Cultured Vultures Tue Oct 29 2019

Crying Suns Announces Final Update Called "Last Orders"Crying Suns Announces Final Update Called "Last Orders"

Humble Games has announced that Crying Suns will be getting one final update, as they have named this one Last Orders.

Bleeding Cool News Thu Jun 29 2023

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