"[3] The iOS version of Ascendancy was a Universal app, meaning it was designed for both the iPad and the iPhone / iPod touch platforms.

In Ascendancy the player takes on the role of leader of an alien species, tasked with guiding their people into space to explore and colonize other worlds.

[8] The player does this by building structures and space ships, researching technology and growing stronger through war or diplomacy.

Research points are shared among all colonies and allow the player to learn new technology, such as advanced building structures or spaceship components.

Prosperity determines how quickly a planet's population will grow, providing additional workers for future construction.

Ascendancy contains a Diplomacy screen where players can offer alliances to other species, declare war and exchange information on star lanes, planets or research.

Players can request military assistance from their allies or attempt to end declarations of war with hostile factions.

When starting a new game players select several parameters, including their species, a star density, a political atmosphere and the number of opponents.

Selecting a political atmosphere of Peaceful, Neutral or Hostile determines the attitude of computer opponents when they have a colony in the same system as another species.

Players are free to imagine a detailed storyline but most plot is restricted to a single introductory screen for each species and a synopsis given at the end of each game.

The Logic Factory said that inspiration for Ascendancy came from "[having] read the fantastic books or watched some of the great shows that have explored the possibility of human contact with intelligent alien life.

[18] Bruce Geryk said "the graphics were excellent, and the method of ship design was quite engaging,"[4] while Andy Bucher of PC Gamer UK said "it looks great ... everything looks slick, clean and well designed ... Ascendancy mixes just about the right level of complexity and challenge with an intuitive interface, great graphics and the odd spark of humour.

It did this by making the enemies far more hostile towards the player but not toward each other, giving them the significant industrial advantage of allowing them to build their first 3 structures on their new planetary colonies in one day each, having the NPC species build the right structures on the right colored squares and having attacking ships stop right outside of range of orbital missile bases the player has in orbit, if they have weapons with sufficient range to attack the planet from a safe distance.