Disney’s Star Wars: Tiny Death Star game launches on mobile

Now you too can control the ultimate power in the Galactic Empire with Disney’s Star Wars: Tiny Death Star, a new mobile game launching today.

Star Wars: Tiny Death Star screen shot.
Star Wars: Tiny Death Star screen shot.

Built by mobile developer Nimblebit, the creator of the Tiny Tower game, Star Wars: Tiny Death Star puts you in charge of a huge space station that you can build out and then use against planets that are friendly to the Rebel Alliance. The alliance between Disney and Nimblebit is reminiscent of Disney’s collaboration with Imangi Entertainment, which built the Temple Run games.

In that alliance, Disney built reskinned games such as Temple Run: Brave and Temple Run: Oz. That was a smart way to get big on mobile. It used the proven and popular gameplay of the “endless runner” genre and the power of a Disney brand to attract millions of gamers, who downloaded and played the mobile games.

It’s not a particularly creative strategy, but it works. What could go wrong in the combination of popular gameplay and a big brand like Star Wars?

Tiny Death Star features 80 different Star Wars-themed levels and 30 species. You can be Wookiees and Ewoks. You can switch sides to the Dark Side and then build your very own Death Star.

And like Tiny Tower, this Death Star has luxury accommodations, like shopping malls and apartments. The 8-bit builder game is available now on Windows Phone, Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.