Star Wars fans have a wait ahead to find out if Disney can successfully reboot the famous film franchise – Star Wars: Episode VII is expected to be released in 2015.

Now they have a new way to fill the time: mobile game Star Wars: Tiny Death Star, a free-to-play mobile game released for Android and iOS today.

The game is based on a popular mobile hit called Tiny Tower, whose developer NimbleBit worked with LucasArts on the new version, which is set in the Star Wars universe.

It tasks players with helping Emperor Palpatine build a Death Star "level-by-level" and stocking it with residential and commercial businesses staffed by species from the films, including – yes, some artistic licence is being taken here – Wookiees and Ewoks.

Tiny Death Star is not the first Star Wars-branded game to be released for smartphones and tablets, with Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, two Angry Birds Star Wars games, Star Wars: Force Collection, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars Pinball 2 all available. 

Star Wars: Tiny Death Star is the second of these games to adopt a free-to-play model, following Star Wars: Force Collection. The new game is free to download and play, with people able to buy its Imperial Bux virtual currency as in-app purchases ranging from £0.69 to £34.99.

Free-to-play is increasingly the dominant business model for mobile games, although its growth has provoked plenty of debate among gamers and developers about whether some games are over-aggressive in the way they are designed to nudge players into paying.

NimbleBit, however, has a reputation for being one of the least aggressive developers on this score, based on its games including Tiny Tower, Pocket Planes and Pocket Frogs.

In December 2011, the company talked about how Tiny Tower's in-app purchases worked, when the game had around 600,000 daily active users. At that point, around 5% of players were paying through in-app purchases.

Nearly two years on, and free-to-play games like Candy Crush Saga, Clash of Clans and Puzzle & Dragons are the biggest moneymakers on the app stores.

LucasArts, its parent company Disney and NimbleBit will be hoping Tiny Death Star can find similar success, without alienating Star Wars fans.