Build a town on the hills: zone homes, shops and industry, lay roads, bring
power and water, set the taxes, and watch it grow into a city.
🆕 A new city
🏆 A map with a goal
📖 A town with a problem
…or your own land
The land
Map size
Start in
⚙️ Settings
Sound
Detail
Turn the detail down if the city feels slow.
⚠️ This browser is not keeping saves (a private window?). Your city will be lost when you close it.
This city needs a newer browser to draw it. Your cities are safe.
Jan 1950☀️
⏸️ Paused
Your city is waiting.
Are you sure?
🥇 You did it!
📖
🏙️ How a town works
👥 People move into 🏠 homes that have ⚡ power and a 🛣️ road near them.
💼 They want jobs too: 🛍️ shops and 🏭 industry, near a road, with power.
💰 Money comes from taxes: every month, everyone pays a little. More people, more money.
🏦 If the money runs out, the bank lends you more. Just keep building!
🏛️ Your term has ended
The town spent more than it had for a whole year, so a new mayor takes over. Your city is saved, and you can still look around it.
👥 People and 💰 money
People move into 🏠 homes that have ⚡ power and a 🛣️ road near them, and they want
jobs in 🛍️ shops and 🏭 industry. Money comes from taxes: every month the people and
the jobs pay a little, so more people bring more money. Tap 💰 or 👥 at the top to hear
it again.
👆 Look around
Drag to move around the map. Pinch, or use 🔍 and 🔭, to zoom. 🔃 turns the view.
With no tool picked, tap anything to see what it is and why it is (or is not) growing.
⚡ First, power
Pick ⚡ Power and put a power plant on flat land. Nothing grows without power.
Power runs along roads and power lines, and through zones and buildings that touch
each other. So you do not need a line to every zone: one road or line to any tile of
a group powers the whole group. Grass, water and gaps stop it.
🏠 Zones
Pick 🏠 Zones, choose 🏠 homes, 🛍️ shops or 🏭 industry, and drag across the land.
Zones grow into buildings by themselves, when they have power, a road within 3
tiles, and people who want them. The three bars at the top show what the town
wants: green homes, blue shops, yellow industry.
🛣️ Roads
Drag to lay a road. Every zone needs a road near it, and roads carry power too.
A road dragged across water is a 🌉 bridge; a 🚇 tunnel goes through a hill. Cars drive
from homes to work: when a road jams, lay another beside it or a 🛤️ highway, which
carries four times as many but has no way in for zones.
💧 Water
Buildings only grow bigger with water. Put a 🚰 pump next to a lake, a river or the
sea (pumps need power), and lay 🔵 pipes underground (🕳️ shows them). Water flows
along pipes and from building to building where they touch, so one pipe to any building
of a group is enough. Empty zones and roads do not carry water. A 🗼 tower keeps spare
water for later. 🗺️ → ⚡ Power or 💧 Water colours the map where each reaches.
⛰️ The land
⛰️ Land raises and lowers the ground, levels it, makes water, and plants trees.
Big buildings need flat land.
🏛️ Services
A growing town needs 🚓 police, 🚒 fire stations, 🏫 schools and 🏥 clinics, and likes
🌳 parks. Each reaches the homes around it and costs money every month. Police
keep crime down; industry and smoky power plants make the air dirty, so keep homes
away from them. The face at the top shows what the town thinks of you.
💰 Money
💰 City shows the taxes, the bills and the budget. Higher taxes bring in more money
but fewer people want to come. If money runs out, the bank lends you more, and you
keep building. Only with "money can run out" switched on (the 🏙️ City age) can it
end: a whole year below $0, and a new mayor takes over.
🗺️ More land
Running out of room? 💰 City → 🗺️ More land makes the map bigger: 16 more tiles on the
east and south sides, for $2 a tile. Everything you have built stays where it is, and the
new land carries on from the old: the sea, the river and the hills go on. The biggest a
map gets is 2048 × 2048.
🤝 The next town
A 🛣️ road to the edge of the map brings trade, and so does a 🚆 railway with a
station. A 🔌 power line to the edge lets you buy power from the next town when you
are short (no plant needed, but it costs more than running your own), and sell them
what you have spare. Switch either on in 💰 City, under 🤝 Neighbours.
🌙 Night and 🌧️ rain
🌙 shows the town at night: windows and street lamps light up wherever there is
power, so a dark street is a street with none. ☀️ brings the day back. Some months
it rains (spring and autumn most), and the chip with the date shows the weather.
Night and rain are only how the town looks: nothing in it changes.
📖 Towns with a problem
The menu has five towns that are already built, each with something wrong: the power
is out, a fire is burning, a dinosaur is walking through, the money has run out, or
nobody likes living there. Each has a goal and a date. Meet it in time for a 🥇 gold
cup; later is a 🥈 silver one, and the town is yours to keep either way. Tap the 🏆
note at the top to read the story again.
🎁 Gifts and 🏙️ towers
As the town grows it gives you gifts: 🏡 Your House at 1,000 townsfolk, then a
🏛️ Town Hall, 🗿 Your Statue, a 🎪 Fairground and the 🌈 Rainbow Dome. They are
free, and there is one of each: find them at the bottom of 🏛️ Services. A really
big town can build a tower, a whole town in one building: 🏢 Stack Tower, 🌳 Treetop
Tower, 🫧 Bubble Dome and 🚀 Rocket Spire. A tower needs a lot of power and water.
📰 The paper and the advisors
Twice a year 📰 The Daily Brick prints three lines about your town. Tap the face at
the top to read it, and to hear from your nine advisors: one for the money and one
for each part of the budget. 🟢 is fine, 🟡 could be better, 🔴 needs you; 👉 takes
you to the place.
💡 What next?
The 💡 note at the top says what your town needs next; 👉 Show me picks the tool.
Warnings like ⚡ or 💧 take you to the place when you tap them.