Cute City Building Games

[Margaret Sigars]

Thebest city building games give you the ultimate experience in urban planning. Whether you're waiting patiently for some new games in the genre or just want to expand your building sim repertoire, all the titles on this page offer rich, in-depth management systems that test your strategy and tactics. From medieval metropolises to wholesome family communities, there's something everyone can tap into in the sandbox world of building simulators.

Below, we've put together a list of the best city building games you can play right now, no matter your platform of choice. A few of these even cross over with our picks of the best strategy games, giving you a whole other area to get invested in as you watch your creations thrive under challenging conditions, but that's another list for another time.

If you're after a city-building fix and are hunting for the best iPhone games, Pocket City is one of the best city builders on iOS and Android. It successfully makes the genre feel right at home on touch screens. Wrapped up in a delightful art style, you can design and build your very own city, from a little town to a busy metropolis, with the swipe of your finger.

Drawing inspiration from the Settlers and Anno series, The Colonists see you harvest resources, set up farms, research new technologies, advance through different ages, and explore the mysterious lands you settled on. Building up your colony still requires some strategy, with roads, transport systems and different infrastructures to place and create, but its gentle pace and lack of threat make for a rewarding, chilled-out time-stealer.

After being in early access before the launch in 2021, this little indie number sees you transform a colourful 3D terrain into a well-oiled factory town, decked out with conveyor belts and chutes to process all the resources the landscapes have to offer you. You start out with a few workers and a single building, but after collecting minerals and crops around the procedurally generated area, you can work to transform your little lone building into a money-making hub of activity.

Townscaper, from developer Oskar Stlberg, is a delightfully vibrant city builder that really lets your creativity flourish. As a sandbox-style game in the genre, you have the freedom to build up your own little towns, cities, hamlets, and more. In fact, you can even make your very own city up high in the sky if you want to. Built block by block with different colors to choose from, it's incredibly satisfying to see the blocks form into buildings and expand into your very own miniature city or construction.

In Townscaper, it really is all about the building, so if you're looking to scratch that particular itch, you can't go wrong with this wonderful indie number. Seriously, we end up asking everyone if they have played Townscaper because it is just that good. With plenty of tools to create vast structures or quaint little towns with colorful houses, bridges, harbors, and more, you can marvel at your own creations and fall into the relaxing flow of bringing your designs to life.

Another Early Access title that has been on most city building fans' radar since 2022, The Wandering Village, is putting its own spin on the genre by asking you to create your town on the back of a massive, six-legged beast called Onbu. However, before you get excited about the creature element here, this is still a relaxing management game above all else.

As Onbu walks along you'll have to feed it, guide it, and also recognize when it needs a rest, all while building your own empire on top of it. The city building itself isn't going to reinvent the wheel, but it's the combination of how the building works with Onbu where this game really shines.

Dorfromantik is part city-builder, part puzzle game, and 100% chill vibes. It's one of the best relaxing games, as you get a stack of hexagonal tiles, each of which has elements of civilization on it. Homes, forests, fields, waterways, and train tracks are your staples at first, but later, you'll unlock deer, ruins, and other additional tiles to add visual interest to your creations.

There's a matching puzzle to how you build, with tasks popping up that ask you to connect certain amounts of any element together, like 300+ trees in a single forest or exactly 25 fields, so there's a wonderful blend of puzzling and pure aesthetics. It's never taxing, but it's easy to get drawn into its beautifully peaceful world and lose an hour or two to trying to best your top score.

Each island has unique properties, like weather and soil quality, so your priorities are always establishing good trade routes between them all to ensure every Peep in your empire has access to the things they need to be happy and healthy. It's non-violent, too, so it's just a case of enjoying watching your world grow.

What if there was a city builder where you play as beavers? If that sounds amazing, you need to check out Timberborn. With the humans long gone, it's the beavers' time to shine and see if they can carve out a better existence for themselves. With droughts ever present in the valley, water conservation is a constant challenge, so you've got to plan ahead to ensure you can continue to provide for your population in times of scarcity.

There's farming to be done, vertical cities to be built, and technology to advance. It's all thematically adorable, and there are even two different factions to play - the nature-friendly Folktails or the industrious Iron Teeth. Each one has its unique style, buildings, and even gameplay tweaks, so there's a lot of game to enjoy here - even if it's still in Early Access.

Farthest Frontier is excellent at capturing what it could have been like to be a pioneer, even though it's currently in Early Access. It's a Medieval city builder that has the potential to surprise you. It's really tethered to history, which is really interesting, and makes everything you do have a pang of authenticity about it. Food, for example, spoils, so you've got to decide what to harvest - and, more importantly, when.

Its farming systems are also really, really detailed, so prepare yourself to start thinking like a Medieval person fast. It's a lot to manage, but the overall effect is seriously cool, particularly when it starts impacting the look and feel of your settlement.

City life isn't always a walk in the park; unless you're actually walking through a park. It's noisy, crowded, and commutes can be frustrating. If only there was a way to design the perfect city to end all your urban woes.

Luckily, game designers feel your pain and for years they have provided us with an outlet to play a god and construct our very own utopias. Why brave the real streets when you can just build your own to go anywhere your heart desires? We've constructed our very own list of the best city-building games of all time so that you can find the ideal way to create a world of your very own.

Updated May 18, 2024 by Jacqueline Zalace: City-building games are a great way to find endless entertainment. We've updated this list with several more of the best city-building games for you to try out, providing plenty of options to choose from.

One of the most satisfying things about city builders is that they allow you to create sprawling settlements that you'd love to live in. Little Cities takes that compelling gameplay and takes you right into the city you build thanks to the wonders of virtual reality, allowing you to see close-up the inner workings of your metropolis.

It has all the usual trappings of a city builder, but brings it to a whole new level of immersion. You actually get to interact with the people who live in your city, too. You can wave at them and watch them as they go about their daily lives, whether they're indulging in some exciting skiing or hot air ballooning, or simply taking a breather to eat their lunch.

Set in ancient Mesopotamia, Sumerians allows you to build up a small settlement into a sprawling city. This game stands out from its contemporaries by utilizing zoning mechanics most often seen in modern city builders, which helps the settlements you make feel more realistic and alive.

Most cities are built by and inhabited by humans - most. In Timberborn, settlements are built by beavers, who are under your control. It's your job to direct these furry critters around as they build houses, gather resources, and do what beavers do best - dam.

As you'd imagine, water plays a very important part of the game, and this is one of the ways that Timberborn sets itself apart from its compatriots on the city builder scene. The game is currently in Early Access but enjoys a dedicated fanbase and oodles of positive reviews.

Roguelikes are very popular, getting blended with every other genre you can think of. Against the Storm blends roguelike progression into the city builder genre, and adds a dash of fantasy in for good measure.

This game is incredibly compelling - turning a city builder into a 'just one more game' experience works incredibly well, and the randomized nature of the game means you won't get bored easily. It feels like a well-rounded, full experience, despite still being in Early Access.

Kingdoms Reborn is a city builder that mostly revolves around resource management and the betterment of your residents' lives. You're responsible for choosing their location, providing them with food and luxuries, and expanding your territory to attract more people.

Interestingly, Kingdoms Reborn can be played online with other players in real time on the same map. You can play cooperatively with gifts and plan to share resources or play competitively by cornering the global markets or using the game's basic military mechanics to flex your might. It's a very interesting game that shines when you play with a pal.

If incredibly complex colony simulators are what you enjoy, Songs of Syx might scratch the eternal itch. Less a city builder and more a city-state builder, Songs of Syx lets you dive into the minutiae of your residents' lives and encourages micromanagement.

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