A pocket city builder. Lay roads, zone districts, keep the lights on and the taps running. Watch the streets — commuters jam narrow roads and gridlock stalls growth, so upgrade busy stretches to avenues. Your city autosaves as you play.
You start in Pan mode — left-click any building, road or park for its info, right-click for the advanced view (or tap the ▸ in the card) · pick a tool to build, tap again or Esc to stop · Q / E or ⟲⟳ rotates the view · Drag previews, release builds · on touch, one finger drags to pan — tap to place, hold then drag to draw roads & zones · Pinch or scroll zooms · the speaker button toggles sound · Fullscreen lives in the ⋯ menu
Six challenges with a goal and a deadline. Win, and the city is yours to keep.
POLIS (πόλις) is the ancient Greek word for city — not just streets and walls, but the community that lives in them. This game is about growing one: a complete isometric city simulation that runs in a single file, in your browser, with nothing to install.
How a city grows. Zone land beside powered roads and people arrive on their own. Lots develop through five levels — cottages become townhouses, blocks, and finally 2×2 towers and skyscrapers — driven by demand, water, calm traffic, land value and education. Industry levels on its own logic: it needs workers and freight, not gentrification.
What you manage. Power plants and water sources feed networks that travel through roads and buildings. Police, fire, schools and healthcare cover radii you can inspect on the data maps. Traffic is real: cars follow each other, yield at junctions, jam on narrow roads — and avenues triple capacity. Budgets, taxes, municipal loans, milestones with prestige unlocks (City Hall to the Titan Tower), airports with tourism income, seasonal weather and day-night cycles round it out.
Advice from the agora. Watch the overlays — every problem is visible before it hurts. Keep homes upwind of industry, schools near towers, and a margin in the treasury. And when gridlock comes, remember: you can paint an avenue straight over a road.
Everything here — simulation, art, music — is procedural and self-contained in one HTML file. Your cities autosave locally and can be shared as save codes. Crafted with care (and an unreasonable number of headless traffic simulations).
Give your settlement a new name.
Roads carry power and water — every building just needs to touch a connected road.
Narrow roads jam easily; upgrade busy stretches to avenues or add bus stops nearby.
Businesses need an educated workforce to reach level 3 — build schools near homes.
Crime grows with density and erodes land value; police coverage suppresses it.
Click the Treasury for taxes & funding. Drag panels by their title to rearrange.
Photo and Fullscreen live in the ⋯ menu.
Each map has its own river and forests. Pick one, or roll new lands.