Build and design your city from the ground up. Create a bustling metropolis with parks, schools and special landmarks.
Similar to most games in this genre – Clash of Clans and Hay Day being best examples – SimCity BuildIt monetizes player impatience. It does so with one-time gates and over-time skips.
Where can I play?
SimCity BuildIt is available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play. It’s a simulation game that lets you design your own city and make it the best in the world.
As your city grows, you need to juggle all of the needs of your citizens. You need to build residences, parks for them to relax in, shops for them to get what they need, and power sources to keep everything running smoothly.
There’s also the chance to visit other players’ cities and complete tasks in order to earn rewards. These are called Plummbobs and the more you have, the higher your position on a leaderboard that offers prizes based on your ranking.
You can even download the Android emulator MEmu on your PC and play SimCity BuildIt on a larger screen for an immersive gaming experience. This way, you can access more features like multi-instance and action recording. Then you can create a custom keystroke to designate specific commands at the press of a button!
What are the features?
Taking full advantage of mobile devices, SimCity BuildIt offers vibrant graphics and immersive gameplay. The game features age-appropriate content and is free to play with in-app purchases available. Parents should be aware that the game has social elements such as the ability to visit cities created by other players and interact with them. It also has town clubs which are competitive player-versus-player competitions that may entice kids.
The game’s core loop has timers on material production that require the player to return multiple times per day and days per week to collect materials and re-start production. This is a common element of city-building games, but it can cause new-player engagement to plateau and potentially degrade long-term retention.
The launch of new social features in the form of Contest HQ and Club Wars provide additional ways for players to engage with one another and compete against each other. However, these social elements lack the punch of best-in-class titles such as Clash of Clans’ clan system which drives both player engagement and payer conversion.
How do I get started?
SimCity BuildIt starts players off with a fair amount of coins and Simcash, and they can also get special Reward Chests after each chapter of the City Journal. Following these missions is one of the best ways to progress early on and keep your city growing.
In the beginning, you should focus on building roads and residential buildings, as these are important for your citizens’ happiness. Roads will help your citizens get to where they need to go, and you can upgrade them to reduce traffic levels. Residential buildings are also essential for increasing your city population and earning Simoleons.
Once your city reaches certain levels, you can unlock new areas to expand into. Each area offers different resources, currencies and structures. Taking your time and carefully planning the layout of your city is key to success. You should also pay attention to the placement of public buildings as this can impact the growth of your city. For example, placing parks and fire departments near residential areas will make your citizens happy.
Are there any in-app purchases?
Warning: Please don’t post any SimCity BuildIt hacks or cheats, they are not supported and will only result in your device being hacked/infected with malware. This includes any program that claims to modify the game – they are all fake and will only infect your device.
Despite being a mobilized take on the franchise, SimCity BuildIt still hits many of the classic beats of city building: expansion, resource management, civil service duties and semi-randomized disasters. However, the small map size and separated city plots takes away a lot of the epic feel of past games.
Unlike some mobile city-building games, such as Kim Kardashian: Fame Lists, which features nothing but transactional social with light competition, SimCity BuildIt has a bit of cooperative social in the form of visiting other players. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to drive a meaningful inflection in visit frequency or player conversion. This is likely a result of the game’s aggressive early-game economy tuning, as well as the city’s reliance on goods that are not produced in the player’s inventory.
