Xantoluda / sim log See the games
Updated every second Sunday

Sim and management games worth building.

Eight tucked-away city-builders, colony sims and logistics puzzles for your phone. Each one played to the end, written up plainly, and linked straight to the official store.

See the games How we pick

Hand-picked. Links go to the official stores. No downloads hosted here.

08
games in the log
02
official stores only
3.4-4.78
store rating range
Free - $5.99
price spread
01 / the curator

One person, a GO train, and a long list of town builders.

Under the radar firstThe bias is toward small studios and quiet releases, not whatever is topping the charts this week.
Played, not skimmedNothing lands here off a trailer. Each game gets real hours before it earns a card.
One honest flag eachEvery game carries the thing that might put you off: a price, a crash, a live-service hook.
Stores, not filesEvery button goes to Google Play or the App Store. No mirrors, no side-loads, ever.
02 / the catalogue

Eight games, sorted by what they ask of you.

Filter by the kind of management you are in the mood for. Everything is cross-platform unless a card says otherwise.

Showing 8 of 8 games

Railbound gameplay screenshot: two numbered carriages on a hand-drawn desert grid, with track pieces looping between tunnels Logistics puzzle AndroidiOS

Railbound

4.3 / 5

Bend and cut track until every carriage finds its way home.

~170k installsFree trial + unlockOffline200+ levels

Afterburn built this as a cozy puzzle first and a train set second. You draw track, swap junctions, and coax numbered carriages into the right order behind the engine. The first stretch is gentle. Then semaphores, tunnels and one-way tiles arrive, and the late boards stop being gentle at all.

Heads upThis is a closed puzzle, not an open railway sim. If you want to keep laying track forever with no goal, this is not that game.
  • Over 200 hand-made levels, no filler
  • No timers and no energy meter
  • Runs fully offline for the commute
  • Teacher Approved on Google Play
Get it on Google Play View on the App Store Read the full review

Afterburn, Poland, 2022. The Lukasz Spierewka team behind Golf Peaks and inbento.

Townscaper gameplay screenshot: a small island town of red, blue and green houses with a spire, floating on calm teal water City-builder AndroidiOS

Townscaper

4.57 / 5

Click to place a block, watch a quiet algorithm grow a crooked seaside town.

~170k installsPaidOffline

Oskar Stalberg's toy has no score and no fail state. You pick a colour, tap the water, and the engine sprouts stairs, arches and little red roofs on its own. Half an hour vanishes. It is the closest a phone gets to folding paper.

Heads upThere is no goal. No economy, no win, no lose. People who need an objective tend to bounce off it inside a few minutes.
  • Instant, no tutorial to sit through
  • Genuinely calming, zero pressure
  • Every town comes out one of a kind
  • No ads and no purchases after you buy
Google Play App Store

Oskar Stalberg, solo, Sweden. Mobile port by Raw Fury, October 2021.

Poly Bridge 2 gameplay screenshot: a wooden truss bridge carrying a green truck over a river, with the budget readout on top Engineering sim AndroidiOS

Poly Bridge 2

4.78 / 5

Build a bridge on a budget, then watch your cars fall straight through it.

~12k installsPaid ~$1.99OfflineTop rated here

Dry Cactus turned civil engineering into slapstick. You lay road, wood and hydraulics inside a dollar limit, hit play, and hope the whole thing does not sag into the river. The physics is honest, which is exactly why the failures are so funny to watch.

Heads upThe mobile build drops the Steam workshop and community levels. You get the full campaign, not the endless stream of user-made puzzles.
  • A real physics stress test on every run
  • Free sandbox mode with no budget cap
  • Highest store rating in this list
  • One-time price, no in-app purchases
Google Play App Store

Dry Cactus, New Zealand, 2020. Sequel to the 2016 bridge-builder that named the niche.

The Bonfire gameplay screenshot: a night-time settlement under a starry sky with a spider attacking and the Actions menu open Colony survival AndroidiOS

The Bonfire: Forsaken Lands

4.2 / 5

Chop wood through the day, keep the fire lit and the wolves out through the night.

installs disputedFree to Day 6, then $3.99Offline

Xigma's debut is a tight day-night loop. You assign villagers, gather, build, and brace for whatever the dark sends across the tree line. It reads more like a compact board game than a sprawling colony, and that focus is the whole appeal.

FlaggedInstall counts do not line up across the store aggregators, some put it near a million, so treat the reach as uncertain. It is also short. The free run ends around Day 6, the rest is a $3.99 unlock, and content thins once you learn the pattern.
  • Clean, readable survival loop
  • Plays well in short sittings
  • Google Play Best Indie, 2019
  • No live-service grind attached
Google Play App Store

Xigma Games, India. iOS debut March 2018, then Android and Steam.

Settlement Survival gameplay screenshot: a snow-covered medieval town seen from above, with a stone hall, market rows and orchards Colony sim iOS

Settlement Survival

3.4 / 5

Guide a handful of refugees into a town that has to survive its own winters.

iOS onlyPaid $7.99stability caveatOffline

This is the most ambitious game here and also the roughest. Gimi Games built a Banished-style town builder with food chains, seasons and disasters that can wipe a decade of planning. When it runs well it is absorbing for hours. It does not always run well.

FlaggedThe lowest store rating in this catalogue, and honestly earned. Long sessions can crash and support has been thin between updates. Save often. It has also been pulled from Google Play, so the iPhone and iPad version is the only way to get it on mobile now. It is here because the underlying sim is good, not because it is polished.
  • Deep Banished-style economy
  • Maps, seasons and disaster events
  • Unusually big scope for a phone
  • One-time purchase, no live-service
App Store

Gimi Games, China, published by X.D. Network. Steam 2021, then mobile.

Pocket City gameplay screenshot: a dense isometric downtown with a shopping centre, ferris wheel and industrial zone City-builder AndroidiOS

Pocket City Toronto studio

4.3 / 5

A full city builder with no timers, no energy bars and no microtransactions.

~1M+ installsFree ad version + paidOffline

Bobby Li built Pocket City in Toronto as a straight answer to the timer-heavy city games all over mobile. Zone the land, fund the services, throw a festival, then deal with the fire that breaks out downtown. It respects your time, which in this genre still feels rare.

FlaggedThis one is bigger than the hidden-gem bracket, past a million installs, and there is a full sequel now. We keep it in because it is a local Toronto studio and a genuinely clean builder. Just know it is not obscure.
  • No timers and no energy gates
  • Free ad-supported version to try first
  • Made by a solo Toronto developer
  • Sequel exists if you want more depth
Google Play App Store Read the full review

Codebrew Games, Bobby Li, Toronto, Canada, 2018. Free ad version listed as com.codebrewgames.pocketcity.

Sandship gameplay screenshot: a factory floor of conveyor belts and smelters routing ore, with the inventory panel open Factory automation AndroidiOS

Sandship: Crafting Factory

4.5 / 5

Automate a walking mega-factory as it crawls across a dead sci-fi desert.

1M+ installsfree-to-play, IAPLive-service

Rockbite's factory game is the one live-service pick here, and it is a good one. You lay belts, smelt ore and build production chains that get pleasantly out of hand. The catch is baked into the model rather than hidden in the design.

FlaggedBigger than a gem at over a million installs, and this is free-to-play with in-app purchases and an always-on live service, not a one-time buy. If you dislike online progression systems, skip this one.
  • Deep, satisfying automation puzzles
  • A steady stream of official updates
  • Free to start and see if it clicks
  • Runs fine on a modest phone
Google Play App Store

Rockbite Games, Armenia, around 2020. Also made Deep Town.

Mini Metro gameplay screenshot: a minimal transit map of red, yellow, brown and green lines crossing the River Thames Transit sim AndroidiOS

Mini Metro

4.6 / 5

Draw subway lines for a city that simply will not stop growing.

1M+ installsPaidOfflineNo ads or IAP

Dinosaur Polo Club stripped a transit sim down to coloured lines and plain shapes. Stations appear, passengers pile up, and you re-route on the fly before the whole map jams solid. It stays calm right up until, suddenly, it is not.

FlaggedNot a hidden gem, this is a genre-defining classic with over a million installs and a shelf of awards. It earns a place as the pure example of the form. Abstract on purpose, with no ads and no purchases.
  • Elegant, readable, one-more-go loop
  • Real world cities as its maps
  • No ads and no in-app purchases
  • IGF winner, BAFTA nominee
Google Play App Store

Dinosaur Polo Club, New Zealand. Desktop 2015, mobile October 2016.

No games in that category yet. Try another chip.

03 / by the numbers

What the catalogue actually looks like.

No player counts we cannot verify, no invented review totals. Just the shape of the list itself.

Games in the log
8
Each one played to a proper finish.
Official stores
2 only
Google Play and the App Store. Zero mirrors, side-loads or APK files.
Store rating range
3.4 to 4.78
Settlement 3.4Poly Bridge 4.78
Honest flags raised
5
Size, price or stability warnings called out on the cards, not buried.
04 / the spec sheet

All eight, side by side.

Sortable in your head, not by trickery. The bar shows the store rating out of five.

GamePlatformPriceInstallsStore rating
RailboundAndroid / iOSFree + unlock~170k
4.3
TownscaperAndroid / iOSPaid~170k
4.6
Poly Bridge 2Android / iOS$1.99~12k
4.8
The Bonfire flagAndroid / iOSFree to $3.99disputed
4.2
Settlement Survival flagiOS only$7.99 -
3.4
Pocket City flagAndroid / iOSFree + paid~1M+
4.3
Sandship flagAndroid / iOSFree + IAP~3M
4.5
Mini Metro flagAndroid / iOSPaid~1M+
4.6

Ratings and install brackets read from the Google Play and App Store listings and rounded. Anything marked flag has a size, price or stability caveat spelled out on its card.

05 / how it works

Not a store. Just a notebook with links.

Step 01

Play it properly

Every game gets real hours on a real phone before it earns a card. No trailer verdicts, no press builds.

Step 02

Check it in the store

We pull the current developer, rating and price from the live listing, and write down the one thing that might put you off.

Step 03

Send you to the source

Buttons go to Google Play or the App Store and nowhere else. We host nothing and take no cut of anything.

06 / pick of the week

If you install one thing, make it this.

Pocket City gameplay screenshot: a suburban edge of the city with houses, a campsite, woodland and a small livestock farm This week

City-builder / Codebrew Games / Toronto

Pocket City

It is the local pick, and it holds up. A city builder that never once asks you to wait out a timer or top up a currency. Start on the free ad version, and if it grabs you, the paid one drops the ads and opens the rest. The clearest on-ramp on the whole list.

Get it on Google Play View on the App Store Full review
07 / getting started

Three habits before you install anything.

Step 01

Follow the store button

Use the Google Play or App Store link on the card. If a page ever offers you an APK or a mod, close it. We never do that.

Step 02

Read the real listing

Confirm the developer name matches what we list, then skim the current price and recent reviews. Listings change; ours is a snapshot.

Step 03

Try free first where you can

Several of these have a free trial or ad version. Start there, and only pay once a game has earned a spot on your home screen.

08 / from the studios

A city builder can respect your time. Codebrew Games proved it from a desk in Toronto.

Pocket City, built solo by Bobby Li, arrived in 2018 as a plain refusal of the timer economy. It remains the local landmark on this list.

Studio
Codebrew Games
Founder
Bobby Li, solo developer
Base
Toronto, Ontario
Breakout
Pocket City, 2018
Since
Pocket City 2, 2023
09 / straight answers

The awkward questions, answered.

Some, not all. Townscaper, Poly Bridge 2, Settlement Survival and Mini Metro are paid, roughly $1.99 to $5.99. The Bonfire is free until about Day 6, then a $3.99 unlock. Pocket City and Sandship have free versions. Each card lists the price we saw; the store shows the current one.

You are not downloading from here at all. Every button opens the official Google Play or App Store listing, and the install happens there. We host no files, offer no APK or IPA, and link to no mirrors or modded builds.

One. Sandship is free-to-play with in-app purchases and an ongoing live service, and its card says so up top. Pocket City has an ad-supported free version. The rest are one-time purchases with no ongoing spend.

Because you already know those, and their business models lean on timers and currency. The point of this log is the quieter stuff: small studios, one-time buys, sims that do not treat your evening as a resource to drain. A couple of picks here, like Mini Metro and Pocket City, are bigger than the hidden-gem line, and we flag exactly that on the card.

Roughly every second Sunday. Games get added when they earn it and dropped if an update breaks them. See how we pick for the full method.