Micropolis
Shares rank 11 of 21 city builder games by recommenders
Free, open source engine from the original SimCity lineage, recommended for nostalgic fun and as a starting point for new software.
Free, open source engine from the original SimCity lineage, recommended for nostalgic fun and as a starting point for new software.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Open source original SimCity engine
“Why I find this stack interesting: original SimCity engine lineage, narrow Embind surface on purpose”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Ported my C game to WASM, here's everybug that I hit” “Micropolis is the open sourced version of the original engine built by Will Wright”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: AI agents play SimCity through a REST API” “I developed the open source version of this game, called Micropolis.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: AI agents play SimCity through a REST API” Fun nostalgic SimCity-style play
“It's more fun than psychoanalyzing yourself with Doctor.”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Micropolis/SimCity Clone in Emacs Lisp” “That's the one i played back in the day!”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Micropolis/SimCity Clone in Emacs Lisp” “It was a fun nostalgia trip.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “AI is mass decompiling games. That's both awesome and scary” Repo usable as a starting point
“just have your coding your agent of choice pull in the Micropolis repo and give it some guidance.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: AI agents play SimCity through a REST API” “Micropolis and other open source code, documentation, and designs for new educational software”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “λ Snap – An inviting programming language for kids and adults for CS study”
Other city builder games people recommend
The four most recommended other city builder games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SimCity 3000 | 23 | 2 | 92% | 5 | — | Approved |
| SimCity 2000 | 20 | 7 | 74% | 11 | — | Approved |
| SimCity | 20 | 12 | 63% | 9 | — | — |
| Cities: Skylines | 20 | 18 | 53% | 9 | — | — |
| MicropolisThis page | 7 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
11 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It was a fun nostalgia trip.”
“Micropolis and other open source code, documentation, and designs for new educational software”
“Why I find this stack interesting: original SimCity engine lineage, narrow Embind surface on purpose”
“It's more fun than psychoanalyzing yourself with Doctor.”
“That's the one i played back in the day!”
“I really appreciate you making this available to us, and providing other details!”
“I developed the open source version of this game, called Micropolis.”
“Micropolis is the open sourced version of the original engine built by Will Wright”
“just have your coding your agent of choice pull in the Micropolis repo and give it some guidance.”
“Finally RMS can play SimCity.”
“We need more ASCII games/simulations and it's only a bonus if it's in Emacs”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.