As your city flourishes with residents, tourists, businesses, and other attractions, so will the crime, fires, and even natural disasters. There isn't quite an end goal to Pocket City other than completing all of the quests that are available, so it's like a free-for-all: build your city how you like it!Since this is a city-building simulator, you can expect all of the things you'd normally find in a city: houses, apartments, various shops and dining establishments, leisurely parks and recreational fare, towering landmarks, and the like. There's even more odd things, such as obelisks to keep natural disasters away, pyramids, and other distinctive landmarks with unique properties. GameplayThere are two game modes in Pocket City: Normal and Sandbox. No matter which route you choose, you basically start with nothing and must work your way to a city that's hustling and bustling with activity.With the normal mode, you'll start your town from nothing, and work your way up. This means building simple additions to the city, earning revenue and experience, leveling up with access to new building types, and enjoying plenty of growth.

However, you need to manage your money wisely, expand your land, and also complete quests as they come along, which various folk in the city give you.Sandbox mode lets you pick from randomly generated maps, and everything is free to build, so you can let loose with your creative side. You basically have infinite funds, all buildings are available at your disposal from the get-go with no wait times, and there are no quests or leveling up to worry about. If you just want to freely create your dream city, Sandbox mode is the way to go.Honestly, I like the normal mode so far and haven't felt the need to dive much into Sandbox. I like the quests since they keep you coming back, and it's a nice, steady progression. A small gauge at the top notifies you of what the citizens are demanding more of (Residential, Industrial, or Commercial zones), so you're constantly planning, expanding, and growing.One thing I didn't particularly like about the gameplay is the fact that all buildings need power and water (obviously), but the only way to get these resources to the buildings is to connect them via roads.

This part didn't make too much sense, as I would think that's done through wires and pipes underground. I just found it a bit odd, and it leads to more roads than I truly wanted in my city. InterfaceLike with most simulation games, everything's done through various menus and a drag-and-drop interface. However, there are a few quirks with the UI that end up being annoying, especially in portrait mode.First off, props to the developers for allowing everyone to play the game in either Portrait or Landscape mode. Players can change this whenever they want in the game's menu, and it depends on if you prefer getting a larger space to work with at once or if you prefer to use just one hand.All buildable structures in Pocket City get organized by categories and subcategories.

Just tap on the 'Build' button in the bottom toolbar, and select the category you want. For example, you have Resources, Services, Leisure, Road, and Zones. You'll find power plants and water towers in Resources (necessary for all buildings), Safety (police, fire department, hospital), Institutions (banks), Traffic (rail stations), and more under Services. Leisure includes things like parks, art galleries, theaters, and other fun activities for all citizens. Roads include basic roads, highways, bridges, and rail tracks.Just find what you need to build, and then select it. You can then place it on the land by dragging your finger around.

You can build things like roads and zones in clusters by adjusting the size freely. Other things, such as specific structures, may only get built one at a time.I did notice that when trying to lay down a lot of roads, the map camera does not pan out with your finger. So I ended up putting down what I can on the screen, then adjusting the camera before adding more down. I think the developers should make it so that the view pans around automatically.With the current menu system, there's a lot of back-and-forths too. For example, the menu always starts back from the beginning.

Perhaps it should pick up where you last left off, in case you need to put down more road. It would feel more streamlined that way. Visual and audio designPocket City's a cute little city-building simulator, and it definitely shows in the graphics and sound.With Pocket City, players find themselves in a world of simple cartoonish visuals full of life and color. Since cities become vast and sprawling with activity, you won't be able to see a lot of the finer details with each individual structure as your city grows.

You don't need to be a gaming fanatic to be familiar with the Sim City franchise and it is absolutely fair to say that Pocket City borrows heavily from. If you enjoy simulation games like Sim City or Cities: Skylines, then you should check out this cute and charming city simulator for mobile.

However, everything looks unique enough to know what it is at a glance, so you don't have to worry about that too much.Once your city grows large, everything looks tiny from a distance since you'll zoom out a lot. You can zoom in at any time by pinching the screen with your fingers.

One thing I did notice as I started playing was that the graphics looked a bit fuzzy if you zoom in. Fortunately, you can adjust the resolution in the game's menu, but keep in mind that performance may suffer with higher resolutions.As far as sound goes, Pocket City doesn't have much of a soundtrack. However, the sound effects of city life get reflected pretty realistically, as you'd expect from a game of this nature. The different NPCs you'll encounter have their own distinctive voices, but they never go further than a quick one-liner.

City builders should be all the rage on mobile, but it’s a game type that doesn’t actually crop up that much, at least not the way that you want. There are, of course, the builders loaded with microtransactions, ads, and arbitrary gating systems, but very few that try to offer a premium city building experience without any of that stuff. Pocket City is one such game that offers simple city building without freemium hooks, which is great, except for the part where the game itself is a little strange (and disappointing).

Build it better

Simply put, Pocket City is a city building game much in the same vein as something like Sim City. You start with an untouched piece of land which you can then build the city of your dreams on. This includes houses, industrial zones, commercial corridors, highways, and more.

As you build, people move into your city and pay taxes, which can let you then build more. The general principle of Pocket City is the better your city is, the more money you can make, and making more money lets you build more stuff. Eventually, as your funds grow, you can even buy neighboring parcels of land to keep building your city into a sprawling metropolis.

Urban unlocks

Whenever you build something in Pocket City—whether it’s a university or a fire station—you earn experience points. Accumulating certain amounts of experience points can level you up, which then allows you to build newer, more exciting things for your city.

In addition to leveling up to unlock things, Pocket City also has a mission structure that gives players little challenges to complete as they grow their city. Sometimes, these challenges involve hitting a certain population level, or it can be something as small as zooming in on a little citizen as they do yoga. In either case, completing these objectives can grant you bonus experience or additional money, which—again—can let you build more stuff.

Dinosaur simulator games. Peculiar planning

The core of Pocket City revolves around this cycle of growing your city, completing challenges, and using the rewards from those challenges to grow your city even more, which can be a pretty compelling gameplay loop. It mimics some of the all-time great city builders in this regard, but this is also where Pocket City reveals some of its weaknesses.

Although built to resemble something like Sim City, Pocket City is severely limited in how you can build things, which can lead to frustration. Building rail systems in your city, for example, is a confusing endeavor in that you’re always forced to build elevated rail lines that have endpoints that can’t be built on top of roads. Similarly, there’s a system in the game that requires buildings to have road access, but you can skirt around this issue by placing disconnected tiles of road down next to buildings that need them and it solves the problem completely, even though it’s a solution that doesn’t make any sense if you're actually trying to build a functional city.

The bottom line

Some rules in Pocket City are frustratingly rigid, while others are so easy to work around that they feel game-breaking. These inconsistencies ultimately make for a game that only stays enjoyable up to a limit. Although there is a pretty fun progression to the game, you never feel like you have the full freedom to make the city you want. Instead, you always feel like you have the freedom to make the kind of city that nobody wants, which is not particularly satisfying.