Make it Beautiful, Make it WorkI grew up on SimCity and fell for Dorfromantik as an adult. Cozy Burg is my try at the best of both: a cozy hex city builder that's real underneath. You get a hand of three cards, a land card, a zone card and a road card, and you place them. Grass, forests, lakes, farms. Homes, shops and places to work. Anyone can pick it up in a minute. But nobody moves in just because you built a house. You have to earn every resident.
🏡 Real people, real jobs
Everyone in your town needs a home they like and a job they can get to, and they're picky about both. Build homes with no work in reach and they sit empty. Put the shops, offices and farms where people can get to them, and the town starts to fill. Every car you see is somebody going to work, to the shops, or home again.
🌳 Nature brings them in
People want to live somewhere nice. Homes near forests, lakes and parks fill faster and hold more people and jobs. Keep nature all around, or the people won't come.
🚦 Nobody likes a jam
Build a bad junction and traffic backs up through your streets, and jammed streets make people unhappy. The traffic lens tints every road green, amber or red so you can find the problem. Then fix it: upgrade the road, cut a second route, or draw a bus line stop by stop and watch riders climb aboard. Ferries carry cars where your roads can't reach.
🎣 Try their jobs yourself
Some of your townsfolk have jobs you can play. Go fishing, or drive a taxi around town. Each one is a two-minute game, they're optional, and if you do well they pay out cards. Timothy the raccoon has a game too, sneaking around town for snacks.
🏰 A town worth visiting
Landmarks unlock from what you build. A big lake on the shore unlocks the lighthouse. A big mountain range unlocks a ski resort with a working chairlift. A level 3 road plus a running bus line unlocks the stadium, and it fills up on match day. 500 residents unlocks the airport. There's also a castle, a national park and a volcano. You unlock terrain styles for grass, forest, water and mountain, and you can repaint one tile or a whole valley.
⏳ Your pace, your cards
No energy and no timer on the building. The speed dial runs from paused to 16x. The pressure is the cards in your hand. Every town level has a goal and a budget of cards to reach it. You can redraw a bad hand for free a few times, after that a redraw costs a card. Run out before the goal and the run ends. On Gentle you always get another go, on Standard you get one, on Demanding you don't.
✨ And the small things
- A Creative mode with everything unlocked from the first click.
- Town services when you need them: police, fire, a hospital.
- A narrator for the big moments.
- A Town Film that replays your town growing, from the first tile to now.
- A Journey mode: a tutorial and five small levels, each about one idea.
- Saves live on a shelf of postcards, one painted map per town.
- Animal homes for wild horses, sheep, a bear, sea turtles and hawks. Farm hands at harvest. Gulls over the harbour. Undo, obviously.
- The soundtrack is composed live by the game while you play. Nothing sampled, no loops.
- Bridges that carry your roads out over open water, a drawbridge, and a taxi stand.
I'm a solo dev and this is my first game. If Cozy Burg looks like your kind of place, a wishlist honestly helps more than you know.
Early Access planned for Q4 2026.