Skyline Tycoon

Skyline Tycoon lets you grow a small town into a sprawling city at your own pace. What won me over is that it respects your time — there are no energy gates forcing you to wait, so you can build for twenty minutes or two hours.

The economy is transparent: you can see why a district is unhappy and fix it. Later stages get genuinely tricky to balance, which gives the sim some real teeth.

The zoom and pan controls are smooth, and it never choked up even with a packed city. A relaxing, thoughtful builder.

What we liked

• No energy gates or pay-to-wait
• Transparent, readable economy
• Smooth performance on big maps