Theotown

The core gameplay of TheoTown is to plan, build and manage a city. The game is split into four modes; easy mode, middle mode, hard mode, and sandbox mode. Players in the first three modes are bound by financial constraints and must avoid going into debt. The latter of which allows to players to have unlimited money and resources.^[6]

The player is given a map tile that can be generated from predefined names (known as “seeds”) and can be customised using terrain tools such as creating hills or adding land. Land can be divided into three different categories; residential zones, commercial zones, and industrial zones (which include farmland and harbours).^[7][8] Infrastructure can be built along with other services to satisfy residents’ demands. Taxes can be adjusted to adapt to the city budget.^[8]

A “city rank” indicates the level of development in the city. As higher ranks are unlocked, new buildings and infrastructure become available to the player.^[6] Similarly, residences, commercial buildings and industrial buildings also have levels. This level is represented by the number of Theons (₮), the in-game currency. For example, poor inhabitants and businesses are represented by one Theon (₮), while richer ones are represented by three Theons (₮₮₮).^[9] Inhabitants and businesses become richer when provided better services; they also pay more taxes.

Regions are a collection of individual map tiles that are separate from each other (i.e. you cannot see or build on adjacent tiles). Their appearance is also determined by a “seed”. Players have the option to connect roads, electrical connections and water pipes between the map tiles to share resources. Online regions are where two or more players collaborate on one tile specifically to form a region.^[7]

To effectively manage the city, players must provide public services such as law enforcement, healthcare, fire services, and recreation among others. Failure to do so may result in calamities such as riots, pandemics and fires. Natural disasters such as earthquakes and tornadoes can also occur.^[4][7]

The City-Project was the precursor to TheoTown^[10] developed by Weigel, using assets that later appeared in TheoTown. As seen in a 2010 Youtube video on Miltenburger's channel, The City-Project was a work-in-progress city builder reminiscent of TheoTown.

During an interview with Eurogamer, Miltenburger estimated the development time of TheoTown to be “about two years”. He also stated that the development team “did not use a framework that would have allowed [them] to bring the game to other platforms”, resulting in the porting of TheoTown from Android to iOS and Steam to be challenging.^[10]

In the same interview, Miltenburger said that the name for the game was conceived from the fact that the original idea was from someone who called themselves “Theo”.^[10]

TheoTown received a 5/5 rating from TouchArcade, naming it their Game of the Week in May 2019 and included it among their best mobile games of 2019. Jarod Nelson of TouchArcade noted that it had "excellent animations" but could be somewhat overwhelming when first starting to play.^[13][14] Campbell Bird of 148Apps.com found TheoTown to be an "incredibly detailed game". Bird also stated that TheoTown had "very rough edges" and gave the game a 3.5/5.^[8]