micropolisJS

Overview

Draw a rectangle of residential land in micropolisJS and the map sits empty — until the simulation ticks, decides the plot has road access and power, and only then sprouts houses. That loop, the zone you lay versus the reply the engine gives back one frame later, is the heartbeat of this handmade JavaScript and TypeScript port of Micropolis, the open-source release of the 1989 SimCity. Maintained by Graeme McCutcheon alongside contributors under the GPLv3, with the name itself guarded by the separate Micropolis Public Name License, the project recreates the original top-down, tile-based mayor sim inside an HTML5 canvas that loads in any modern browser with no plug-ins. Players lay out residential, commercial, and industrial zones, string together roads, rail, and power lines, then watch population, traffic density, crime, pollution, land value, and the municipal budget respond to every decision. A Budget window governs tax rates and per-service funding for roads, fire, and police, while an Evaluation window grades the mayoralty through public-opinion polls, net migration, and a running score. Optional disasters — a monster, fire, flood, plane crash, meltdown, or tornado — can stress-test a thriving town. It appeals to simulation fans who want the classic Maxis feel and the transparent, hackable source that the newer isometric reimaginings like isocity deliberately leave behind.

How to Play

The objective is to grow a village into a metropolis while keeping the treasury solvent and the public happy. A new game opens in January 1900 with $20,000 in funds at Easy, Medium, or Hard difficulty. Pick a tool from the sidebar — Residential, Commercial, or Industrial zones at $100 each, Road ($10), Rail ($20), Wire ($5), a Coal plant ($3,000) or Nuclear plant ($5,000) for power, Police and Fire stations ($500), a Park ($10), plus the larger Stadium, Seaport, and Airport — then click and drag on the map to stamp it down. Everything needs a power line feeding back to a plant, and zones need road frontage before they will develop. Open the Budget window to set the tax rate and the funding level for roads, fire, and police; open Evaluation to read population, migration, assessed value, and the yes-or-no approval poll. The Pause button, the Slow/Medium/Fast speed selector, and the Settings window (with Autobudget, Autobulldoze, and a disasters toggle) let you control the tempo, and you can save the city or take a snapshot of the map at any point.

Tips & Strategy

Resist zoning huge tracts on day one — buildings only rise where roads and power both reach, so a compact grid with short wire runs keeps the $20,000 seed money alive while tax revenue accumulates. A single Coal plant is the economical early power source; ring it with industrial blocks that tolerate pollution, and keep residential zones upwind and dotted with parks ($10 each) so land value climbs. Open the Query tool constantly: it reports density, value, crime, pollution, growth rate, traffic, and the effective radius of nearby police and fire stations per tile, which tells you exactly why a block stalled before you sink more cash into it. Keep road, fire, and police funding near 100% once density rises, because underfunded services are what flip approval negative and stall migration. Leave Autobudget on while learning so funding fills automatically, then switch it off and tune the tax rate a couple of points once cash flow is reliably positive and watch the migration line respond. A Nuclear plant is efficient but a Meltdown disaster near your downtown can erase hours of work, so place it far from the city center or keep disasters toggled off entirely until your treasury can absorb a catastrophe.