Neongarten

Neongarten (2024) is a creative world-building game where you construct a block of buildings in a cramped four-by-four area. Play involves selecting buildings with different traits and strategically putting them in optimal positions to maximise your income. It stands out for the clever interactions between each type of building and its unique vertical expansion.

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You play as an urban development company given an eight-week contract to make money by taxing residents. However, you only have a very limited amount of space to cram in your buildings, so carefully planning complementary combinations is essential. You choose between three buildings that can boost each other, for example, by placing a park near a house you charge that house more tax.

As you progress you unlock perks that influence your playstyle, like extra income from shelters built by the homeless or more re-rolls when selecting buildings. You balance factors like building types, corporate factions and even lighting levels to maximise profits. The more money you earn the more buildings you unlock, quickly giving you many options to be creative in your city planning.

This results in a landlord game that leans into capitalism to let you build sky-high industrial complexes. The fun lies in planning out big multipliers and boosts between building types - all in the name of profit. All the while you wonder if this is really what you should be doing for your residents.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Neongarten a year ago. It was re-examined by Ollie Robertson and updated 11 weeks ago.