Citywright 城市规划师
A city-planning board game for 1 to 4 players
Citywright (城市规划师) is a polyomino-drafting, tile-placement city-building board game for 1 to 4 players, from the studio 新千竹文化 (newqz). You are an apprentice architect at a summer workshop. Each turn you draft a ruler from around a shared 4×4 site board, take the tiles in the row, column or diagonal it points at, and lay them on your own 7×7 sheet in the ruler’s shape. Nothing you place can move. After 12 turns each, the highest-scoring city wins.
The browser version is free, needs no account, and runs in English and Chinese.
Play in your browserRead the rules
In development. Rules and playable demo are complete, and the boxed edition is being planned.
Fact sheet
- Players
- 1 to 4, with a solo mode
- Play time
- 30 to 60 minutes (an estimate, not yet confirmed by human playtests); the Daily Workshop online takes about 10 minutes
- Age
- 12+
- Genre
- Polyomino drafting, tile placement, city building
- Components
- Boxed edition, planned: a 7×7 drawing table per player, a 4×4 site board with 20 ruler slots, 240 tiles in four districts, 51 ruler cards in 9 shapes, 6 achievement cards
- Rules
- Version 1.1, in English and Chinese
- Studio
- 新千竹文化 (newqz)
- Status
- In development. Rules and playable demo are complete, and the boxed edition is being planned.
- Price
- Free to play in the browser, with a free print-and-play kit. The boxed edition has no price yet.
One turn, three moves
Draft a ruler
Twenty rulers lie around the site. An edge ruler points at a row or column. A corner ruler points at a diagonal and adds one tile of your choice.
Shape your tiles
The ruler’s shape is how you must lay those tiles. Rotate it, flip it, and put any tile on any cell.
Commit in charcoal
Everything you place stays. Hang part of a ruler over the edge if you must, and lose those tiles. Plan twelve turns ahead on forty-nine plots.
Four districts that want different things
Residential
+5 for every 2 tiles in your largest cluster, +1 per tile in the second largest.
Commercial
5 to 9 tiles: 5. 10 to 14: 15. 15 or more: 30, then +1 each. +2 for every tile touching no other Commercial.
Park
+2 for each row and each column with a park. +1 for each park next to housing or commerce.
Industrial
+2 for each tile on the board’s edge. +3 for every 2 tiles anywhere.
Ways to play today
Daily Workshop
Everyone gets the same site each day, and scores share one board.
Against rivals
One to three AI apprentices. No account needed.
Pass and play
2 to 4 people sharing one device.
Online room
Make a room, send the code to friends, and play from anywhere.
Print it and tell us what happened
The pencil edition needs a printer, scissors and pencils. It’s how we test the game with real people, and we read every report.
How this was made
Citywright comes from a very small studio working with AI tools. Rules, simulations, this site and the drawing software were all built with AI assistance, under one designer’s direction.
The tile drawings aren’t made by an image generator or by an illustrator’s hand. They come from a drawing program we wrote, which works out each building in 3D and renders it as pen lines. That keeps every tile consistent and print-ready.
We’re telling you up front because some players care how game art is made, and they should. Any crowdfunding page will disclose the same before you pledge.
Questions
What is Citywright?
A city-planning board game for 1 to 4 players from 新千竹文化 (newqz). You draft rulers from around a shared site board and lay the tiles they bring onto your own 7×7 sheet; after 12 turns, the best city wins. It is in development, and the browser version is free to play.
Where can I play Citywright online?
At citywright.newqz.com, in any modern browser: the Daily Workshop, where everyone gets the same site each day; games against one to three AI apprentices; pass-and-play for 2 to 4 people on one device; and online rooms you share with a code. No account or download is needed.
Which games is it like?
Like Cartographers or Patchwork, you fit polyomino shapes onto a grid of your own. The difference is that the ruler you draft decides both which tiles you get and how they land: its place around the shared site board picks a row, column or diagonal, and its shape is the shape you must lay.
When can I buy it?
There’s no date yet. We won’t announce one until a production sample and a manufacturer’s quote exist.
How long is a game?
We expect 30 to 60 minutes, and the Daily Workshop online takes about ten. Tabletop times still need more real playtests.
Does it work solo?
Yes. In solo a rival removes the ruler at the far end of each line you take, and your score earns a rank.
Is the balance tested?
By thousands of simulated games so far: scoring, seat order and strategy mix were tuned from that data. Human playtesting is the next step, which is why the print-and-play kit exists.