My City App Review: Brilliant Puzzle With Room for Improvement

A smart digital take on Reiner Knizia’s beloved legacy puzzler, My City nails the “one more episode” loop on phones and tablets. But if you crave ranked ladders or couch co-op, a few missing pieces keep this from universal must-buy status.

Why it matters: The app streamlines a family-friendly legacy game (a campaign that evolves over time) into crisp, snackable sessions and adds replay-heavy modes you can’t do on cardboard—while stumbling on multiplayer features competitive players expect.

TL;DR

• The 24-episode campaign is intact and ideal for 5–10 minute sessions.
• Randomized Game mode is the star: fresh boards, river paths, and rule modules keep it lively after the credits roll.
• Eternal Game preserves the pure polyomino puzzle without legacy tweaks; Daily Challenge delivers a shared, “beat-your-friends” seed.
• UI is clear and accessible; toggles for contrast, symbols, and textures earn real points.
• Weaknesses: no public matchmaking, no hot seat pass-and-play, and a background-audio quirk that muffles your music.

Before we talk pixels, a quick refresher. My City is a competitive, campaign-driven polyomino (Tetris-style shapes) puzzle from designer Reiner Knizia. Over 24 bite-sized chapters, you build a personal city that grows from pastoral beginnings into industrial sprawl. Everyone draws and places the same shape at the same time, which turns the challenge into planning and foresight rather than luck. It was a Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) contender in 2020—an accurate hint at its family-friendly weight and broad appeal.

Why it clicks: rules teach gradually, episodes run about twenty minutes on cardboard, and each envelope adds a clean twist—new scoring conditions, restrictions, or a surprise piece that forces you to rethink your grid. Some puzzle sharks nitpick that late-campaign goals can feel checklist-y and campaign bonuses can snowball, but the dominant vibe is elegant, approachable, and quietly sharp.

That DNA translates almost perfectly to a phone. In digital form, the pacing shifts from “family night” chapters to “coffee-break” beats—without losing the brainy cadence that makes a good polyomino puzzler sing.

Spiralburst Studio’s app brings the full 24-episode campaign to iOS and Android. You’ll place buildings from a shared deck onto your board, covering rocks, leaving trees breathing room, respecting the river, and—most importantly—avoiding those nasty gaps that cost you later. The cornerstone tension remains: grab a safe play now and pay later, or set up for a higher-risk, high-reward finish.

A gentle interactive tutorial teaches by doing, mirroring how the tabletop ramps complexity. Sessions tighten to 5–10 minutes—even faster once the rules settle in—so you can clear an episode while waiting for a latte, then pick up the thread hours later. For a digital legacy game, low session friction is everything. Here, the structure that once demanded an evening becomes a snackable chapter book in your pocket.

Beyond the campaign, the app adds two genuinely thoughtful modes and a daily ritual:

• Eternal Game: the “just the puzzle, please” option—no legacy stickers, no chapter constraints. Great for practicing placements or scratching the pure optimization itch.
• Randomized Game: the headliner. The app remixes the board layout, river path (including weird cross-board bends), tree and rock positions, and toggles modular rule twists. The result feels like a roguelike take on My City—familiar grammar, wildly different board states. This is where the digital format flexes: remixes that would be clunky in print are instant and fair on a device.
• Daily Challenge: one shared seed per day, with randomized rules, so everyone around the world tackles the same puzzle. Perfect for micro-competitions among friends—“I cleared three more spaces than you”—without scheduling a play session.

These modes give the game legs well after the campaign’s credits roll. Finish the story, then live in the remix.

The UI (user interface) aims for clarity and hits it. Tiles read cleanly at a glance; board features are distinct; drag-and-drop placement feels snappy enough that your brain focuses on patterns, not wrestling controls. That’s exactly what a polyomino puzzler needs—no glitter, all signal.

Accessibility options land where they should for a color-coded game. You can boost color contrast, add symbol overlays to differentiate colors, and swap building textures—all welcome on smaller screens or in dim lighting. Language support at launch covers English, German, Dutch, and Polish, with more planned. Scaling from phone to tablet preserves readability without shrinking your mental map.

Under the hood, you can play solo versus AI (artificial intelligence), sync up online with friends across platforms, or chase the rotating Daily Challenge. The AI is a useful sparring partner—good for testing gambits before committing to campaign placements. Online play mirrors the tabletop flow: you invite friends, everyone builds simultaneously off the same tile sequence, and results compare cleanly.

But there’s a catch that competitive players will feel immediately: there’s no public server list or matchmaking. If your ideal night is queueing for ranked ladder runs and battling strangers, the app simply doesn’t offer that. The closest you get is the Daily Challenge leaderboard as an indirect comparison. For folks who love the social chaos of fast, anonymous matches, that’s a miss.

Local play also stumbles: no hot seat pass-and-play. On a tablet at home, passing the device across the couch would be a natural fit and a great way to teach newcomers. With that absent, local multiplayer is effectively off the table.

Technically, the build is solid. In our time with it, the app behaved—no show-stopping crashes, load times are short, menus are brisk, inputs are crisp. The accessibility toggles feel designed, not bolted on, which matters in a shape-and-color-centric game.

There is, however, a small but noticeable audio quirk: if you dial down in-game music and run your own playlist or podcast in the background, the app can muffle external audio more than expected. Mobile puzzlers often live alongside background listening; overly aggressive volume ducking is a vibe killer.

We checked in with Spiralburst about the rough edges. They’re aware of the audio issue and working on it. Matchmaking isn’t on the roadmap yet, but it’s under active consideration. And hot seat? It was discussed, but priorities are currently elsewhere—so don’t count on it in the near term. If those pieces change, the value proposition shifts meaningfully.

Even with those knocks, the core experience shines. The campaign remains a breezy ladder of clever ideas. Randomized Game keeps you unlearning comfortable patterns—exactly what long-tail puzzle fans crave. When the river snakes in a new direction and a module flips, your muscle memory resets and the next five minutes become deliciously tense.

This “burst play” design respects your time. You can chase perfect boards between errands, not carve out a whole evening. For solo puzzle fans, the mobile version may actually be the best way to engage with My City’s design: fast entry, constant feedback, and no setup or teardown.

Great:

• Fully featured campaign with quick sessions.
• Randomized and Eternal modes extend the life of the puzzle.
• Daily Challenge scratches the friendly rivalry itch.
• Clean UI and thoughtful accessibility options.

Missing:

• No public matchmaking or ranked ladder.
• No hot seat pass-and-play.
• Background audio ducking can muffle your music.

If this breakdown helps you zero in on your next download, consider subscribing on YouTube and joining our newsletter for deeper dives, giveaways, and weekly strategy breakdowns—you’ll get the signal without the noise.

Play it now if you’re:

• A solo puzzle fan who wants fast, satisfying brain food with real depth.
• A couple or friend group that already coordinates play sessions and doesn’t need public matchmaking.
• A parent or host introducing legacy concepts without heavy rules overhead—the interactive tutorial and early chapters keep onboarding smooth.
• Someone who values accessibility options; the app widens the tent with contrast, symbols, and textures.

Wait or skip if you’re:

• A competitive player seeking ranked ladders, public queues, and a steady stream of fresh opponents.
• A couch-co-op household that relies on pass-and-play.
• Sensitive to background-audio quirks—if music or podcasts are part of your puzzle ritual, the current ducking may bug you.

Stripped to essentials, My City on mobile delivers its thesis with confidence: elegant rules, fast turns, and that warm “my grid is coming together” click. The Randomized and Daily modes are more than filler; they’re smart digital-only twists that meaningfully extend the game’s life. The package fits neatly into how we actually use phones—short, focused bursts with a clean reset.

Where it trails is fair-competition infrastructure. Without matchmaking, the app entices puzzle-first players but leaves esports-adjacent folks on the porch. Without hot seat, it misses a teach-the-game sweet spot on tablets.

Verdict: As a solo or friends-only experience, this is an easy recommendation. If you value clean, snackable strategy and have a buddy or two ready to join you, download with confidence. If you want public queues or local pass-and-play, keep it on your watchlist and revisit after a few updates.

Three tweaks would move this from “very good” to “slam dunk for everyone”:

1. Basic matchmaking with a simple rating—nothing fancy, just a pipeline to fair strangers.
2. Hot seat pass-and-play for tablets—still the best teaching tool in digital board games.
3. A fix for audio ducking, so podcasts and playlists don’t get flattened.

Spiralburst is already investigating the audio issue and actively considering matchmaking. Hot seat appears lower priority, so adjust expectations accordingly.

The My City app captures what makes the board game tick: clarity, momentum, and that evergreen joy of making awkward shapes behave. It shines in five-minute bursts, stays fresh with Randomized runs, and treats new players kindly. For now, it’s brilliant brain food with limited competition features. If the studio lands matchmaking and local play, we’re looking at a genre standard.

• My City’s campaign is fully intact and perfect for short mobile sessions.
• Randomized and Daily Challenge modes give the app long legs beyond the legacy story.
• The UI and accessibility features prioritize clarity and inclusivity.
• Multiplayer is friends-first: no public matchmaking, no hot seat pass-and-play.
• A background-audio bug currently muffles external music/podcasts; the developer is aware and working on it.
• If you play solo or with a coordinated group, buy confidently; competitive ladder seekers should wait for updates.