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Squirrel's Pick Squirrel's PickThe best game on this page. If you only try one, try this. Budget Pick Budget PickThe best game here for the least money.
City BuilderBase-BuildingColony Sim
Strong Mods Strong ModsA deep, active modding scene extends it past its base content.
$8.99 ~65.9 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 94.6% of 37k
The Squirrel's verdictAgainst the Storm structures city-building as a roguelike: each settlement run is temporary, worker allocation carries real consequences, and orders you choose shape what you build and prioritize. Reviewers with high hours describe it as one of the few builders that stays replayable indefinitely, with varied starting conditions each run. Players who approach it as a traditional persistent builder tend to bounce off it early.
Not for you if you want a relaxed, low-stakes pace rather than repeated runs with failure states and constant reallocation pressure.
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City BuilderColony SimMedieval
$19.99 ~37.2 hr median no co-op complexity: light 93.5% of 31k
The Squirrel's verdictKingdoms and Castles is a grounded medieval city-builder for players who want resource and population management with actual external threats — fire, disease, and optional AI kingdoms that can declare war. Worker reassignment and building placement work as expected, addressing friction points Airborne Kingdom reviewers flagged. Endgame content thins out over longer sessions, and major updates have slowed since the developer moved toward a sequel.
Not for you if you want a free-roaming open map rather than a fixed plot, or expect sustained new content across many playthroughs.
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City BuilderFuturisticSci-fi
$17.99 ~51.1 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 87.3% of 4k
The Squirrel's verdictCliff Empire splits your attention across multiple separate cliff-top cities that must trade with each other, rather than a single vessel you pilot across a map. The inter-city logistics, market economy, and food-categorization systems add meaningful complexity for players who wanted more interlocking decisions in their resource management. Reviewers note the economy can feel arbitrary and the game has received few updates since release.
Not for you if you want straightforward resource management rather than a multi-city trade economy that reviewers found confusing and exploit-prone.
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Hidden Gem Hidden GemLoved by the players who found it, but still under the radar.
City Tales - Medieval Era
PC
City BuilderEconomyResource Management
$13.79 ~15.9 hr median no co-op complexity: light 89.5% of 590
The Squirrel's verdictBoth are low-stress builders about gathering resources and expanding at your own pace, without combat or real threats. City Tales drops Airborne Kingdom's weight/lift balancing and worker-assignment friction entirely: no food consumption, no populational strain, no unassignable-worker headaches. Instead you draw housing districts and place production buildings, with an upgrade-requirement system rather than survival pressure.
Not for you if you want ongoing resource strain, citizen needs, or difficulty that can actually cost you your city.
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Closest Match Closest MatchThe most similar game to the anchor, by what players say.
Colony SimStrategy RPGWargame
$29.99 ~24.9 hr median no co-op complexity: light 87.7% of 897
The Squirrel's verdictSame flying-city core: gather resources, balance weight and lift, build supply chains while airborne. Airborne Empire adds combat, quest-driven fetch objectives, and animal characters instead of Kingdom's narrated human story. Fans of the moving-city mechanic who wanted actual threats and things to shoot at get that here, at the cost of Kingdom's tone and visual identity.
Not for you if you valued Kingdom's narrated Arabic Steampunk atmosphere and calm pace over combat and fetch quests.
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City BuilderCombatMinimalist
$19.99 ~17.4 hr median no co-op 84.9% of 1k
The Squirrel's verdictBulwark is a single-developer fortress-builder set on flooded terrain, where you place structures organically on islands and coastlines rather than managing a moving vessel's weight and lift. It shares Airborne Kingdom's relaxed exploration-and-building rhythm but replaces the aerial balancing act with open-ended construction variety. The developer actively incorporates feedback, and reviewers note the building mechanics grow more involving the longer you play.
Not for you if you want combat, multiplayer, or more than one map to explore.
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City BuilderBase-BuildingColony Sim
Strong Mods Strong ModsA deep, active modding scene extends it past its base content.
$24.99 ~10.5 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 86.3% of 357
The Squirrel's verdictOf Life and Land is a grounded, fully peaceful settlement builder with deeper supply chains and multiple simultaneous maps to manage rather than a single moving city. It suits players drawn to Airborne Kingdom's calm systems who wanted more layered resource routing underneath. Reviewers note some worker-task friction early on, though the developer has been actively responsive to feedback since the 1.0 release.
Not for you if you specifically want a flying-city concept rather than grounded settlement building, or need zero worker-assignment friction.
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City BuilderResource ManagementColony Sim
Jank Tolerant Jank TolerantRough edges and bugs — rewarding if you don't mind them.
$24.99 ~15.6 hr median no co-op complexity: moderate 81.9% of 1k
The Squirrel's verdictBoth are visually striking city builders about managing constrained resources with a small tech tree and no combat. Laysara replaces Airborne's free-roaming simplicity with fixed mountain layouts that demand optimized building placement, turning it into more of a puzzle than a sandbox. Best for players who found Airborne too easy and want real difficulty, not more open-ended tinkering.
Not for you if you want free-form building rather than optimizing a fixed layout, or disliked Airborne's puzzle-like resource tradeoffs.