Place
Choose a block, rotate it, and preview how it connects to the surrounding city.
All projects
A game by Evion Studios
Block By Block Tycoon
A cozy spatial-puzzle city builder where each placement shapes what comes next. Place with purpose, create synergies, unlock new building tiers, and raise new land from the water.
Created by Elmer Almer Ershagen and published under Evion Studios.
Development storyUnity 62026
Status
Unreleased
Current phase
Playtest & polish
Development
Solo developer
Timeline
Jan 2026 – present
Built with
Unity 6 · C#
The game today
A city builder where placement is the puzzle
A cozy spatial-puzzle city builder where each placement shapes what comes next. Place with purpose, create synergies, unlock new building tiers, and raise new land from the water.
Spatial puzzleCity builderCozy strategySolo development
The current city is denser, warmer, and built around visible spatial decisions rather than passive waiting.
The core loop
Five decisions that grow into a city
A simple sequence keeps every system pointed at the same goal: make the next piece of the city more valuable than the last.
Connect
Use positive synergies and avoid costly relationships between building types.
Score
Earn points from thoughtful placement and from upgrading strong city blocks.
Expand
Meet each tile's city-wide requirements to raise the next piece of land.
Transform
Unlock new tiers at the Town Hall and watch the skyline evolve around you.
The real development story
Three decisions shaped the rework
The project became stronger when finished work was treated as evidence, not as something too precious to change.
The hard admission01
It worked, but it was not fun yet
A self-playtest exposed the difference between functional systems and a compelling loop. That finding triggered the first serious expansion and progression changes.
The decisive test02
Delay the plan, fix the foundation
External feedback made it clear that polish alone would not solve the problem. The launch path paused while the economy, progression, and interface were rebuilt together.
The iteration rule03
Prototype, test, discard
Free placement, passive income, and several point, payout, and requirement models were tested. Ideas that created spam, waiting, or unclear goals were removed quickly.
From prototype to playtest
How the game changed, block by block
The most important progress did not come from adding more systems. It came from testing the whole game, admitting when the loop was weak, and rebuilding around better decisions.
Phase 01
January – February 2026
First playable city
Proving the building language
The first version established a grid, four district types, upgrades, and directional synergies. It proved that building a city block by block could feel satisfying—but it was still a loose prototype with an economy and interface searching for a clear purpose.
- Grid placement and rotation
- Residential, commercial, industrial, and park blocks
- Early upgrades and synergy feedback
Phase 02
February – early May 2026
An 11-week devlog experiment
Building the game in public
A small daily-development rule became an 11-week weekly devlog series. Expansion, atmosphere, pedestrians, saving, menus, and the first Steam presentation arrived quickly. Playtests then exposed the harder truth: the systems worked, but the loop lost its pull too soon.
- Daily progress turned into weekly public devlogs
- World expansion, saving, atmosphere, and pedestrians
- First trailer, Steam presence, and demo setup
Phase 03
Late April – May 2026
The playtest that changed the game
Rebuilding around meaningful choices
A late-April playtest stopped the original launch path. The passive-income-heavy economy encouraged waiting, while land expansion was not creating enough meaningful city-wide decisions. The rework moved primary rewards into placement and upgrades, then turned expansion into a spatial requirement puzzle.
- Placement payouts replaced waiting as the main reward
- The Town Hall became the progression hub
- A warm graphic profile established a consistent visual direction
Phase 04
May – June 2026
Clarity became the feature
Designing for a first-time player
A newcomer playtest, followed by further test rounds, revealed that controls, point payouts, upgrade paths, and synergy direction were not as obvious as they felt during development. Connection lines, previews, side-panel breakdowns, tutorials, contextual hints, save slots, and better camera controls turned hidden rules into readable decisions.
- Incoming and outgoing synergy views
- Placement and upgrade previews
- A custom editor for balancing the authored expansion curve
Phase 05Now
June 2026 – present
Playtest and polish
Finishing the complete city arc
A working demo build, refreshed Steam presentation, 30-tile ending sequence, and continuing expansion are now in place. Development is focused on full start-to-finish tests, first-time comprehension, late-game balance, larger-city performance, controls, menus, and the bugs that only appear when every system meets.
- A cinematic reveal after the authored campaign
- Open-ended expansion beyond the first 30 tiles
- Ongoing onboarding, balance, performance, and polish
Design through evidence
What playtesting actually changed
The biggest pivots began with hands-on testing or external feedback—not with a longer feature wishlist.
Passive waitingPlacement decisions
Put the reward where the thinking happens
The original economy could progress while the player waited. The rework made placement and upgrades the primary point rewards, so progress now comes from reading the city.
Hidden relationshipsVisible connections
Show the rule before asking for mastery
First-time players missed synergy direction and upgrade effects. Lines, arrows, color, previews, and breakdowns now explain the result before a decision is locked in.
Generic growthAn authored city arc
Give expansion a reason
Thirty curated land puzzles shape the first complete city. After the ending reveal, deterministic expansion keeps the sandbox open for players who want to continue.
Under the city
Technical craft behind the cozy surface
The visible puzzle is supported by data-driven runtime systems and production tools designed for repeated balancing—not just a single handcrafted screenshot.
Data-driven puzzle content
ScriptableObjects define building tiers, upgrade paths, synergy rules, and authored expansion requirements without hard-coding the campaign.
A living city that can scale
Spatial caches, custom pedestrian paths, request budgets, and distance-based simulation are used to reduce simulation cost as cities grow.
Tools built for iteration
A campaign-wide balance grid and automatic building LOD generation turn repetitive production work into fast, reviewable workflows.
Current build
A closer look at the city
The reworked game now has a coherent visual language for placement, upgrades, progression, expansion, and a city that feels alive between decisions.
Building in public
The moment the direction changed
The public devlogs documented the uncomfortable parts as well as the visible wins. This episode captures the playtest that pushed the project toward its current design.
Watch the devlogs
The next block
Playtest. Polish. Then ship.
Block By Block Tycoon is still unreleased. The current goal is not to add everything—it is to make the complete experience clear, balanced, stable, and satisfying from the first block to the campaign city reveal.