Getting started

Download the build for your system from the download section, unpack it, and run parcels from inside the unpacked folder (it reads config/balance.ron from there and writes saves to saves/). On macOS, clear the download quarantine once with xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine parcels-*.

The title screen shows an AI city growing in the background and offers:

• Continue: the most recent save.
• New game: map size (64×48 to 256×256), rivers, lakes, woods, number of AI neighbours, hot-seat players, game length, starting money, fires and seed, with a live preview of the map.
• Load game: named saves with their date, map and players.
• Play with a friend: host a new or saved game, join by address, or play hot-seat.
• Settings: volume, mouse, shadows, day/night speed, cars and people, interface size, autosave.

The goal

The map is split into parcels, one per player. Each parcel has an owner and its own treasury, and you can only build on yours. When the time limit runs out (10 game years by default), the player with the highest score wins. Score is your treasury plus the land value of your parcel.

Land value is what grows your score, and your neighbours affect it. Their parks, shops and services lift land near the border. Their pollution and traffic drag it down.

Controls

Camera

Tools

Zones, roads, lines and pipes can be dragged to place many tiles at once. Multi-tile buildings centre their footprint on the cursor.

Game

Roads

Every building needs a road within 2 tiles. Roads can be laid across water as bridges, at four times the price.

Zones and growth

You don't build houses, shops or factories yourself. You zone land, and buildings move in when there is demand. The four bars at the top of the screen show demand for residential, commercial, industrial and office.

A lot grows one level at a time. Low-density zones stop at level 3, dense zones go up to level 6. Every eligible lot on the whole map competes for the same pool of newcomers, and the lots with the highest land value win.

What a lot needs to reach the next level

Buildings that lose power, road access or water decline. Without fire coverage, buildings at level 2 and up can catch fire and burn down to rubble.

Power and water

Power lines and water pipes cost $5 per tile. Zones and most buildings pass power and water on to their neighbours, so a block of zoned tiles only needs one connection. Parks, plazas, playgrounds and monuments don't conduct.

Networks run across parcel borders. Each owner uses their own supply first, then buys from the cheapest neighbour selling a surplus. Tick Sell surplus at in the side panel and set a price to earn from your spare capacity.

Services

A service covers every tile within its radius, on both sides of a parcel border, but only while it has power. An unpowered service shows a red beacon.

Parks and landmarks

Money

The exact formulas and a revenue calculator are in the Parcelspedia. Each month you collect taxes from the buildings on your parcel, pay upkeep for everything you built, and settle power and water trades with your neighbours. The side panel shows all three.

• Tax rate (0–20%, default 7%). Above 7% demand for your parcel falls, below it demand rises. Demand is shared across the map, so a lower tax pulls newcomers away from your neighbours.
• Debt. Building needs cash in hand. Upkeep can push your treasury below zero, but never below −$5,000.
• Land value (0–1000) comes from parks, the river, shops, services and utilities, minus pollution and traffic, spread by distance.

Overlays

Number keys 1–0 (or the eye menu at the top right) tint the map: land value, power, water, density, pollution, traffic, crime, services and owners. Buildings fade to grey so the ground colours read clearly. The water overlay also shows pipes.

Multiplayer

• Hot-seat: several humans on one computer. Tab switches whose parcel you are building on.
• Host: Play with a friend → Host starts a new or saved game and shows the address to share. The default port is 5757 (UDP). Open it on your firewall or router to play over the internet.
• Join: Play with a friend → Join and enter the host's address, for example 192.168.1.20:5757.
• Late joiners take over an empty or AI parcel. When a player leaves, the AI takes their parcel back.
• A dedicated, headless host: parcels-server --slots 4 --wait 2 --map 192x144.

The host owns the clock. Every player's commands go through it, everyone runs the same deterministic simulation, and the clients check a state hash every 30 ticks to catch and repair any drift.

Saves and settings

Saves live in saves/ next to the game: named saves from the menu, quicksave.ron (F5/F9) and an autosave whose interval you set in Settings. A save keeps the balance rules it was started with, so tweaking config/balance.ron only affects new games. Saves from v0.1 can't be loaded in v0.2.

Command line

parcels                                      # title screen
parcels --solo --ai 3 --map 128x96           # straight into a game vs 3 AI neighbours
parcels --host --slots 4 --name Rob          # host a LAN game
parcels --join 192.168.1.20:5757 --name Ana  # join one
parcels --load quicksave                     # load a save by name or path
parcels --seed 42                            # fixed map seed
parcels-server --slots 4 --wait 2 --map 192x144

Tips

• Start small: a short street, a block of residential and industrial, a wind turbine or coal plant, a water tower. Add commercial once you have residents.
• Lots by the river get a land value bonus, and pumps there make far more water.
• Keep heavy industry and coal downwind of your best housing, or on the border with a rival.
• Selling surplus power to a neighbour pays steadily, but it also helps them grow.
• Parks are the cheapest land value there is. Scatter them through your residential blocks.
• Dense zones need land value 380 or more before they build towers. Prepare the land with parks and services first.