Desktop Bonsai Towns

A city that grows on a bonsai

Desktop Bonsai Towns is an observation sim. A voxel bonsai slowly grows in its pot, and a cyberpunk city builds itself on the trunk and branches: towers, sky bridges, neon signs, holographic ads, an elevated loop line and airships. You are the observer. Leave it running beside your work and glance over now and then.

The first world is Cyberpunk Town. We also plan to add worlds with different themes in the future.

Put it on your desktop

Desktop mode hides the background and the interface, so only the bonsai sits on top of your desktop. You can drag the pot anywhere on screen, and Ctrl+Alt+B brings the full window back from any app. The city keeps growing while you work in other windows.

A living city

• Little residents go about their lives in the city.
  
• Factions form, split and absorb each other. A megacorp buys up buildings, a cult gathers followers, hackers black out whole blocks, and a security bureau cordons off trouble spots.
  
• Changing weather, disasters and invasions bring surprises to the city, from acid rain and meteor strikes to mechanical spiders, sky pirates and, very rarely, a giant cat.
  
• Everything is made of voxels, so blasts, fires and quakes tear the city apart block by block. Branches that lose their support fall, homes and all.

A light touch

• Unlock pruning to cut branches with shears. New buds sprout from the cut and grow back.
  
• Funds carry over between runs. Spend them on permanent unlocks: cars and flying cars, automatic defenses, cinematic and event cameras, photo mode and more.

Grow, finish, replant

A bonsai takes several hours of real time to finish. Each run grows a bonsai in a traditional style, with rare wild variants. Finished trees go on your bonsai shelf, where you can view them in 3D, fill the collection and unlock new pots for the next planting. If the city falls, an end-of-days chronicle shows what went wrong and offers a hint for next time.