Founding a town · open to all settlers
The Old West
Found a town on the open prairie. Bring in the railroad, trade what the trains carry, tap your banks, send surveys out to chart new country, and grow one trading post into a city that lasts. Then do it again in the next territory.
- Plays in the browser
- Saves on your device, or sign in to save across devices
- No account needed
- Free to play
Abilene · Kansas PlainsKey art
Six systems · one town
What you do
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01Depot
Work the traffic
Trains and wagons stop at your platforms for coal, repairs and a hot meal, and pay on departure. One platform, one train at a time; every platform needs an open side for the approach.
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02Trade
Trade the cargo
Trains sell what their home town exports and buy what it imports. Set Buy and Sell per good, hold iron ore for a foundry, and ride the booms.
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03Income
Tap the banks
Every building earns dollars by the minute into its own bank. A glowing coin means it is ready: tap it and watch the dollars fly home. Banks keep filling while you are away.
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04Timers
Build on the clock
Buildings take real time to open, from ninety seconds to four hours by tier, and upgrades take longer still. Queue a build, go live your life, come back to a bigger town. Gold Dust skips the wait.
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05Surveys
Ride out
Send surveys from your depots to any of eight regions. They come back with cargo, charts, Gold Dust and discoveries for the Almanac: trains, peoples, keepsakes.
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06The West
Claim new country
Clear rings of unclaimed land around your trading post as the town grows, then found the next town in one of eight regions: dry Arizona, the Colorado mines, Utah salt, New Mexico mesas, the far gold country. One purse across all of them.
The panels you run it from
The town view
There is always something on the fire
Come back for
Missions
Fifty goals in seven chapters, three live at a time. Finish one, come back and claim the dollars, Gold Dust and rank it pays.
Achievements
Twenty-four lifetime achievements in bronze, silver and gold, from your first fifty trains to the whole Almanac, each tier paying Gold Dust.
Daily reward
A seven-day streak of dollars, crates and Gold Dust, with a banner token on day seven. Miss a day and you can mend the streak.
Town rank
Settler to Superintendent and on to Builder of the West. Ranks are earned across every region and grant real powers: collect all banks at once, a fourth mission, a bonus on every rate.
The Almanac
Twenty-four trains, twelve peoples of the West and sixteen keepsakes to find, with a story for each. Completing a set pays Gold Dust and a title.
Territory
Every town starts on a small plot. Buy the next ring of unclaimed land, wait for the graders to clear it, and the town grows outward, ring by ring, in every region.
Unlocked by renown and building count
Five tiers
- L1
Trading Post
One trading post and $6,000. Build a depot, a freight house and a wind pump, then serve your first trains.
- L2
Railhead
A telegraph office, a mercantile, frame houses and a mountain flume. Freight lines begin to trust you, and the second region opens.
- L3
Boom Town
A schoolhouse, a bank, a main street and a roundhouse. Residents run businesses; you lend dollars at interest.
- L4
Rail Junction
A grand hotel and the Union Depot. Long-haul express trains arrive.
- L5
Queen City
The end of the line: a city the whole West rolls through.
Each one a whole new town
Eight regions
Kansas Plains
Tallgrass and a steady sun. Every founder starts here.
Arizona Territory
Thin soil and hard summers; iron ore and rails at a premium.
Colorado Rockies
The mines under the high peaks. Mining country.
Utah Territory
Salt flats and open range; salt, wheat and the Salt Lake haulers.
New Mexico
Red mesas and lava. Coal runs rich and outlaws run often.
Texas
Live oak, open range and its festivals.
Oregon Country
A green valley where residents arrive in numbers.
Gold Country
The far end of the line, and its Union Depot.
24 buildings · six families · three levels each
The buildings
Core
Trading Post
Tier 1
Rail Depot
Freight House
Wind Pump
Coaling Yard
Boarding House
Saloon
Tier 2
Telegraph Office
Mercantile
Opera House
Homestead Fields
Infirmary
Frame Houses
Mountain Flume
Weigh House
Jailhouse
Tier 3
Academy
Savings Bank- Main Street
County Fair
Iron Foundry
Roundhouse
Tier 4
Grand Hotel
Union Depot
24 trains · 12 peoples · 16 keepsakes to find
Who comes through
Diné Weavers
The Navajo people, whose wool blankets trade from Santa Fe to the plains.
Shoshone Traders
Basin and mountain people, and horse traders at Fort Bridger.
Ute Diplomats
Mountain people of the Colorado ranges; met by survey.
Golden Gate Express Train
Long-haul passengers of the fourth tier.
Sierra Tea Tin
A Chinese grader's tin from the Sierra. Rare.
Premium currency
Gold Dust
Earned by missions, daily rewards and surveys, and offered in the Store. Spend it to skip a build, call a survey home, open a region before you have the charts, or dress the town in a region banner. The game is free to play; nothing in it needs Gold Dust.
Store items are real purchases, handled securely by Stripe Checkout and charged in US dollars. Items arrive in your town as soon as the payment goes through.
- Gold Dust every new founder starts with
- 20
- Regions to unlock, with dollars or Dust
- 8
- Dust skips eight minutes of any build, upgrade or clearing
- 1
- Things to find for the Almanac
- 52
Keys · saves · screens
Depot notes
Controls
- Space
- Pause
- 0 · F
- Fit the town, focus the selection
- B S M F
- Build, Town, Market, Freight
- E G J R
- Surveys, The West, Missions, Almanac
- Wheel
- Zoom the world; drag to pan
- Esc
- Close a panel, stop placing
Saves
Your profile saves to your browser every few seconds and when you leave the tab. Timers run on the clock, so builds finish and banks fill while you are gone.
One profile per browser, every region inside it. Export and import it from Settings, or sign in to keep a cloud save and pick up on another device. Without an account your save stays on your device.
Screens
Built for a desktop browser at 1280 px and wider with WebGL on; a landscape tablet works, and on a phone the panels fold into a bottom bar and sheets.
Current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Reduced-motion settings are honored, and the effects tier steps down on slower machines.
Questions
What kind of game is this?
A calm frontier town builder. You start with one trading post around 1860 and grow a town over weeks of short visits. Timers run on the real clock, so it keeps working while you are away.
Is it free?
Yes. Every building, region, mission and achievement can be reached with dollars and patience. Gold Dust can also be bought with real money in the Store to skip waits; prices are shown in US dollars before you pay.
Do I need an account?
No. Your town saves in your browser. Sign in only if you want a cloud save on more than one device.
How true to history is it?
The places, trade goods, buildings and peoples are real, and the buildings and titles are drawn from the American West between about 1860 and 1885. Decades are compressed for play. It is a game about railroads and trade, not a full portrait of the frontier. The land it is set on was the home of Native nations, many of whom were forced from it in these same years; the game has no mechanic that displaces or fights anyone, and it does not pretend that history away.
Is there shooting in the game?
No. Outlaws raid freight houses and the marshal sees them off, and that is the whole of it. Nobody in the game fights a people, and no mechanic turns anyone into a target.
Who are the peoples in the Almanac?
Real people of the West, among them the Kanza, Shoshone, Ute, Diné, Pueblo, Akimel O'odham and Miwok nations, Chinese railroad builders and merchants, Tejano vaqueros, Black cowboys and homesteading women. Each is written with their own skills, trade and history.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. On a phone the panels become sheets over a bottom bar, and the world pans by drag and zooms by pinch. A desktop screen shows more at once.
Ready to found a town
Town name. Pick one on the title screen, or take the one the register hands you.
Found a townRegister OW-0000 will be assigned at the founding