What if a city builder makes you grow tall instead of grow wide? Developer Remoob and publisher Next In Game has a game for you: Pile Up!
Pile Up! (not to be confused with Pile Up! Box By Box – why both games have an exclamation mark is unknown) has you stack buildings upon buildings on a very tiny island. Sounds simple enough, but there is a bit of a puzzle game element to it.
Not only you have to cram the buildings together- that combines very satisfyingly like fellow town-builder game Townscaper- you have to ensure your citizens have the right amenities. The amenity blocks have very peculiar properties that will result in destruction should you place it wrongly. Like how water towers will leak water to buildings below them and destroying it in the process. But stacking water towers together is fine.
If you can continue leaving more room upwards to stack buildings, and keep your citizens happy, you’ll be building a Jenga tower of a city before you know it.
There are hints of Dorfromantik here, where each turn you are given a stack (heh) of random houses and amenity sources, so each new game should see you piling up a different stack of tower.
Pile Up! currently has a demo as part of Steam Next Fest, which you can download here.
Pile Up! is expected to release in Q1 2023.