# City Island 3: Building Sim

> Build your own city!

Canonical page: [https://chrome-stats.com/d/id952174948](https://chrome-stats.com/d/id952174948)

## Overview

- **ID:** `id952174948`
- **Platform:** Apple
- **Type:** Apple app
- **Status:** Available
- **Publisher:** Sparkling Society Games B.V.
- **Category:** Strategy
- **Rating:** 4.50 / 5 (3,133 ratings)
- **Version:** 3.9.0
- **Last updated:** 2026-04-03
- **First published:** 2015-01-28
- **Size:** 178 MB
- **Data as of:** 2026-09-19
- **Store listing:** [Apple App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/city-island-3-building-sim/id952174948)
- **Website:** [http://www.sparklingsociety.net/](http://www.sparklingsociety.net/)
- **Privacy policy:** [http://www.sparklingsociety.net/privacy-policy/](http://www.sparklingsociety.net/privacy-policy/)

## Description

City Island 3: Building Sim is a popular free-to-play city-building game where you start on an exotic island and grow from a single house to a bustling metropolis. Join over 25 million players and explore an archipelago of islands—from tropical paradises to volcano, desert, and swamp settings—building, balancing jobs and happiness along the way.

With 300+ items to place, quests, decorations, parks, and transport, you’ll attract citizens, earn rewards, and expand your city across land and sea. The game features offline play, intuitive tasks, and continuous updates as you progress to larger cities and metropolises.

## Rankings

- #33,347 — Overall
- #36 — build

## Review summary

Users generally enjoy City Island 3's city-building, mayor-like control, and decorating across islands, with profits and progression giving a sense of advancement. However, recurring complaints center on heavy or disruptive ads, persistent crashes and white/black screen errors that can erase progress, slow progression and monetization gating, and a perceived lack of new content or inaccessible buildings. Some note UI/UX irritations like unclosable popups and oversized icons. Overall, the core concept and decorating aspect are praised, but stability, ads, monetization, and content updates are the key pain points.

### Pros

- Engaging city-building with creative control (placing items, decorating islands, acting as mayor).
- Easy to earn money and progress to unlock more content.
- Strong decoration and customization options for islands.
- Social/family play aspect (can compete/build with others, e.g., siblings).
- Ads are minimal for some players or there is an option to pay to remove ads.

### Cons

- Ads disrupt gameplay: immediate ads, ad loops, and white/flash screens interrupting play.
- Frequent crashes and white/black screen issues that can erase or block progress.
- Slow progression and perceived monetization gating (grind to advance, high costs for new islands).
- Not receiving new content or buildings / perceived content stagnation.
- UI/UX issues such as intrusive popups and oversized bottom icons hindering navigation.

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Source: [Chrome-Stats](https://chrome-stats.com/d/id952174948)