A genre (mainly) of Video Games. This type of game focuses on elements like gathering and management of resources, construction, expansion, research and exploration. Combat may exist, but isn't the point of pure Construction and Management games. If there is a goal, it usually is to reach a certain settlement size, to gather a certain quantity of a resource, or to construct/research certain objects. Wide-Open Sandbox play with no overarching goal is common.
Most Space Management Games and many Real-Time Strategy games overlap with this, as do many cases of An Entrepreneur Is You and Renovating the Player Headquarters. Depending on how detailed the interactions are, many can also be considered Simulation Games. Most of these take the form of (isometric or 3D) Real-Time Strategy with a Non-Entity General, but many take the perspective of individuals in a third-, first-person or side view as well. Factory Building Games are a Sub-Genre.
Tropes typically encountered in this genre of games:
- Command & Conquer Economy
- Construct Additional Pylons
- Non-Entity General
- Tech Tree
- You Require More Vespene Gas
Examples:
Board Games- 7 Days to Die
- 8Realms
- Against the Storm
- A-Train
- Alien Legacy
- Anno Domini
- Aquatico
- Aven Colony
- Banished
- Battleship Craft
- Biing! – Sex, Intrigen und Skalpelle
- Book of Hours
- Build A Lot series of Casual Video Games
- Captain of Industry
- City-Building Series:
- Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile
- Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.
- The Chocolatier series of games from PlayFirst has the player help to rebuild a family chocolate empire after the family has some kind of problem. The first one had a feud between two sisters, the second one had an outsider ingratiate himself with the patriarch and expect to marry the boss's daughter (you help said daughter behind her father's back), and the third one is set in the aftermath of WWII. You must buy and upgrade factories, source ingredients, find or discover or invent recipes, manage your money, and so on.
- Cities In Motion
- Cities: Skylines
- Cities XL
- City-Building Series
- The Civilization series
- Clonk
- Colonization
- Constructor
- Corneroids
- Critter Coast
- Cult of the Lamb
- Dawn of Crafting
- Deep Town: Mining Factory
- Depraved
- Diggles
- Dragon Quest Builders
- Dragon Quest Builders 2
- DREDGE
- Dungeon Keeper
- Dwarf Fortress
- Dyson Sphere Program
- Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
- The Eldritch Zookeeper
- Empire Builder
- Eurorails
- Evil Genius
- Evony
- Factorio
- Factory idle
- Fairy Godmother Tycoon
- Fallout Shelter
- Flotsam
- Fortune Builder
- Freeciv
- From the Depths
- Frostpunk
- Globulation
- Grow: Song of The Evertree
- The Happy Hereafter
- Honey, I Joined a Cult
- Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?!, and subsequent games in the series.
- Hospital Tycoon
- Hotel Giant
- Impire
- IXION
- Jurassic Park Builder
- Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis
- Jurassic World: Evolution
- Jurassic World Evolution 2
- Jurassic World: The Game
- Kaiju A Gogo
- Kerbal Space Program
- Kerbal Space Program 2
- Kingdoms And Castles
- Kingdom Conquest
- King of the Castle: A Competitive Multiplayer variant in which one King and three factions of Nobles have to manage shared resources to each achieve their own ambitions while sabotaging the others.
- KZ Manager
- LEGOLAND
- Let's Build a Zoo
- Lethis Path Of Progress
- Locomotion
- Majesty
- Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God: Combination restaurant-management simulation and Eastern RPG
- Medieval Dynasty: Progress from impoverished peasant to lord of a personally-built woodland settlement
- Micropolis
- Minecraft
- Minotaur Hotel: Actually primarily a Visual Novel, however, the management mechanics are made apparent later on in the game where you have to manage the hotel and its workers.
- Mobility: Research the effects of various futuristic proposals on street traffic and pollution.
- Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World
- Northgard
- Outpost
- The Palace Builder: Build and landscape for ancient regime nobles.
- Parkasaurus
- Parkitect
- Patrician (crosses this with merchant/trading game)
- Planar Pioneers
- Planet Coaster
- Planet Zoo
- Project Highrise
- Punch Club
- Railroad
- Railroad Tycoon
- Rebuild
- Rock Star Ate My Hamster
- Restaurant Empire
- The Riftbreaker
- Rock Raiders
- RollerCoaster Tycoon
- Royal Envoy: Direct rebuilding of communities after a major storm.
- Satisfactory
- Scrap Mechanic
- Settlemoon
- Sid Meier's SimGolf
- SimCity
- SimSafari
- The Sims franchise can be played as this.
- SimTower
- Simutrans
- Sort the Court
- Space Engineers
- Space Run
- Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator
- Spiritfarer
- Starmancer
- Startopia
- Stonehearth
- Stranded
- Stronghold
- Stronghold Kingdoms
- Surviving Mars
- Terra Invicta
- Timberborn
- Theme Hospital
- Theme Park
- This Is the Police
- This War of Mine
- Townsmen
- Transport Tycoon
- Tropico
- Tunnel Town, an Animal Jam Spin-Off Mobile Phone Game, in which the player manages an Underground City populated with rabbits
- Two Point Hospital
- The Universim
- Urban Empire
- The Wandering Village
- War for the Overworld
- We Happy Restaurant
- Westward series of Casual Video Games—borderline combat-heavy
- Wettlauf Ins All
- Winemaker: Inherit grandfather's vineyard, gather pieces of a family blend recipe, buy supplies, grow and harvest grapes, make wine, fill orders, reassemble estranged members of an international winemakers' guild.
- Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic
- Zoo Tycoon
