Komachi
A cosy town builder on a small Japanese island: draw streets, watch the neighbours move in and stay until the lights come on. The developer says most of the code was written with Claude Code.
Links go to the official store or developer page. Last verified Nov 5, 2026.
Where to play
Every platform this game is on. Links are checked against official sources; we never host or mirror games.
- View on itch.ioitch.ioReleased · Version 0.4; the page says the game is still growing$4.99
Plays in the browser on itch.io. No download.
Desktop · Browser (no download) · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About Komachi
Komachi (小町, “small town”) is a cosy town builder set on a small island in Japan. You draw streets and zone the plots beside them, and the town fills in: builders arrive by train, families move into their homes, shops open, residents go to work, run errands and chat on benches, a car ferry brings cars over and the kōban light stays on after dark. There are no scores, deadlines or failure states. A Guided Town sets gentle goals across two chapters that unlock more buildings, while Free Build opens everything from the start. A day lasts about four minutes; the seasons change, with rain, cherry petals, a summer festival with fireworks and snow, and there is a hilltop shrine, a lighthouse and a fox at dusk to find, fishing off the jetty, a photo mode with an album per town and a chronicle of firsts. The developer, Saiss, made it alone in vanilla JavaScript and Three.js and says most of the code was written with Claude Code, some models and the celebration effect with Codex, while the developer did the direction, testing and art choices; the assets are Kenney CC0 models and code-built buildings, with music from Pixabay. Komachi costs $4.99 on itch.io for Windows and Linux (version 0.4), with a free browser demo on the same page covering one town for three in-game days. In English.
How it was built
Partially verifiedIn a post on r/aigamedev (29 Sep 2026, UTC) the developer writes: “Most of the code was written with Claude Code, some models and the celebration effect with Codex, and I did the direction, testing and the art choices.” Work went in ten phases following a written roadmap, each ending with lint, a 60-check headless test suite, screenshots and updated docs; every visual change came back as a rendered PNG from a headless browser before the developer looked at the code, and a CLAUDE.md file with conventions and a changelog carried notes between sessions. The developer adds that Electron packaging, a GitHub Actions build for three platforms, icons and licence text went from zero to working in one session, and that a weekly usage cap meant deferring heavy work. The model is not named.
Credited in the same post with “some models and the celebration effect”.
Vanilla JavaScript and Three.js, with no engine or framework; about 60 source modules built in ten phases by one person in the evenings, per the Reddit post. Assets are Kenney CC0 models and buildings made in code, with music from Pixabay. The desktop versions are packaged with Electron.
- Engine / framework
- Three.js
- Languages
- JavaScript
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer ReportedReddit (u/Saiss00)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Most of the code was written with Claude Code, some models and the celebration effect with Codex, and I did the direction, testing and the art choices.”Verification notes: AI use, workflow, team size and asset sources come from the developer's post on r/aigamedev by u/Saiss00 (29 Sep 2026, 09:48 UTC), read from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 5 Nov 2026; it links the itch.io page. Features, price, platforms, version, the Released status, the English language field and the itch.io rating of 1.0 (1 rating) come from the itch.io page, re-read on 5 Nov 2026 (updated 8 Oct 2026, 04:00 UTC). “Most of the code” is the developer's wording; no AI code share is recorded. The post says the AI disclosure is on the itch.io page, but that disclosure lists only Graphics and Sounds, not Code (see conflicts). The post gives the release as “just released” on 29 Sep 2026; the first itch.io devlog, “Komachi is out”, is dated 1 Oct 2026, 08:03 UTC. The free browser demo was added on 7 Oct 2026 per its devlog; its scripts call no AI services. itch.io shows no download or sales figures. The post had a score of 171 on Arctic Shift (observed; not a metric). Location is not stated. The game was not played.
Development history
Released on itch.io at a launch price of $2, per the developer's post.
DeveloperReddit (u/Saiss00)Fishing update devlog: new fish, a real fight and a gentler first hour.
Observeditch.ioA free browser demo is added to the itch.io page.
Observeditch.ioVersion 0.4 adds the Guided Town and town levels; the price is now $4.99.
Observeditch.io
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
itch.io
$4.99 or more for the Windows (installer or portable) and Linux (AppImage) builds; launched at $2, and the page says the price will rise with major updates. A free browser demo (one town, three in-game days) plays on the same page. Not available for macOS.
Not publicly available: Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| I built and shipped a small town sim with Claude Code and Codex. What worked, what didn't, and what it cost. (r/aigamedev) Reddit (u/Saiss00) | Social post | Sep 29, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Komachi by Saiss itch.io | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
- AI disclosure
- The developer's post says most of the code was written with Claude Code and that the disclosure is on the itch.io page, but the itch.io AI disclosure (checked 5 Nov 2026) lists AI Assisted, Graphics and Sounds, without Code. (Reddit (u/Saiss00), itch.io)
- Platforms
- The launch post lists Windows, macOS and Linux; the itch.io page now says Komachi is not available for macOS and offers Windows and Linux builds plus the browser demo. (Reddit (u/Saiss00), itch.io)
