Review Insights · App Store
City Island 5: Building Sim
Sparkling Society Games B.V. · 10,183 ratings · ★ 4.7
4.7
★★★★★
10,183 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 31 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
20 negative reviews mention this · 65% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Needs to have more free options. Game gets stagnate quick. Too many limitations if you’re not willing to spend your $$$$" - soiursa
2
"money"
10 negative reviews mention this · 32% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lost my account 2 times I quit!. Had to restart twice second time k owned 4 islands and had them all nice and planned out and was making 10m a day (only 3-4 islands where set had just bought the 4th 2( where fully done 3rd almost) then I accidentally deleted it and lost it…" - ijjujjihnih
3
"play"
7 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lost my account 2 times I quit!. Had to restart twice second time k owned 4 islands and had them all nice and planned out and was making 10m a day (only 3-4 islands where set had just bought the 4th 2( where fully done 3rd almost) then I accidentally deleted it and lost it…" - ijjujjihnih
4
"buildings"
6 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lost my account 2 times I quit!. Had to restart twice second time k owned 4 islands and had them all nice and planned out and was making 10m a day (only 3-4 islands where set had just bought the 4th 2( where fully done 3rd almost) then I accidentally deleted it and lost it…" - ijjujjihnih
5
"coins"
6 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Going down with changes. Road to Rewards - takes forever and generally only get to the Silver Treasure Chest, which you can buy with silver keys in the regular game. Spiral something- waste of time. I believe this is the one that, at this current time, cannot be i…" - Isles3
6
"long"
5 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Review. Back to back interruptions, too many ads , ads too long" - Fixing the issues
7
"spend"
4 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Needs to have more free options. Game gets stagnate quick. Too many limitations if you’re not willing to spend your $$$$" - soiursa
8
"times"
4 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lost my account 2 times I quit!. Had to restart twice second time k owned 4 islands and had them all nice and planned out and was making 10m a day (only 3-4 islands where set had just bought the 4th 2( where fully done 3rd almost) then I accidentally deleted it and lost it…" - ijjujjihnih
9
"making"
4 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lost my account 2 times I quit!. Had to restart twice second time k owned 4 islands and had them all nice and planned out and was making 10m a day (only 3-4 islands where set had just bought the 4th 2( where fully done 3rd almost) then I accidentally deleted it and lost it…" - ijjujjihnih
10
"deleted"
4 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lost my account 2 times I quit!. Had to restart twice second time k owned 4 islands and had them all nice and planned out and was making 10m a day (only 3-4 islands where set had just bought the 4th 2( where fully done 3rd almost) then I accidentally deleted it and lost it…" - ijjujjihnih
11
"years"
4 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Does not reload. Starts from scratch. Now I remember why I uninstalled 10+ years ago. It just wastes my time." - ENRomero
12
"hard"
4 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Constant commercials. This game is fun and you can choose to speed up things by watching a commercial. After a few days of playing, it started throwing in commercials randomly throughout the game. It’s hard to play at all because it keeps generating commercials…" - CC859
📋 All 31 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Lost my account 2 times I quit!
Had to restart twice second time k owned 4 islands and had them all nice and planned out and was making 10m a day (only 3-4 islands where set had just bought the 4th 2( where fully done 3rd almost) then I accidentally deleted it and lost it again and yes I went to the settings to try and restore it but it didn’t show! So I have this 2 tries but 3rd strike and ur out! Also make it a little more difficult besides populations and money maybe power and water or sewage maybe at least just have buildings to show they don’t have to do anything - so please new players beware of losing your accounts!!
Too many game ads
I am almost level 20 and I have five pop up games to do. Super annoying. My screen has enough items on it I don’t need more. Sorry I gave you a shot but these in game Games are too much. I just want to build a city and enjoy. All this extra stuff is just pushing play 2 win.
Does not reload. Starts from scratch
Now I remember why I uninstalled 10+ years ago. It just wastes my time.
Pay to win
Pay to win at its finest
Wheel spin
50/50 chance to get a the present on the wheel but I get it’s 90% of time? Give me chips back this is ridiculous
Constant commercials
This game is fun and you can choose to speed up things by watching a commercial. After a few days of playing, it started throwing in commercials randomly throughout the game. It’s hard to play at all because it keeps generating commercials.
Hard to collect money
They never put a simply button to auto collect money , is sad cause is a pain, making the game boring cause you always missing a lot of unnecessary clicks
I actually love this game
The problem is that it pmo every 3 days or so when it’s a new event with the same tutorial, that I don’t want to participate in but there’s no way to quit. I’m not talking about Road to Rewards- I love that one and play it whenever I get the chance to. But those other events where they want me to make my commercial buildings to stop making money and make other things instead? I’m never gonna do that. And I already know how so why with always a tutorial? Just give me an option to quit any event right when the tutorial starts bc I literally log off the whole game when it happens
Review
Back to back interruptions, too many ads , ads too long
Zero stars
Almost every app that I have downloaded has been annoyingly slow in the beginning. It asked if you would like to skip the tutorial and you say yes and then you’re stuck with a stupid tutorial anyways. Then it takes forever to load because of all of the ads and the extra screens it’s annoying! By the time you get to the actual game, you don’t wanna play anymore! You need to do better
Terrible game it takes all your money in the game
So terrible I literally did one spin and all I got was one coin:(😾
Stupid
This game was good until one of the game designer morons thought it was a good idea to put all the in that in app purchase garbage over top of the build button and the road button, making the game impossible to play. I very quickly deleted it and will never ever download it again! tell your game designers They are terrible at their job and have no brains. fire them all and get some people with some common sense in there to make a real game because this is garbage.!
Commercials
To many commercials
Greedy ad evil!!!!!
Like a lot of companies in this world greed owns this one and they hammer with ads constantly that don't end.. meaning that it goes through the ad then when you hit the x it goes to the app store then back to the ad and keeps doing this until your absolutely insane and can't enjoy a game because now you're getting angry instead. Evil losers!!!!
Adds
Spin the reward wheel gifts are so cheesy, really 1 gold, 5 chips why bother, and the adds are getting so long and monotonous seriously popping up when you’re working on something. I’m about done due to these constantly coming up and being so long and having to click out 3-4 times to get out of them
Ads
after 2 1/2 years, no real money spent, absolute minimum of stupid video ads watched, level 138, soon as I get 100,000 gold coins and $300,000,000,000 (very close to both) I’m outa here.
fk your giant pop-up ads!
fk your giant pop-up ads!
Fun game but …
Fun game but not much can be done without having to spend money on coins, keys etc etc etc. I deleted after getting suckered into spending too much money on virtually nothing - pun intended.
1 star but used to be a 5
I gave it a 1 star because Sparkling Society has got to get their act together! They just sent me a free code today through their email to members who have signed up for their newsletter and it does not work and is an old code that was previously sent to people. Add to the fact they have a promotion this week where you can win a skyscraper or so it seems but some people are receiving a ferris wheel instead! They promised awhile back to add more features into the game moving their levels up to 250 but have yet to add anything in the months since they disclosed the leveling up! The game freezes, the videos freeze, and I have had to delete the game entirely once because it had completly frozen for over a day! Glad I didnt put my own money into the game! A few years ago it was a great game 5 out of 5 but now they spend more time it seems by their other games like zoo life etc Maybe they are spending their time on city island 6???? Hopefully they are!
Weak
Bad coins
Very upset
I played the gift challenge and had worked really hard to get to the coin prize. I had achieved the 125 coin receiving them. However when I returned to the game a few hours later they were not there and now I have no coins after spending them to gat the 125. What a waste of time and energy. I would have given higher ranking but that was a long six days to get the coin gift.
Needs to have more free options
Game gets stagnate quick. Too many limitations if you’re not willing to spend your $$$$
Game
Question what is the point of saying do you want a tutorial or do you not and the player says no thank you so what happens three seconds later you’re forced to do stuff a property with the gems you do not have. So basically you’re lying to your players you’re saying oh you can take the tutorial away, but we’re still going to force you to do it. You guys are so deceitful it’s not even funny either forces to do the tutorial and don’t give us that option to take it away or whatever but don’t tell us that we can take it away and then you still do it. That’s deceitful that’s that’s no good.. don’t do that to your players.
My game progress
When I signed in recently, all of my game progress was gone.
How do I download it? I’d like to continue my play.
How do I download it? I’d like to continue my play.
Needs Improvements for a Better Experience
The game has potential but needs some updates to enhance the experience:
Automated Profits: It would be great if profits could be automatically added without me having to click on each business. This would streamline the gameplay.
Better Navigation: Navigating the game could be easier. Improving zooming in and out, as well as allowing us to view from all angles, would make a big difference.
Realism in Gameplay: The game's realism could use an upgrade. People walking into traffic without stopping at lights feels off. Let them stop at lights, walk in and out of buildings, and show cars parking to make the environment more believable.
Offline Progress: It's frustrating to only earn profits while online. We should be able to gain money and see those profits when we return to the game, even if we were offline.
Overall, the game is okay, but with these improvements, it could be much better!
Automated Profits: It would be great if profits could be automatically added without me having to click on each business. This would streamline the gameplay.
Better Navigation: Navigating the game could be easier. Improving zooming in and out, as well as allowing us to view from all angles, would make a big difference.
Realism in Gameplay: The game's realism could use an upgrade. People walking into traffic without stopping at lights feels off. Let them stop at lights, walk in and out of buildings, and show cars parking to make the environment more believable.
Offline Progress: It's frustrating to only earn profits while online. We should be able to gain money and see those profits when we return to the game, even if we were offline.
Overall, the game is okay, but with these improvements, it could be much better!
Going down with changes
Road to Rewards - takes forever and generally only get to the Silver Treasure Chest, which you can buy with silver keys in the regular game.
Spiral something- waste of time. I believe this is the one that, at this current time, cannot be interrupted during introduction. It has caused me to kiss Catch the Crook several times because it opens at the time when I go to an island.
The old way of earning keys, tokens, gold coins, and Rare Buildings was time consuming as well, but more rewarding than the new challenges.
Spiral something- waste of time. I believe this is the one that, at this current time, cannot be interrupted during introduction. It has caused me to kiss Catch the Crook several times because it opens at the time when I go to an island.
The old way of earning keys, tokens, gold coins, and Rare Buildings was time consuming as well, but more rewarding than the new challenges.
Booooo
Boo.
Privacy Policy
We always read how apps try to say that have no control over the content of third party advertisers who they share aka sell your information to. I attempted to opt out of all of the third party companies and not only were some of the links broken, but some links lead to a page saying that you CAN opt out, but there is no link or they want you to provide your device ID or email. Just overly complicated and they DO have a responsibility to make sure that their partners are legit.
Yet another shameless money grab
After initial 10 levels where buildings are cheaper and level bonuses high enough. After that game slows down to snail pace which is impossible to overcome except to pay real money
Fun game but too many ad pop-ups enabled over the past year
I have been playing this game on and off for more than 5 years. It starts out well and I find myself engaged as a way to unwind in the evenings. But, I always hit a point where it becomes redundant and as the game progresses the times to completion become too long that I lose interest. I just recently re-installed the game (Summer 2023) and was again enjoying playing, but this time the number of ads that pop-up arbitrarily overwhelmed the game and detracted from the experience. I just deleted the game from my iPad. The number of ads were over the top.
Don’t waste your money.
I spent 100s on this game and I’m going to have to stop. They keep deleting my purchases- if I spend my coins on products and land why do they disappear? I logged in and it wasn’t saved but it’s been there for over a day. They make it hard to get coins anyways, you’ll have to buy because things will only be gold coin prices and you have only green cash. It’s annoying
Blocking me out for irrelevant reasons
Couldn’t get back into my game unless I left a rating, so here ya go. Game is ok when you can play, but a tad irritating in that your buildings only accumulate one cycle of wealth no matter how long it has been since you last collected from that building. Tutorial leaves out some good information like why you need to upgrade or add “happiness” buildings even if your “happiness” is at 100%. Metrics graphs and icons could also do with more explanation.
Sentiment summary
93%
Positive (4-5★)
4%
Neutral (3★)
4%
Negative (1-2★)