Network Cities
By Anshul Dhawan, 0→1 Product Builder, product leader, and game developer.
Founder · Social Pixels · AI-native game · 2025
Network Cities is an AI-native city builder where concept art, 3D assets, characters, game code, and server code were produced with AI. The final game reached 200,000 players and generated $20,000 in revenue.
May 2025 — Early Prototype
In May 2025, I built the first prototype to test how far LLMs could go in building a game with Three.js. It was rough, but it proved that a small team with the right AI stack could build a playable city-builder loop quickly.
Video: The first Network Cities prototype — May 2025
From Concept Art to 3D
The visual pipeline started with concept art made using OpenAI's GPT Image model. Those images established the bright, toy-like world and gave the rest of the production pipeline a consistent visual target.
- Game poster concept art — refreshed: Updated Network Cities concept poster with its orange-jacketed guide and colorful toy-like city.
- World concept art — refreshed: Updated colorful Network Cities world concept with toy-like buildings, roads, small cars, and mountains.
I provided the concept art to MeshyAI, which turned the designs into 3D assets for the game. That let the buildings, vehicles, and characters share one visual language without a traditional 3D art pipeline.
- Tesla — Game host: Tesla understands each player's game state and recommends the right quests, acting as a guide through the city.
- City car: Blue and orange compact car created for Network Cities
- Delivery truck: Orange delivery truck with a yellow cargo box created for Network Cities
- Hotel: Red hotel with teal domes created for Network Cities
- Investment bank: Yellow investment bank with teal rooflines created for Network Cities
- Gaming center: Gaming center shaped like a teal game controller created for Network Cities
- Apartment building: Orange apartment building with blue roofs and green balconies created for Network Cities
The Final Game
The prototype grew into a live city builder with quests, progression, social systems, and a much larger catalog of buildings. An automated game-analytics agent monitored live play and flagged balance issues as the game scaled.
Video: Final Network Cities gameplay
The result was the original thesis in production: a small team plus the right agent stack could ship a category of game that used to need 50+ people.