Comparison

SimpleCities vs The Auction House Simulator

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

SimpleCities

Features
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Build a city. Keep it running. SimpleCities brings classic city simulation to iPhone with a native, touch-first interface. Start with open land, build roads and power, zone new neighborhoods, balance the budget, and watch your city grow one decision at a time. Every city develops differently. Residents need homes, businesses need customers, industry needs workers, and everything depends on power and transportation. As the population grows, you will face traffic, pollution, crime, fires, blackouts, and increasing demand for public services. Features: • Build residential, commercial, and industrial districts • Draw roads, rails, and power lines directly with your finger • Manage taxes and funding for roads, police, and fire protection • Track traffic, pollution, crime, land value, growth, and city services • Respond to fires, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, monsters, and other disasters • Play eight classic city emergency scenarios • Inspect your city with detailed data maps and reports • Pause or adjust the simulation speed at any time • Save multiple versions of your city and restore earlier progress • Import and export compatible classic city files • Choose from several visual themes, including the original classic style • Learn the game with a complete Field Guide for new mayors SimpleCities is easy to start and difficult to master. A healthy city needs more than roads and buildings. It needs planning, patience, and a mayor who can survive the annual budget.

About

The Auction House Simulator

Run your own auction house, appraising antiques and spotting fakes. Manage live auctions, restore items in your workshop, and expand your business from a backyard operation to a grand palace. Compete with rivals and grow your reputation.

Highlights
  • Appraise antiques with a magnifier
  • Manage live auctions
  • Restore damaged items in a workshop
  • Expand and upgrade your auction house
  • Compete with rival auction houses
  • Hand-drawn antique pieces with wear
Features
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Run your own auction house: appraise antiques at the counter, expose forgeries with the magnifier and bring the hammer down in the saleroom. Free, no ads, no account. Plays offline. AT THE COUNTER Every week new customers turn up with their finds. Treasure or trash? Search each piece for clues with the magnifier for as long as your customer’s patience lasts. Get an appraisal, buy outright or take the piece on consignment. Some customers drive a hard bargain, and Will B. Heir & Son, the rivals across the road, have often made them an offer already. THE CATALOGUE Set the opening bids, order the lots and save the best for last. Open too high and the room turns sceptical; open too low and you give money away. THE SALEROOM Paddles go up, the telephone rings, the mood rises. You run the sale yourself: choose the increment, warm up the room, going once, going twice, sold. Bidders who love a piece bid more, and a unique piece gets the whole room going. Sometimes the press sits in the back row, sometimes a row breaks out in row 3. THE WORKSHOP Not every piece reaches the counter in one piece. In the workshop you lend a hand: take off old varnish without rubbing through, piece broken china back together, retouch losses in the right shade, tighten loose screws and claws without overdoing it. Felix von Brushmore, your restorer, looks over your shoulder. Get it right and the value goes up. YOUR HOUSE From backyard to palace: your house grows with your reputation, and so do the goods. Expand the saleroom and storage, open a coffee bar, hire experts who get better with every appraisal. When money runs short, the bank will lend you some. And anyone who looks into the workshop at night is in for a surprise. THE TOWN Once your house is an insider tip, unfold the town map. Every day it shows new neighbours: the houses of other players, with their façades and shop windows. Admire what you like and recommend customers whose piece would do better next door. If it goes under the hammer there, the post brings your finder’s reward. Houses that are admired find flowers at the door and one more bidder in the room. With a friend code you bring friends into your neighbourhood for good. FEATURES - A hundred pieces from twelve departments, from pewter tankard to classic car, plus rare unique pieces, all hand-drawn with genuine signs of wear - Magnifier game at the counter, appraisals that can be wrong, forgeries in circulation - Outright purchase and consignment with haggling, and a rival with offers of its own - Live auction with bidders in the room and on the telephone, saleroom events and weekly events - Workshop with four restoration games: clean, glue, retouch, tighten - Experts with their own departments who grow up to 30 points - Five house tiers, expansions, bank loans, a price archive and a review after every sale - The town: a new neighbourhood of other players’ real houses every day, with admiring, customer recommendations, finder’s rewards, house of the day and friend codes, no account needed - Three difficulty levels and up to twelve houses side by side - Leaderboards and automatic backup of your houses, both optional - “Your house” widget for the Home Screen and Lock Screen - For iPhone and iPad, with its own haptics in the saleroom - In English and German - No ads, no account; plays offline - An optional tip jar, with no advantage in the game Going once. Going twice. Hooked.

Screenshots

SimpleCities4 screens
The Auction House Simulator4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: SimpleCities at none against The Auction House Simulator's 3. The Auction House Simulator's advantage is update cadence (daily vs every 4 days). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. The Auction House Simulator sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. SimpleCities asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SimpleCities ships an update every 4 days, The Auction House Simulator daily. The most recent releases landed on November 13, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 6 level
SimpleCities versus The Auction House Simulator: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSimpleCitiesThe Auction House Simulator
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Update frequencyEvery 4 daysDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size32 MB210 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperKtisis Web, LLCTimo Josten

In-app purchases

None

SimpleCities

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

The Auction House Simulator

One-time3
  • A coin for the jar$1.99
  • Auctioneer's pocket watch$3.99
  • A painting for the saleroom$7.99

Questions

Is SimpleCities free?
SimpleCities is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is The Auction House Simulator free?
The Auction House Simulator is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do SimpleCities or The Auction House Simulator have ads?
Neither SimpleCities nor The Auction House Simulator shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SimpleCities or The Auction House Simulator?
SimpleCities ships an update every 4 days, and The Auction House Simulator daily. Most recently, SimpleCities was updated on November 13, 2026 and The Auction House Simulator on November 10, 2026.

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