Sim City on SNES is one of those games that makes you lose track of time without even realizing it. You start with an empty grid and a tiny budget, plopping down roads and zoning areas while praying your city doesn’t immediately go bankrupt. The first time I played, I made the classic mistake of zoning way too much industrial early on—my citizens were furious about the pollution, and fires kept breaking out. Lesson learned.

The pixel art has this weirdly cozy charm, even when your city’s in chaos. Balancing taxes, disasters (why do tornadoes always hit the expensive areas?), and those demanding citizens is way more addictive than it sounds. And that soundtrack? Still stuck in my head decades later. Just don’t expect a perfect utopia—half the fun is watching things go wrong and scrambling to fix them.

It’s the kind of game where you tell yourself “one more turn” and suddenly it’s 2 AM.