Hype City: Idle Tycoon is an idle city builder that allows players to build and expand their metropolis from scratch. As a budding architect, your goal is to construct buildings, hire managers and earn income from each building. As you accumulate more cash, you will move to a bigger better city.
Each building has its own unique stats and it affects the total income earned from a city. You can build a pure residential area within a city or a swanky business hub to generate a lot of income. You can also expand a building to change its design and also improve its stats.
One feature we really liked about Hype City: Ide Tycoon is the puzzle mode or the building construction mode. Whenever you are constructing a new building on a site or expanding an existing one, you will be taken to a puzzle mode where you will have put together blocks of all shapes and sizes on a big empty block to construct a building. Upon successfully completing a puzzle, you will be rewarded with gems.
There are so many things to do in Hype City and we are just getting started. Check out these beginner-level tips, tricks and strategies to become the best city builder:
Table of Contents
Select your First House Wisely
In Hype City’s tutorial mode, you will build your first house at a very cheap price. The game presents three home choices – Basic House, Cottage and Shack.
Each house has its own stats – Earnings per second, population, coins earned per person and the time it takes to earn income.
Select your first house wisely. You must take each stat into consideration before choosing a house:
For example: The basic house generates 30 coins per second, but it takes only a second to collect them. Cottage generates 90 coins per second but you will have to wait 10 seconds to collect coins. Yes, you will get 900 coins, but you can’t collect them before the 10-sec time limit.
Of course, you will be able to build more – even raze the present one to build something new, but the first house will lay the foundation of your city and will keep earning more income for you each time you upgrade it. Plus, you can purchase the first site for a meagre 10 coins, so make a wise investment decision.
Types of Buildings and their Strong Points
There are three main types of buildings – House, Landmark and Business. Each building has its own unique advantage and stats.
Houses generate income over time. Depending on its rarity and type, a house takes some time to earn income for you. When the circle above a house fills up, tap it to collect coins. Income collected from all houses are stored in the bank. Upgrade the bank from time to time to increase storage. You can add a manager to automate income generation.
Unlike houses, landmarks don’t generate income. But they improve the stats of all buildings in your city. Build a few landmarks to boost income.
Business buildings earn money based on the population. The more visitors a business building has, the more coins you will earn.
Check Symbol Before Constructing a Building
Every plot or construction site costs a certain amount of coins. You can purchase a construction site once you have earned the required money to unlock it. You will see the empty site glow, indicating that it’s ready for purchase.
When you purchase a construction site, check its symbol. It could be a symbol of a house, a briefcase and a tall tower with a tree. You can only construct buildings on new sites that have their matching symbols:
If a site has the symbol of a house, then you can only build a house on it. You will acquire various types of houses from the small briefcase.
You can build a landmark on unclaimed construction sites with a tower and tree symbol. You might get a landmark building from a small briefcase, but there are high chances of getting one from a medium briefcase.
Build business buildings on sites with a briefcase symbol. Chances of obtaining a business building are higher from a large briefcase.
Before purchasing a site, make sure you have the matching building to construct on it. Tap the card on the bottom of the screen to go to “collection” You will see a list of buildings you have collected.
If you don’t have a matching building for a site, you can get one from a briefcase. (More about briefcases later).
Upgrade House to Increase Income Per Person
The house is the most important building in the city as it generates a lot of income over time. The more houses you have, the more profits you will earn. Upgrade a house from time to time to improve its earnings.
Tap a house and then tap the “i” button to access its stats page. Next, tap the blue upgrade button to level it up. You will need coins to upgrade a house. There’s also a shortcut to upgrade a house. Tap it and then tap the blue button below the spotlight to upgrade it.
Upgrading a house increases the “income per person stat”, which ultimately boosts the earnings per second of that house.
Other boosts, such as a manager’s passive abilities or a landmark building’s income boosting buff are added to a house’s earnings per second. However, for an instant boost in earnings, you should always upgrade a house.
Fill a House’s Level Gauge to Increase Population
Did you notice a gauge just above a house’s stats page? It’s the level gauge with fills up each time you upgrade. Keep upgrading the house to reach the max level to increase your house’s population. An increase in population increases the earnings per second. (population X income per person).
Managers Automate Income and Provide Additional Stats Boost
When you build a house, you will notice that the house earns income every few seconds. A house or a business building without a manager stops accumulating income on its own until you tap to collect it.
Managers solve this problem by automating income generation. A house with a manager will keep earning income every few seconds (depending on its duration. Check a house’s stats) automatically. You can then tap to transfer the coins to your bank.
To add a manager, tap a building and then then tap on the empty portrait. Choose the best manager for your house or business building. Add a manager that gives a passive boost to a house’s earnings or decreases the earnings duration.
Managers also help you generate income from all houses when you are not playing Hype City: Idle Tycoon. When you come back, you can double your earnings by watching a video.
But the fun does not stop here. Some managers also provide buffs and possess active abilities. Active abilities need to be activated by tapping them. Not all managers have active abilities. To know which managers have them, tap the card on the bottom of the screen to access the “managers” section. Abilities with a border around them are active ones.
Active abilities are temporary and remain active for a few minutes. They need to be turned on every now and then to get temporary boosts.
For example, assigning “Logan” to one of my houses, increased its earning by 30 percent. Whereas assigning “Charlotte” (rare manager) to my townhouse decreased time to generate income by 35 percent. Charlotte also has an active ability decreased the cost of upgrades by 50 percent for a few minutes when activated.
You can get manager cards from briefcases at the shop. Chances of obtaining rare and legendary cards are more from medium and large briefcases. Save gems to buy them or get them from rewards train.
Expand Your House to get Perma Stats Boost
Keep upgrading your house until you reach certain levels, such as level 50 to expand it. When you expand your house, you improve key stats, such as population, income per person and also the total income.
When a house is ready for expansion, a purple button with a jigsaw piece is shown on the spotlight. The spotlight appears when you tap a house.
Always go for Puzzle Mode to Expand Your House
When you expand your house, it gets bigger and there’s a complete overhaul in its design and structure. Apart from the aesthetics, it will also receive a big boost in stats.
You can spend gems to instantly expand a house or watch a video for free to do this. However, we do not recommend choosing any of these options for building expansions.
The house construction puzzle mode or build mode (purple jigsaw button) is pretty easy and extremely addictive, plus there’s no time limit so you can take your time to solve it.
One big advantage of expanding the house through the puzzle mode is that you will receive gems as rewards for each completed puzzle. Save gems to open briefcases to obtain more rewards.
Tapping the jigsaw will take you to the puzzle mode, where you will have to put pieces to their appropriate slots on a blank tile.
The build mode puzzles are very similar to jigsaw puzzles. There are several stages in a puzzle. Finish each stage to complete construction.
If you are stuck in a stage, tap the hint button to know which piece will fit on the tile. The hint colors the positions of each piece, making it easy for you to complete the puzzle. Watch a video to get hints. You can skip a stage altogether if you are finding it too hard. Skipping stages also requires players to watch videos.
Place and Upgrade Landmark Buildings
In Hype City: Idle Tycoon, place a landmark building on an empty site with a tower and tree symbol. Landmark buildings boost stats of all houses in the city.
Some buildings, such as the rare “TV Tower”, reduces the time to generate income for all buildings. It also has an active ability which reduces upgrade for all buildings. This time-bound ability is activated when you tap the arrow button appearing on the spotlight.
You can also raze an existing building to replace it with a landmark building. Tap the building and then tap the wrecking ball to destroy it. Choose a building type – landmark from the three options and build one.
Make sure you already own a landmark building or else you will have to get one from three reward briefcases. Chances of acquiring a landmark from a medium or large briefcase are high, although free briefcase may also contain one.
Types of Briefcases and their Contents
You can get new buildings and managers from briefcases. Tap the shopping cart and open a briefcase to obtain rewards.
There are three types of briefcases: Small brown briefcase, medium white and large golden.
A small briefcase contains only 1 card which may either be a common building or a common manager.
Medium briefcase contains at least 2 cards, which may include a rare building, and a rare manager. Chances of obtaining a landmark are more.
A large briefcase contains at least 4 cards. Chances of getting legendary buildings from a large briefcase are very high. There are also high chances of obtaining business buildings.
You can get the small briefcase by watching videos throughout the day. Check back often to get the small briefcase free. If there’s no video available, then you will have to shell out coins to purchase one.
Medium and large briefcase can be purchased using gems. To know how to get those red rubies, read the next section.
How to get Gems
Gems are used to open medium and large briefcases. It’s these two briefcases that content rare and legendary buildings/managers. Here are a few ways to get gems for free in Hype City: Idle Tycoon:
Whether you are constructing a new house or expanding the current one, always play the puzzle or construction mode to get gems as rewards. You will get them when you complete a puzzle.
The reward helicopter also grants gems from time to time. Again, you will have to watch a video to claim gems.
Complete milestones to get gems. Tap the milestone bar (weather balloon) on top of the screen and complete earnings milestones to get rewards.
Login every day to earn gems on certain days.
Additional Tips and Tricks
Keep an eye on the rewards train. When ready, tap the gift box to obtain your rewards. Chances of getting medium and large briefcases from reward train are higher. The train brings a gift box every 2-3 hours, so check back often and claim your rewards.
Log in daily to get rewards such as briefcases, gems and a legendary John Wick lookalike manager on day 14. Make sure you double your daily reward by tapping the “Claim x2” button. Watch a video to double your rewards.
Upgrade Hype City’s business buildings to increase income per visitor. Please note that a business building’s income depends on the number of visitors. Expand a business to increase visitors.