GROW City Game: Who Made It, and Is It Eyezmaze's?

If you typed "grow city game", you probably remember clicking icons in order while a little town filled in. The memory is real. The name just doesn't belong to the series you may be thinking of.

We checked both places on October 10, 2026: the Eyezmaze front page and the GROW series list, then the Hooda Math page that carries the name. Below is what each one shows, which GROW titles come closest to building a town, and how to approach a small order puzzle without opening the walkthrough. We don't print the winning order.

Is there a GROW City game?

Not from Eyezmaze. Wikipedia's list of On Nakayama's main GROW titles has twelve released games plus a MiniGROW line, and none is called City, Town or Village. The game with that name is Hooda Grow City, a four-panel puzzle on Hooda Math.

The Eyezmaze front page lists every GROW title it hosts, from GROW CUBE OMEGA and GROW RPG SIGMA to GROW thanks and GROW nano. City is not among them, and the series entry on Wikipedia has no such title either, released or cancelled. Our guide to the Eyezmaze site covers what else is on that front page.

Hooda Math is a free game site aimed at school students. Its page for the game is titled Hooda Grow City, and the footer credits Hooda Math LLC. The page does not mention Eyezmaze or Nakayama.

How does Hooda Grow City play?

You get an empty green plot and four round panels. Click each panel once, in an order you choose, and watch what it adds. The goal is a run where all four objects end at their max level.

1. The title screen has three buttons: PLAY, MORE GROW GAMES and WALKTHROUGH. On our visit a full-screen ad came up first and had to be closed.
2. PLAY opens a lined note card. It asks you to find the sequence that grows the city to its maximum size, with every object at max level.
3. The board is a square of grass seen from above at an angle. The panels sit at the sides: a grey road slab and a brick building on the left, a tree and a wooden power pole on the right.
4. A click fills part of the plot and darkens that panel. Our tree click added a small pond and a few trees in one corner.
5. The bar along the bottom holds Sound, More Grow Games, Walkthrough, Reset and Menu. We saw no undo button there.

Our first attempt froze after two clicks, so we reloaded and played a full run. The road panel laid a crossroads with a few houses, a water tower and cars. When the fourth panel finished, red TRY AGAIN letters came up over the city, a small number appeared under each panel showing the level it reached, and an arrow pointed at Reset. All four of ours stopped at 2, so the city was nowhere near its max.

Why are there so many Grow games Eyezmaze didn't make?

Because the click-in-order format is easy to reuse. Hooda Math's own Grow games page lists twelve titles that are not in the Eyezmaze catalogue, including Hooda Grow City, Grow Castle, Grow Farm and Grow Zoo.

The same grid also carries titles that match Eyezmaze games: Grow Cube, Grow Island, Grow Valley, Grow Park, Grow Tower and Grow Nano Vol 3, which our GROW nano page covers. On that grid the only naming clue is the word Hooda in front of some titles, such as Hooda Grow Aquarium, Rocket, Mountain and Canyon.

That mix is why the memory gets blurred. If the game you remember had college captions or eight engineering panels, it was an Eyezmaze game. If it had four round panels and a WALKTHROUGH button on the title screen, it was probably Hooda Grow City.

Which GROW games come closest to building a town?

The two closest are Nakayama's GROW Island, where eight engineering panels build a working society, and GROW Valley, where seven panels fill a river valley with roads, a tunnel and a radio tower. Hooda Grow City is a four-panel take on the same idea.

Game	Made by	Year	Panels	Orders	What grows
GROW Island	Eyezmaze	2007	8	40,320	A society on an island
GROW Valley	Eyezmaze	2010	7	5,040	Roads and buildings in a valley
Hooda Grow City	Hooda Math	not stated	4	24	A city block
Island Evolution	us	2026	8	40,320	A village, market and festival

Jay Is Games' 2007 review describes the aim of GROW Island as a society where people get along, the environment is protected and technology is put to use. Our GROW Island page goes through its eight panels, and our GROW Valley run covers the valley's department captions and its two endings.

How do you work out Hooda Grow City's order yourself?

Use what the board shows. The note card says the target is every object at max level, so after each run note which object fell short, then change one position. Keep a list of orders you have tried, since there are only 24.

The general method, including the "starved or blocked" test, is in our order puzzle guide, so we won't repeat it here.

What is specific to this game is how little the board tells you mid-run. A click fills part of the plot and the panel goes dark, and the level numbers only show up once the last panel is placed. So write the four numbers down after every run, next to the order you used. That small table is the main feedback we saw, and it tells you which object to move.

Four panels is a short climb. If you want one step up before a full-size game, GROW Tower has five panels and 120 orders.

Where do you go once four panels feel too easy?

Hooda shows the level numbers only after the last panel. Island Evolution prints each requirement on the evolution chart before you place anything, and the settlement keeps growing after the first hut.

Its People item climbs from Castaway to Hut, Village, Market and finally Festival. Stone becomes a path, then a cottage, then a lighthouse. Each step has a condition, such as fire on the island before huts become a village, and the evolution chart sets all of them out in one table. Where Hooda Grow City gives you four objects, this gives you a whole settlement to plan.

Close but not perfect? Our no-spoiler hints are there, and the FAQ explains scoring.

Where do these facts come from?

• The eyezmaze.com front page, checked October 10, 2026, for the list of GROW titles it hosts and the absence of any City, Town or Village title.
• The GROW (series) entry on Wikipedia, checked October 10, 2026, for the main title list, the cancelled GROW Forest, the MiniGROW line and the release years of GROW Island and GROW Valley.
• Hooda Math, the Hooda Grow City page, checked October 10, 2026, for the title, the "Click on panels in order" instruction, the "Restart until all panels reach Max level" line, the Walkthrough link, the Club Hooda save-code box, the "safe for Chromebooks" line and the Hooda Math LLC footer describing free math games for grades K–12.
• Our own session in Hooda Grow City on October 10, 2026, for the ad before the menu, the title-screen buttons, the note card, the four panels and their icons, the pond and trees after the tree click, the crossroads, houses, water tower and cars after the road click, the TRY AGAIN ending with a level number under each panel and an arrow to Reset, panels darkening after use, the bottom bar with no undo button, the Walkthrough button on the title screen and the bottom bar, and the first attempt freezing after two clicks.
• Hooda Math, the Grow Games category page, checked October 10, 2026, for the titles in its grid: twelve not in the Eyezmaze catalogue and six whose names match Eyezmaze games.
• Jay Is Games' review of GROW Island, September 2007, for the eight engineering panels and the society the game builds towards.
• Jay Is Games' January 2009 review of GROW Tower, for its five panels.
• Our GROW Valley playthrough on eyezmaze.com on October 4, 2026, for its seven panels, the roads, tunnel and radio tower.
• Island Evolution's own rules and evolution chart, for the People and Stone chains, the perfect score of 27, the 40,320 orders and the three perfect orders.

Island Evolution has no affiliation with Hooda Math, Eyezmaze, or On Nakayama. Hooda Grow City is Hooda Math's, and the GROW series is Nakayama's.