Hometown Games Launches Free Cooperative City-Building App to Connect Grandparents and Grandchildren Through Shared Screen Time
New mobile game requires two players by design, no ads, no in-app purchases, and cultural landmarks built into every
Press Release Disclaimer: This is a press release distributed through the XPR Media network. It has not been independently verified by our newsroom.
New mobile game requires two players by design, no ads, no in-app purchases, and cultural landmarks built into every district.
Sugar Land, United States — 30 July, 2026 — Hometown Games today announced the upcoming launch of Hometown — Stories Played Together, a free cooperative city-building mobile game arriving this summer on iOS and Android. The game is structured around two players, one managing city growth and planning, the other exploring neighborhoods and unlocking cultural stories with neither player able to advance without the other. The result is a shared screen experience designed to function as genuine cooperative play rather than parallel solo use on separate devices.
Background
Recent research has found that children spend a significant amount of time on screens each day, much of it on individual devices with limited shared interaction between children and the adults in their households. At the same time, parental control applications and usage management tools have grown into a multi-billion-dollar market, yet screen use among children continues to remain widespread.
Hometown Games was founded on the premise that the more effective response to solitary screen time is not restriction but replacement, providing an experience that two people in the same room are structurally required to share.
“The screen is not the problem,” said Winston Zee, founder of Hometown Games. “The problem is that every screen is built for one person. Hometown is built around two.”
How the Game Works
Hometown assigns distinct roles to each player. One player manages city growth, resource allocation, and district layout. The other explores the city’s neighborhoods, interacts with characters, and unlocks stories embedded in cultural landmarks. Neither player can progress without the participation of the other. Sessions begin over a shared Wi-Fi connection, requiring no account registration, subscription, or external setup.
Cultural districts within the game draw on real-world architecture and traditions, including Chinese heritage landmarks, European canal towns, harbor waterfronts, and mountain settlements. The districts are designed to surface material that players of different generations can respond to differently, prompting organic conversation rather than structured prompts.
The game contains no advertisements, no in-app purchases, no competitive leaderboards, and no mechanics that penalize players for pausing or ending a session.
Key Features
-
Cooperative two-player structure: progress requires both players to remain engaged throughout each session, with no solo mode available.
-
Cultural landmark exploration: districts are inspired by real-world architecture and traditions, with content accessible to players across a wide age range.
-
Free to download with no advertising: no third-party ad networks, no in-app purchases, and no data collection from minors.
-
Local Wi-Fi multiplayer: both players connect on the same network, keeping sessions private and independent of internet speed.
-
Calm pacing: no countdown timers, no penalty mechanics, and no competitive ranking between players.
About the Founder
Hometown was developed by Winston Zee, a former international lawyer and published author based in Los Angeles. Zee began developing the game after concluding that existing family screen time solutions, parental controls, content filters, and usage timers, shared a common structural limitation: they reduced access to screens without providing a comparable alternative that held equivalent appeal for children.
“You cannot resolve the screen time problem by taking the screen away,” Zee said. “You resolve it by making something else matter more. That is what Hometown is designed to do.”
Zee drew on two decades of cross-cultural legal work and his background in storytelling to develop a game built around intergenerational dialogue. During user testing, sessions between grandparents and grandchildren ran longer than anticipated, with players reporting that in-game cultural landmarks prompted conversations about family history, geography, and personal memory that had not previously occurred.
“The landmark in the game gave them something specific to react to together,” Zee said. “That shared reaction was the beginning of a conversation neither of them had thought to start on their own.”
An official brand video illustrating the Hometown gameplay experience is now available. The video captures a family sharing a single cooperative session, focused on the same experience, in the same moment, without distraction.
Market Context
The family gaming market in the United States is projected to exceed 2 billion in 2026, driven by demand from parents and grandparents seeking screen time experiences that are both engaging and age-appropriate. Research published by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child in 2024 identified cooperative play between children and older caregivers as a predictor of executive function development, emotional regulation, and communication skills in children ages 5 through 12.
A significant share of games marketed to families retain solo-play architecture, with multiplayer features added as secondary modes. Hometown is structured as a two-player cooperative experience with no solo mode, a design decision that makes the shared session the core product rather than an optional variation.
Availability
Hometown — Stories Played Together will be available as a free download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Summer 2026. Pre-registration is open at www.hometowngames.app.
Press assets including founder biography, game screenshots, and a full media kit are available upon request at info@hometowngames.app.
About Hometown Games
Hometown Games is an independent studio founded to build cooperative digital experiences for families. Its flagship product, Hometown — Stories Played Together, is a cooperative city-building mobile game for iOS and Android. All products are free to download and operate without advertising, in-app purchases, or competitive ranking systems. For more information, visit www.hometowngames.app.
###
Media Contact
Company: PR Media House
Contact Person: Jake Parker
Email: Send email
Website: prmediahouse.com
