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Last updated 7 October 2026

City Stakes has two cities. Ilmara is a fictional night city with a marketplace running inside it. Bengaluru is Jayanagar, a real neighbourhood, drawn from OpenStreetMap and played on foot, on two wheels or at the wheel. You can ignore the marketplace entirely and just explore: that is a deliberate design goal, not a concession. Choose the city on the loading screen or the title.

Getting around Ilmara

Camera	Drag to orbit · scroll to zoom · right-drag to pan · click a building or screen to inspect it
V	Stand up and walk. C switches third and first person, Shift runs, E inspects whatever the crosshair is on, V again sits back down.
F	Get into the nearest parked car within 6 m. G calls one over when there is none nearby. F again to get out.
H	Take over the helicopter already flying over the city: nothing is spawned for you. W/S fly, A/D turn, Q/E change height, arrow keys strafe.
C	While driving or flying: chase, interior, cinematic.
Space	Handbrake.
P	Photo mode: letterbox, aspect ratios, exposure, and the current photo brief.
/ · Esc	Search · close whatever is open.

Getting around Bengaluru

Play puts you on the pavement. One prompt at a time says what you can do where you stand; everything else is in the menu (Esc or M).

Moving	WASD and the mouse · Shift runs (a sprint tires) · Space jumps on foot and is the handbrake at the wheel
C	Change the camera wherever you are: on foot, at the wheel, and aboard the metro
F	Get on or off a vehicle, board or leave a metro train, sit down
E	Enter a shop, order, collect, sit for a haircut, take a test ride, buy a metro token (tokens are free)
T	Call or board a free ride (an auto, haggled at the kerb)
N	The phone: the map, jobs, the camera and today's challenges
H · G	The horn at the wheel · push someone in front of you on foot
M · P	The map · photo mode

On a phone the stick and the buttons do all of this, and the less common actions are under More.

What you will meet there

• Real places. The streets, buildings, parks, metro stations and named places come from OpenStreetMap. Real businesses carry their own names, and some can be walked into. Inside, everything is the game's: the goods are a trade's ordinary goods, the hours are the game's, nothing is charged and nothing is ordered from the business.
• A street that runs on the clock. Traffic, pedestrians, shops, the metro, the afternoon rain and Sunday cricket follow India Standard Time, so everyone sees the same street.
• Trouble. You can crash, run into people, start a fight or take a car, and the street reacts: drivers argue, an ambulance comes, the police chase you until you hide. It is game fiction, nobody is shown hurt, and nothing here condones it.
• Jobs. Deliveries, cab and auto fares, and bike-taxi runs pay game points. Points are not money, buy nothing and stay on your device.

The marketplace

Owning a building

Every tower has a price. Claim an unclaimed one at its base value, or outbid the current owner: the minimum is 5% above the standing bid. Some buildings go to a timed auction, and the winner is charged when the hammer falls. Ownership is public. Your company's rank is the total value of everything it holds, and rank #1 gets the crown beacon and the brightest treatment in the city.

Advertising

Every screen is a standing auction. Screens open at $1. You pay once and hold the screen until somebody bids more; when they do, the screen is theirs and what you paid is not refunded. A takeover books several screens at once for a window, at no discount on any screen it takes from another holder.

The two impression numbers

They are never added together, because they are different kinds of number.

Modelled	Derived from the placement's authored reach, its visibility, the district's footfall and the season. No human being is counted for this figure, and every surface that shows it says "modelled".
Measured	Counted from players who were actually in front of the board: close enough to read it, on the right side of it, and there long enough to take it in. A game figure, not an audited advertising metric. Nothing is charged on it.

Other people

• Other players. Players near you are drawn walking, riding or driving, with a name over them: the name on your account if you are signed in, "Player 3" if you are not. They see you the same way. In Bengaluru you choose your character in Settings.
• Friends. A city holds about a hundred players to a room. "Copy invite link" brings a friend into your room; people in one company are put together.
• Crews. A group is people sharing one company. The founder mints an invite code; anyone with the code can join, ride along and take the wheel when it is offered.
• The photo competition. Everyone shoots the same brief, which rotates every six hours. Entries are ranked on what the camera can verify, never on how the picture looks.
• Seasons, races and discovery. Ilmara's seasons change the sky and the economy; four race routes run against a ghost of your best; viewpoints are found by being there, never by following a marker.

Credits and money

Prices are shown in US dollars, and a credit is what one dollar buys. There is no free grant: spending needs a signed-in account and credits you have bought. Real money only ever buys credits; it never buys buildings, rank or outcomes directly. You can explore both cities without spending anything. See the Terms for what credits are and are not.

Something wrong?

If the city will not load, the most common cause is a browser or driver without working WebGL 2. The city also steps its own quality down automatically on slower machines rather than dropping frames. Sound starts on your first click or tap and is behind the sound toggle.