Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall where each 1×1 square is free to claim and shows one site's favicon linked to its URL. If you're a developer with ten or fifteen side projects, that means every project you've ever shipped can sit on one live, 3D wall for nothing, in adjacent cells, each with its own click count, view count and deed.
At a glance. One URL per square. Free — a URL and an email address, no card, no account, no upload. Claim adjacent cells and your projects form a visible block. Each square gets a secret deed URL with views, clicks and kisses; $5 per square unlocks per-day charts, which you only need on the projects you care about. Twelve projects with analytics on two = $10, once. Anyone who wants one of your cells pays $1 to evict you. Rulebook: How Square Town works — the complete rulebook. Prices: Pricing — a square is free, forever*.
The problem: twelve projects, zero places that show all of them
If you've been shipping for a few years you have a folder of domains. A CLI tool, two SaaS attempts, a Chrome extension, a weekend API, a newsletter, something with "kit" in the name. Each has a favicon you spent twenty minutes on. None of them has a marketing channel, because promotion is per-project effort and you have twelve projects and one evening a week.
Directories charge per listing or want a backlink. Product Hunt is a launch per product. Your GitHub profile shows repos, not sites. Your personal homepage lists them, and only your mother visits it. There isn't a place where a stranger can see all your stuff at once, sorted by whether anyone actually clicks it.
Square Town is that place, mostly by accident: because every square is 1×1 and free, the natural unit is "one project", and the natural move for a prolific developer is "all of them".
What a free square gives you (times twelve)
- A permanent square per project. Your favicon in the cell you chose, visible to everyone with the wall open, no expiry, no renewal. Forever* — the asterisk is that anyone can evict you for double what you paid, $1 minimum — so $1.
- A neighbourhood. Pick adjacent empty cells and your twelve icons form a block. Anyone who clicks one sees the others next to it. It reads as one person's output — which it is. See Showcase all your projects as favicons for layouts.
- A click-through per project, counted. Clicks route through
/go/:id, are counted per square, and arrive at your site withutm_source=square.pov.town&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=square. Twelve rows in your analytics, one per project. - Views and clicks per square on a deed page. Each claim yields a secret deed URL (mailed to you if you like). The deed shows the square, its views (someone opened its card), clicks and kisses. That's free. $5, one-time, adds per-day charts on that deed.
- A 3D tower whose height is clicks + kisses. Ctrl+drag tilts the wall. Every favicon becomes a box as tall as its clicks plus kisses, tinted with the icon's colour. With twelve projects side by side, the tilt view is a bar chart of which ones people want. Nothing else you own gives you that comparison for free.
- The social/game layer. Anyone can kiss any icon (free, public, counted, and each kiss grows the tower a storey). Anyone can evict a square for double its price, $1 minimum. Leaderboards track most clicked and most kissed. Your block of twelve is in the game whether you play or not.
A worked example: 12 projects, $10
Say you have twelve live projects, each with its own domain and favicon. Here is the whole plan.
| Step | What | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Claim 12 adjacent squares | e.g. a 3×4 block, one URL each | 12 × $0 = $0 |
| Save 12 deed URLs | one note, or the "My deeds" button + a backup | $0 |
| Unlock analytics on the 2 that matter | the SaaS you're serious about and the one that's growing | 2 × $5 = $10 |
| Kiss all 12 every couple of months | public counts, a storey per kiss | $0 |
| Total | $10, once |
What you get back: twelve favicons in one block on a wall people look at, twelve counted click-throughs, twelve towers you can compare at a glance, and daily charts on the two you're actually watching. If one gets evicted, that square cost you nothing; the evictor paid $1, and it's $2 to take it back if you care.
Compare that to twelve directory listings or twelve launches: the price isn't the point, the effort is. Twelve pastes, zero card payments, one evening. See How to promote 10 side projects at once for the broader playbook this fits into.
How to do it
- List your projects and check each favicon. Open each site; a missing favicon means a clown emoji in town and a public Hall of Clowns entry. Fix those first (How to add a favicon). If two projects share a favicon, give one of them its own — twelve identical icons in a block tells nobody anything.
- Open square.pov.town and find a run of empty cells. At launch only the central 16×16 is live; the gold 4×4 Throne is in the middle and the ring around it is off-limits. Zoom in and count out a block — 3×4, 2×6, or a single row of 12 if it's free.
- Claim them one at a time, in one sitting. Click a cell, paste the URL and your email, press Claim. Free, instant. Square Town fetches the favicon via Google's favicon service. Nothing holds the next cell for you, so keep going until the block is done.
- Save every deed URL as you go. Each claim shows a secret deed link and adds it under the "My deeds" button (this browser only, localStorage); it can also be mailed to the address you gave. Copy all twelve into a note. No accounts means no password reset.
- Unlock analytics where it matters. Open the deed page for the projects you'd act on and pay $5, one-time, for per-day views and clicks. Leave the rest.
- Tilt the wall and look. Ctrl+drag. Your block is now twelve towers. Come back in a month and see which grew.
Tips
- Pick a spot near the Throne if you want to be seen. The wall opens centred, so the middle rings are what every visitor's eyes land on. They're also the cells most likely to be evicted. A block a few cells out is a decent compromise; How to pick a good square goes into it.
- Put the project you care most about at the corner of the block. Corners and edges of a block are what people notice first, and it's the one you'd take back after an eviction.
- Kiss your own icons. Free, counted in public, and each kiss adds a storey — twelve towers rising together reads as one person still shipping.
- Keep the favicons distinct. Twelve squares at 16 pixels each — colour and shape carry it, text doesn't. Favicon design tips at 16px if you're redoing any.
- Pay for the analytics unlock only for decisions. "Views high, clicks low" means the icon is seen but not compelling; "clicks fine, nothing in my own analytics" means the landing page loses them. If you'd change nothing either way, keep the $5.
- Save your deed URLs somewhere permanent. Password manager, a pinned note, a private gist. Twelve deeds is exactly the number that gets lost.
What it won't do
- No SEO value. The wall is a WebGL canvas and clicks are 302 redirects through
/go/:id. There is no backlink, no link equity, no ranking effect. Don't claim twelve squares expecting twelve backlinks. - No traffic promise. You get a counted click every time someone clicks. How many people click is up to the town's audience and your favicon; nobody quotes numbers, and you should be suspicious of walls that do.
- You can be evicted, square by square. A free square costs $1 to take (and you get an email, if you ticked the box). Someone can pull one out of the middle of your block. That's the game.
- No accounts, so no password reset. Twelve deeds lost is twelve squares you can't prove are yours (they stay in town; you just can't touch the deed page).
- No logo upload, no sizes. Every square is 1×1 and shows whatever favicon your site serves.
FAQ
How much does it cost to put 12 side projects on Square Town?
Nothing — squares are free, one square per project. Per-day analytics is an optional $5 per square; twelve squares with analytics on two comes to $10 total. Being evicted costs you nothing either; the evictor pays $1.
Can I claim 12 squares in one go?
No. Each square is its own claim and its own deed. Claim them in one sitting; there's no checkout, so each is yours the moment you submit, but neighbouring cells aren't reserved for you.
Can I put all my projects next to each other?
Yes, if the cells are empty when you claim them. Pick a run of adjacent empty cells and claim them one after another. Someone can later evict any single square out of the block for double its price ($1 minimum).
Do I need a separate favicon for each project?
You need each site to serve some favicon, or it gets a clown emoji. Distinct favicons are strongly recommended — twelve identical icons in a block are twelve squares nobody can tell apart.
What if I lose a deed URL?
There's no account to recover it from. If you had it mailed to you at claim time, it's in your inbox; otherwise the square stays in town under your URL, but you can't open its deed page or unlock analytics for it. Save all twelve links when you claim.
Does Square Town give me 12 backlinks?
No. Clicks are counted redirects and the wall is a canvas, so there's no link equity. It's visibility, a click-through and stats, not SEO.
Is there an API to see how my squares are doing?
GET https://square.pov.town/api/state returns the whole wall as JSON, including every listing's domain, position, clicks, views and kisses. Filter by your domains and you have a twelve-row dashboard. Details on Square Town API — read the wall, claim a square.