Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall: paste the URL of your portfolio or project and an email address, click an empty cell, and its favicon lives on a shared, live, 3D grid — free — until someone pays $1 to evict you. For a student or bootcamp graduate it is a cheap, slightly silly way to put a portfolio and a few projects where curious people scroll — with real view and click counts to show for it.
TL;DR — Free per square, no account, no card. One square for the portfolio, one per project on neighbouring cells. You get a clickable favicon, a deed page with views/clicks/kisses, and a tower in 3D whose height is your clicks plus kisses. Not SEO, not guaranteed traffic, and evictable for double what you paid ($1 minimum).
The problem
Every bootcamp cohort ends with fifty near-identical portfolio sites and a to-do app deployed on a free tier. Recruiters don't browse portfolios; they browse résumés. Friends visit once. The projects are real work — a weather app with a live API, a game, a CLI, a group capstone — but they have no audience beyond the people who were in the room.
Most places to "show your project" are either social (a Reddit thread that scrolls off in a day) or expensive. Square Town is a wall, it costs nothing, and it doesn't scroll away.
What a free square gives you
| You get | Detail |
|---|---|
| A permanent favicon on a live wall | Your portfolio or project's favicon on the shared grid at square.pov.town; free, no expiry |
| A click-through | Visitors click your square, see the card, and follow the link (via a counted redirect) |
| Numbers you can quote | Views, clicks and kisses on your secret deed page; $5 one-time unlocks per-day charts |
| A tower in 3D | Ctrl+drag tilts the wall; each favicon is a box whose height equals its clicks plus kisses, tinted with the icon's colour |
| Something to talk about | Evictions, the Throne, kissing icons to keep them alive, rings unlocking at 75 % fill — it's a small game, and "my portfolio's icon is on a wall people fight over" is a better opener than "here's my GitHub" |
| A row of projects | Every square is 1×1; put your portfolio and each project on adjacent cells and you have a tiny gallery |
How to do it
- Give each site a favicon. Portfolio templates usually ship with a placeholder; deployed projects on a free host often have none. No favicon means a clown emoji in town and a public entry in the Hall of Clowns. Fixing it takes minutes — see how to add a favicon and favicon design tips at 16 px.
- Decide which URLs to claim. Your portfolio home is the obvious first square. Then the two or three projects you would want an interviewer to open. Skip the tutorial to-do app.
- Open square.pov.town and hover the live area. Empty cells highlight; the gold 4×4 in the middle is the Throne and the ring around it is off limits.
- Click a cell, paste the URL, check the preview. Clown? Fix the favicon first.
- Add an email and press Claim. Free, no card. There is no sign-up; the email is where your deed can be sent and where a warning goes if someone evicts you.
- Save the deed URL. It is the only proof of ownership — no login, no reset. The "My deeds" button remembers deeds claimed in that browser, but keep the link in your notes too.
- Repeat for each project on the neighbouring cells so they line up. Do it in one sitting; someone else can take the cell next to yours in the meantime.
- Optionally unlock analytics for $5 one-time on the portfolio square if you want per-day charts to look at (or screenshot).
Tips
- Pick a cell near the Throne. The camera starts centred and the live area is only 16×16 at launch (it grows by 4 in every direction each time it is 75 % full), so early central cells get seen most.
- Kiss your icons. Anyone can kiss any icon free — kisses are public, counted, and each one adds a storey to the tower. Ask classmates to kiss each other's icons.
- Keep the favicon when you redeploy. Moving hosts or frameworks often drops it. If you get clowned, add it back and press "I fixed my favicon".
- Pay for the $5 analytics unlock only if you'll use it. The deed page already shows totals for free.
- Save deed URLs. Password manager, notes app, anywhere durable.
- Cohort idea: the whole class claims a block of adjacent squares. It looks good, it's free, and you can all kiss each other's icons to run up the counts and the towers. See communities and Discords.
What it won't do
- No SEO or backlink value. The wall is a WebGL canvas and clicks are 302 redirects. A square does nothing for your portfolio's search ranking.
- No traffic guarantees. Square Town is a niche wall for people who like small internet things. Some squares get clicked a lot; many don't. The counts are honest.
- You can be evicted. Anyone can take your square by paying double what you paid, $1 minimum (free → $1 → $2). It's announced in the live feed, and mailed to you if you ticked the box. You can take it back for double, or claim a fresh cell for free.
- It's not a portfolio host. A favicon and a link. Your site does the talking.
For more free and cheap places to put student work, see free and cheap marketing for solo developers.
FAQ
Is Square Town worth it for a student portfolio?
For free, yes, if you treat it as a fun placement with honest analytics rather than a traffic source. You get a permanent favicon on a live wall, a click-through and a deed page with counts. Don't expect recruiters to find you through it.
How much does it cost to put a portfolio and three projects on Square Town?
Nothing — squares are free. Optional per-day analytics is $5 one-time per square.
Can I put a project hosted on a free platform (Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages) on Square Town?
Yes, any URL works. Make sure the deployed site serves a favicon, or the square will show a clown emoji until you add one and press recheck.
Does a square help my portfolio rank on Google?
No. Clicks are 302 redirects from a JavaScript canvas; there is no link equity. Square Town gives visibility in town and click counts, not SEO.
What if I lose my deed URL?
There are no accounts, so there is no password reset; if you had the deed mailed to you, it's in your inbox. Otherwise the square stays in town but you lose the deed page (counts, analytics unlock, recheck button). Save the link.
Can my whole class claim squares together?
Yes. Every square is 1×1 and you pick the cell, so claim adjacent cells in one sitting for a block. Then kiss each other's icons — the counts are public and every kiss grows a tower.
What happens if someone evicts my portfolio's square?
They pay $1 (double what you paid, with a $1 floor), your icon comes off, and the live feed announces it. You can evict them back for $2 or claim any empty cell for free.