Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall built on one belief: a wall that people fight to be on should be a game, not a picture. The Million Dollar Homepage proved people will pay for a spot on a shared page; twenty years of clones proved that a spot with nothing happening to it is a spot nobody comes back to look at. Square Town's rules exist so that something is always happening. Here they are, and why.
The nine principles
- Favicons, not pixels. 2. Free and no sizes. 3. Location is the game. 4. Anyone can be evicted. 5. Anyone can kiss any icon. 6. The wall grows only when it's full. 7. No accounts. 8. Forever means the bill can't lapse. 9. Petty by design.
1. Favicons, not pixels
A pixel is a unit of paint. A favicon is a unit of identity: every site already has one, it was designed to be recognisable at sixteen pixels, and it needs no upload, no cropping, no "please submit a 100×100 PNG". You paste a URL and you're in town. That's the whole form. It also means every square is legible at 1×1 in a way a 10×10 block of pixels never was — a wall of favicons reads like a city skyline; a wall of pixel ads reads like a JPEG that fell down the stairs. Longer version: why favicons beat pixels.
2. Free and no sizes
One square, nothing, once. No 2×2, no "featured", no premium tier. The money is in evictions, and evictions are the game. Sizes turn a wall into a billboard auction where the biggest budget wins and everyone else is filler. When every site is exactly one square, the only thing that varies is where you are — and where you are is something a side project with no budget can compete on. The pricing page is short for a reason.
3. Location is the game
You click the cell you want. Next to the Throne, in a corner, right beside a competitor, in a straight line with your other seven projects — your call, and it's the whole point. The centre is seen without zooming; the edge isn't. A wall where a machine assigns you the next free slot is a list wearing a grid costume. On Square Town the map is the product.
4. Anyone can be evicted
Every square can be taken by anyone, any time, for double what its owner paid — $1 minimum, so a free square goes for $1. Then double that. Then double that. This is the rule people flinch at, and it's the rule that keeps the wall alive: without it, the wall is finished the day it sells out, exactly like the original. With it, the wall is never finished — a good spot is a claim, not a tombstone, and the price sequence (free, $1, $2, $4, $8 …) makes sure fights end before they get silly. Evicted owners aren't refunded. You knew. See the economics of eviction.
5. Anyone can kiss any icon
Anyone can kiss any icon, free, in public. Every kiss is counted, ranked on the Kiss of the World board, and adds a storey to the icon's tower. That's it — no ranking boost, no shield. It's a heartbeat: it separates walls that are looked at from walls that are merely paid for, and it gives strangers something generous to do.
6. The wall grows only when it's full
Only the central 16×16 is live at launch. When 75 % of it is claimed, the wall grows by 4 cells on every side, and the locked part is never drawn. A million empty pixels look like failure on day one; a full small square looks like a place. Scarcity is real inside the ring, the frontier is always cheap, and "ring unlocked" is an event everyone sees. Up to 1024×1024, eventually. No hurry.
7. No accounts
There is no signup, no login, no password to reset. You paste a URL and an email; you get a secret deed URL; that URL is the ownership. The email is not an account — it's where the deed can be mailed and, if you ask, where the warning lands when you're evicted. It's how you'd want a free claim to work, and it keeps Square Town from becoming a database of people. The cost is honest: lose the link and it's gone. The "My deeds" button remembers what you claimed in this browser, and that's the entire account system.
8. Forever means the bill can't lapse
Every wall promises forever. Most of them meant "until the hosting invoice bounces". Square Town runs on Cloudflare — one Worker, one SQLite database, one Durable Object, a few dollars a month — so there is no bill worth lapsing and no reason to shut it off. That's the version of forever we can actually promise. Not "you can never be evicted"; that would be a lie and a worse game. Read about Square Town for the honest definition.
9. Petty by design
The Throne is a gold 4×4 tile with a crown that starts at $100 and doubles every time someone is thrown off it. Sites with no favicon wear a clown until they fix it, in a public Hall of Clowns. Evictions get a skull in the feed and a low thud in your speakers. Kisses say "the ring is pleased". None of this is necessary and all of it is the point: a wall people fight to be on should be a little dramatic about it. Dry, direct, slightly unkind to the mechanics, never to the reader.
What this adds up to
A favicon wall where a free claim is a real position, positions can be lost for $1 and up, icons can be kissed by strangers, the map grows when it's earned, and every one of those things is announced live to everyone watching. Nobody else has put favicon-from-URL, public kissing, ring unlocking, click-height towers and live WebSockets on one free wall — which is either the moat or the joke, and we're comfortable with both. The rules are on how it works; the wall is at square.pov.town.
FAQ
What is the Square Town manifesto in one sentence?
A wall should be a game, not a picture: free favicon squares you can lose (for $1 and up), kiss, and grow, announced live to everyone.
Why does Square Town allow evictions if it upsets owners?
Because a wall nobody can change is finished the day it sells out. Evictions for double ($1 minimum) keep every spot contestable while the doubling price stops fights from going on forever.
Why can't I claim a bigger square?
Because sizes make it a budget contest. With everything 1×1, the only thing you compete on is location, which anyone can play for nothing.
Why no accounts?
A free square shouldn't require a signup — an email for warnings is as far as it goes. Your secret deed URL is the ownership; the trade-off is that losing it means losing the proof.
Is "forever" honest?
As honest as we can make it: no expiry, no renewal, and no hosting bill that can lapse. It's not immunity from eviction, and it was never claimed to be.