Eko Thunder against Sahel Raiders. Tip-off at Mo Arena in Abuja. Lagos in blue, Kano in red, and the stands full in both colours.

None of it is real, but the courts are. Rim City is a free browser basketball game set on courts Nigerian ballers actually know.

I wanted a basketball game set on Rowe Park, not Madison Square Garden. I couldn't find one, so I built it.

Rim City is a free 3D basketball game that runs in the browser, set on Nigerian courts with Nigerian clubs.

What Rim City is

You go to rimcity.app and you're on court. There's nothing to download and nothing to pay. It works on a laptop with a keyboard and on a phone held sideways, with an on-screen joystick and buttons.

Your first match is free as a guest. After that you sign up (email or Google) to keep playing and to save your stats.

Six ways to play

• Free throws: most makes in 60 seconds
• 3-point contest: five racks of five, with a money ball on each rack
• 1v1 to 11
• 2v2 to 21
• 3v3 to 21 or 10 minutes, half court
• 5v5 full court, four quarters with overtime and a half-time break

Every team mode can also be watched CPU vs CPU, which is how I got most of the screenshots in this post.

You can turn the difficulty up to Hard and make the quarters longer, up to 10 minutes each.

The clubs

There are two leagues.

The men's league has eight clubs, one per city, and each plays its own way:

The Women's League has six clubs: Lagoon Queens (Lagos), Ibadan Gazelles, Capital Royals (Abuja), Garden City Pearls (Port Harcourt), Coal City Amazons (Enugu) and Sahel Sapphires (Kano).

The styles change how a match plays. Eko Thunder will hoist threes on you. Garden City Sharks press you full court. Sahel Raiders slow it down and hit the glass. You feel the difference within a few possessions.

The courts

Seven courts, all of them named after real places:

• Rowe Park, Yaba, Lagos (outdoor, with floodlights at night)
• 1004, Victoria Island, Lagos (outdoor)
• 59 Niger Street, Port Harcourt (indoor)
• Mo Arena, Wuse, Abuja (indoor)
• Indoor Gym, Rayfield, Jos
• Sani Abacha Indoor Gym, Kano
• 82 Div Basketball Court, Enugu (outdoor)

Mo Arena is the showpiece: tiered seating, LED boards and a jumbotron. Rowe Park is a hard court beside the netball court, with trees and buildings behind the fence.

The crowd

This is the part I keep coming back to.

The crowd follows the ball. When a shot goes up, the shooting side's fans hold their breath and then go up or groan when it drops. Many of them wear the two clubs' colours.

And they talk. Speech bubbles pop out of the stands in Pidgin, with some Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa:

"E don enter!" · "Na bucket!" · "Splash! Na water!" · "Him hand don hot!" · "From downtown!"

Indoors you get a gym crowd, and outdoors a street-court crowd. The rim, backboard and floor sounds get louder the harder the ball hits them.

How it plays

You hold to shoot and release on a timing meter. Get the release right and the ball drops through clean. Miss the timing and it can rattle out off the rim; the misses come off the ball hitting the rim for real, not from a dice roll.

There are passes that can be picked off, steals, blocks and rebounds. Drive to the rim with an athletic player or a big and you can dunk. Throw it to a teammate cutting to the rim and it becomes an alley-oop.

In 5v5, a steal or a defensive rebound goes straight into transition. In half court, the streetball "clear it" rule applies: take it back beyond the arc before you can score.

The 3-point contest has levels. Make every ball and the next level unlocks: more balls and more time, but a smaller green zone on the meter, extra spots from level 3, and the racks moving back behind the line from level 4. There is no top level.

Career mode

There are two careers.

Player career. Create your player (name, number, play style, skin tone) and sign for a club. Every day you choose: train, play, rest or go out. Street pickup 1v1 games earn you cash and reputation. Reputation brings offers from bigger clubs.

Coach career. Take over a street crew and climb five levels: Street (3v3, Community Cup) → Local (Amateur League) → Academy (Schools & Academies League) → Professional → Elite (Continental Champions League). You set the starters, the training focus and the game plan. During matches you make substitutions, call timeouts and change tactics.

Both careers go well beyond the court. You get a home and lifestyle upgrades, and you travel between Nigerian cities by road or by air. You can even apply for a US visa, attend the embassy interview, and fly out to watch a game in New York, LA, Chicago, Miami, Boston or Houston. Careers save to your account, so you can pick one up on another device.

Tournament mode

The Rim City Cup is an eight-club knockout in any team format. It saves after every game, so you can come back to it later. Win it and you get the trophy, the confetti and the crowd.

Worth a look?

If you grew up playing at Rowe Park, or anywhere like it, the first thing you notice is that the game knows where it is. The club names, the court names and the fans shouting in Pidgin all come from home, not from an American game with a Nigerian skin.

It's free and it runs in your browser: rimcity.app. Start with a 3v3 at Rowe Park, then try the 3-point contest and see what level you reach.