About Copper Empire
The pitch
Copper Empire is a browser game about the worst business plan in the world executed with total commitment. You play a drifter in an invented rust-belt city who strips copper out of condemned buildings, sells it to fences of escalating sketchiness, and reinvests the proceeds in exactly the life you'd expect — while a Dependency meter ticks upward and the city slowly learns your face. It's one part stealth arcade (every heist is hand-played), one part tycoon spreadsheet (crew, upkeep, market timing, prestige resets), and one part dark comedy about meters that only go up.
Who makes it
Copper Empire is designed, drawn, and operated by a solo developer — the pixel art (the drifter, the guard, the K-9 unit, the copper coils, the brickwork) is original hand-made work, the sound is synthesized in your browser, and the city is procedurally generated fresh for every run. It launched in late September 2026 and is actively developed; the dev log tracks every change.
How it's built
The whole game runs client-side: the heists are a hand-rolled canvas engine with raycast vision cones, breadth-first-search guard pathfinding, and procedural building generation that mathematically guarantees no copper is ever reachable without crossing a guard's line of sight. The economy is a pure-function simulation ticking once a second. There are no accounts and no server-side saves — your progress lives in your browser.
FAQ
Is it free?
Yes. The game is free and ad-supported. One optional $5 purchase removes ads permanently — that's the only thing money buys; there's no pay-to-win anything.
Where is my save? Can I play on another device?
Your save lives in your browser's local storage, on your device. We can't see it or restore it, and it doesn't follow you across devices or browsers — that's the trade-off for us collecting nothing about you. Clearing site data clears your empire (the ad-free purchase can be restored by email; your save can't).
I got busted / crashed and my targets re-locked. Bug?
Feature. Hitting 100% Heat or 100% Dependency resets your reputation — the bigger targets re-lock until you rebuild your job count from the bottom tier. Lifetime stats and achievements survive.
Why did a camera I ignored raise my Heat after a perfect run?
Cameras record. Every camera still running when you leave adds Heat even if nobody saw you. Smash them (loudly) or budget for it.
Is any of this real?
No. The city, substances, prices, techniques, and characters are invented for comedy. The game contains no instructions for anything, and we'd gently note that real copper theft mostly involves electrocution and felony charges rather than tycoon progression. Suggested for ages 13+.
I found a bug / I have an idea.
Contact: [email protected]. Bug reports that include what you were doing when it happened earn eternal gratitude.
Operated by Luke Wells. See also: Privacy · Terms & Refunds