You get a 1 km square plot of land and a relative amount of water and everything else about the world including some animals, different plants ect and 16 people. The lose Aim of the game is to do well on your patch and not to mess it up while linking up with other peoples patch's and doing business which might include some tough decisions. Your people can desert your land and sneak onto other peoples land. They are an AI that you can tempt to do work so you basically can tempt them in many ways but ultimately they can move across you might also get more credit out of more people ect.
Each month is a year in the square land universe and there is 100 years with later tweaking of games future abilities to play before you buy the next installment which allows a further 100 years of advancement.