Sunday 26 June 2011

Tiny Tower - SimTower for Beginners

My latest iPhone obsession is Tiny Tower. It's one of those games that's ten times better than it sounds. You build a tower, attract people to live in it and earn money to put more levels on your tower. Sound familiar? It should, the concept is almost identical to SimTower.

However, Tiny Tower shakes it up a little. It takes cues from social network gaming in that you can compare with your friends, and spend some money to get a little ahead. Unlike Farmville and the like, however, there are no extra items for those with the extra kaching to spend. It also takes the idea that it should take time to do anything. Build a new level? You need to wait for it. Restocking items in a store? Also takes time, depending on the store and the level of produce. However, if you don't wish to wait, you can use TowerBux to speed it up. You can buy these, or perform little tasks like taking customers to a specific floor, or playing a little game of 'Where's Wally' with your citizens.

The people that move into your tower each have their own skills, and their dream job. There are five categories, Food, Service, Recreation, Retail, and Creative, and each category has many different kinds of stores, which is where the dream jobs come in. If you put a person into their dream job, the amount of time it takes to restock an item goes down, so it's preferable to put people in their dream job, or at least put them someplace they have a high skill in.

Needless to say, there is an addictive quality about this game. I've found myself coming back to it regularly all day. It's a fantastic introduction to the sim genre, and is something I've personally been waiting for for years.

Now, if only I could figure out how to consider it beaten.

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