Tiny Tower – Review

Our rating:

By: NimbleBit

Version #: 1.0.1

Date Released: 2011-06-28

Developer:

Price: 0.00

User Rating:

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Among the many forgotten Sim-games of old, such as SimAnt and SimTown, there was also a SimTower. The game had you building a tower in which people lived, shopped and worked; effectively a city-within-a-tower. Tiny Tower offers a similar experience for the iPhone, albeit with a unique and addictive twist.

In Tiny Tower, you build a residential/commercial tower in which you place businesses, assign residents to the jobs best-suited to them, and make sure that all your businesses have the stock they need to run efficiently. Something you’ll notice quite quickly however, is that if you sit at your iPhone screen waiting for your tower to rapidly expand, you’ll be disappointed, as everything takes a hell of a long time to happen. For instance, building a new floor takes 2 hours as well as costing a fair bit of money.

This is where the twist comes in. Your tower continues to function even when you’re not actually playing the game. Income gets generated, stocks get depleted, and demand for businesses changes while your iPhone remains in standby. Suddenly, Tiny Tower feels like more than just a game as you get push notifications pointing out to you that the latest shipment of sushi rolls is ready to hit the shelves in your restaurant, or that a new floor has been constructed and is ready to be occupied by a residence or business.

This gameplay formula is incredibly addictive, even though you don’t spend that much time in the game itself. If this system doesn’t appeal to you then you can always buy ‘Bux’ from the App Store which can be used to hurry re-stocking businesses and constructing your tower. For me, it feels a bit wrong to exchange real-life money for pixellated money, but those who find themselves addicted may be unable to resist. Sure, it may be populated by cute little people known as ‘Bitizens’, but Tiny Tower’s not as innocent a game as it looks.

Getting more hands-on with the game can also be rewarding. You can, for instance, take the slightly degrading job of acting as a lift porter, taking visitors to their desired floors in your tower; occasionally you’ll get VIPs who give bonuses, or kindly people who tip you Bux with which you can speed things up. Another thing that needs close monitoring is making sure that your residents are working in jobs that they enjoy. Every Bitizen has their own basic personality traits, and assigning them to the right departments is crucial to a fast-flowing income.
 
Tiny Tower is a game that gets you hooked to the point that you’ll be waking up in the middle of the night to push notifications ordering you to re-stock your coffee shop or art gallery. It’s connectivity with Game Center means that you can compare your phallic construction with your friends and see whose is bigger and better… so to speak. Beneath the cutesy exterior, this is an addictive business-builder that’s almost certain to bring out the Trump in you.

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