Tiny Tower

My Tiny Tower After a Few Days of Play

Title: Tiny Tower
Platform Played On:  iPhone
Release Date:  June 23, 2011
Date Played:  December 2011+
Time Played:  N/A (Real Time Game, Time is in 100s of hrs +)
Completed (Y/N):  N/A
Score:  5/5

Opinion:
Oh Tiny Tower how wrong was I when I first laid my eyes on you in June 2011. You are not a scheme to make our kids max out our credit cards, neither are you a hooker which we have to throw our cash at in order to get any kind of enjoyment out of you. You are a legitimate game, with micro transactions.

Let me tell you... I first came across Tiny Tower upon its release, and the fact that it was free totally thew me off. Generally speaking, any free game on iOS store has either adds or it nickle and dimes your wallet as you play. So when I got Tiny Tower and upon launching it saw that you would need to pay real money to get some Tower Bux, I thought to myself.. aww its another one of those crap games that try to suck the money out of your wallet.. and promptly deleted it.

About 6 months later, my girlfriend grabbed it on her iPad and after watching her play for a few hours and realizing that she could do everything she wanted to do without spending a dime I decided to give it a go as well.

Normally free games will have an easy to get currency (in Tiny Tower "Gold Coins") and then a hard to get currency (in Tiny Tower "Tower Bux").  Most games... well... actually... all of the ones that I've tried, will give you plenty of Gold Coins, but only a few Bux at the very beginning (usually during Tutorial) to give you a taste of what you can do with them, and then slowly stop giving them to you altogether, basically forcing you to buy them with real cash.

Tiny Tower takes a different approach for which I salute thee.  Basically they took a game concept (not original one at that, but whatever... just think of it as Sim Tower on iOS)... anyhow they took that concept and absolutely nailed it. Made it into an enjoyable, fun game.  But the devs gotta eat right? So they simply added micro transactions that you could use to get extra Tower Bux.  Whats great is that the micro transactions are completely optional (while other games claim the same thing, they basically force you to buy them because progression without them is nearly impossible).  And unlike those games, Tiny Tower gives you a dozen different ways to get Tower Bux without buying them.  Every time you build something you get some, the little dudes will randomly tip you with Bux, and there are little missions you can do such as giving them their dream jobs, and fully stocking floors etc etc... the point being that there is a nice and steady income of the so called rare currency, which allows you to play and enjoy the game normally without the frustration of needing to spend a penny.

The whole approach of Tiny Tower makes it a fun and addictive experience. The pacing is what normally kills games like these, but I must say they nailed it in this one. There is always something to do and keep you in the game and the rewards are spaced out well to keep feeding the addiction.

I love real time games, this concept is what makes EVE Online so attractive for me, unfortunately other aspects of EVE make it hard to approach.  As far as Tiny Tower is concerned it strikes a good balance between always giving you things to do, but at the same time is forgiving if you only drop by for a few minutes every few hours or even every couple of days.

There is no reason to not check out Tiny Tower. It is free on iPad and iOS. It is by far one of the most addictive and well made games on that platform.


PS - Current state of my tower can be viewed here http://towers.nimblebit.com/290470476