Over the past week, I’ve become obsessed with Tiny Tower. The premise is simple: create an ever-growing skyscraper with varying floors, equal parts business and residential, that generate money when the building’s occupants are optimally maintaining said floors. Essentially, the main goal is total Authoritarian control. And that’s it! Sounds monotonous, right? Try ridiculously addictive. I have never come across a gaming stronghold quite like this before. I play this game while I’m walking on the street, when I’m on the subway train, and at the dinner table. I check to see that my stores are fully stocked just before I fall asleep at night and first thing when I wake up in the morning. I have ignored loved ones while watching Bitizens pace aimlessly and I have forgotten obligations amidst maximizing the use of my VIPs. I’ve even googled it — searching for tips, scouring this wiki site and that wiki site, and checking the latest statistics. Hell, I’m playing it RIGHT NOW.
If you play, you understand (and likely share) this addiction. But if you don’t, I’ll try my best to explain myself. Here are my Top Three Reasons Why I Love Tiny Tower
All of the floors, all of the floors
There are six types of floors: Food, Service, Recreation, Retail, Creative and Residential. Each of these contain several different options as well and their respective stocked items range from commonplace to high-end and everything in between. The level of detail found here is astounding, especially given the limiting pixelated visual style. Also, all floors can be re-painted to the colour scheme of your choosing. So even if you share similar floors with others, no two tiny towers will ever look identical.
It’s all about the Bitizens, baby
These are the people that populate the rooms and halls of Tiny Tower, but they aren’t just randomly generated characters. Every single bitizen has a name, a birthday, a place they call home, and a dream… job that is. You can dress them up or dress them down and their individual personalities really come out when you read their Bitbook statuses, the game’s version of a Facebook feed. Here is where you’ll find a lot of unexpected humour and a nice change of pace from the re-stocking grind.
IT’S FREE!
Considering the amount of hours of pure joy I’ve already racked up thus far, I would have gladly paid the average app store price to download this game to my iPhone. The fact that this virtual world seemingly existing beyond my direct interaction with it cost me absolutely nothing is simply the best. The option to buy “Bux”, the game’s currency with real life dollars exists. Let’s just hope it never gets to that point though. Then I’d really be in trouble.
Agree? Disagree? Sound off below!
This game terrifies me!
But it’s also quite enticing.
Those are the best things in life, right? : )
I totally agree. I got this game a couple of weeks ago on my iPod Touch. I like that it continues to play when I close the game down (at least that’s what I think it’s doing)… Anyways, how many floors have you built so far?
So addictive, yes I’m playing right now too. If you are on Game Centre feel free to add me, do I can see your Tiny Tower too “rannieturingan”
@Lori Don’t be afraid! Get involved
@Lucia Yes, your bitizens continue to sell stock even after you’ve closed the game. So the next time you turn it on, you’ll have earned coins but you’ll likely need to re-stock most floors. I have 24 floors at the moment with 40 bitizens… and counting!
@Rannie I’ve never wanted Game Centre more than I do right now. Must wait until iPhone upgrade.
<3 "Jessicaj81" <3
The Real Estate Agent VIP is so useless! Just Saying!!
Strangely enough, the second business that opened in my tower was a Photo Studio. How fitting!
@Jessica Wasn’t sure if you’d catch on to this. Glad to see that you have. YES!
@Rannie The Real Estate Agent VIP becomes more useful when you have more apartments. Often, it will take a while before bitizens move in to a new place. If you want to employ stores, you need people to work there. I think the new VIP is brilliant! I don’t like, however, that you only receive one BUX instead of three for giving someone their dream job. To counter this, the bitizens info is now more robust, sorting by floor type and happiness. I’m waiting for a deeper social aspect to the game. Not just being able to see other towers, but truly interact with them. Maybe swap renters or floors. Just an idea.
@KidKulit I agree about making it more than being able to see your friend’s tower. I want to be able to leave short comments like they bitizens already do. It’d be a fun addition to the game.
I. am. mega. addicted.
There’s no end in site. There’s no end game… I just NEED more floors.
Donna, there is indeed no end to this madness…
31 floors and counting
I LOVE THIS GAME!
50 floors and counting and 89 bitizens!
Just so you people know. You can also change the name of your floors. Just tap on the name and a keyboard will show up.
The game just got better didnt it?
Too bad you cant do the same thing with the bitizens.
I have 53 floors right now. Unfortunatly the game is starting to be laggy. I really hope a future update will fix this
@Grendelior There was a recent update to 1.3. It includes MANY new features that help extend gameplay further. Here are some more details http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2011/08/11/tiny-tower-update-13-launches-with-new-floors-new-costumes/ I’m at 69 floors!
OMG…soo addicting! 79 floors and 130 bitizens and I can’t stop!
I am so addicted! Only got 10 floors but I found out how to get more. All you have 2 do is turn the time forward on your ipod 1 hour or 1 day later and you have heaps of coins!
I never thought to game the system that way, I play tiny tower on my iphone and my clock is set vis my mobile carrier. It’s not really ideal to be messing with the internal clock.
I’m currently at 158 floors, But the developers have only released 153 floors, so basically I have 5 vacant floors at the top of my tower waiting for new floors to arrive.