Every now and then you stumble across some games that are so simple that at first glance you dismiss them as rubbish. Then in a moment of boredom, you download them, start playing…and get hooked! Two such games are Tiny Tower and Bubble Ball.
The former challenges you to build and populate a tower with residential floors and different kind of commercial floors. That’s not fun, is it. Actually, yes it is.
Tiny Tower ties into the Game Centre and offers various achievements for number of residents, number of floors and full stocking two kinds of commercial floors. Because, ladies and gents, your residents will work in your shops and studios and some of them have strong ideas on the type of job they want and are skilled in some and not in others. Yes, you’ve also got to keep your residents happy.
All in all it is a very simple game, but the mechanics of it, not to mention the achievements, keep it interesting (as do the cute 8 bit graphics if I’m honest). And even though you have to wait for new floors to be constructed and commercial properties to be stocked, it is fast paced enough that you don’t get bored. I currently have 79 floors with an 80th under construction (you get an achievement, by the way, for having 100 floors!) and find that I am not even half way to completing the achievements listed.
When I DO complete that list, I will probably tire of the game, but that won’t be any time soon and even then I imagine an update will be pushed out by developers NimbleBit to keep people interested. Give this one a go, you won’t regret it.
Here’s the iTunes link for Tiny Tower.
On to Bubble Ball. Another very simple concept but what piqued my interest in this is that it was developed by a 14 year old boy (Robert Nay – though his mum does all the ‘grown up stuff’) and topped the free game apps list, toppling Angry Birds Lite, back in January for a while. That’s no mean feat, especially by a kid, so I had to download it and take a peek. I’m glad I did.
The concept is simple. Guide a ball from its starting position to a chequered finish flag using the materials given you, like planks and wedges. There are 48 levels all offering increasing difficulty in the free version and you can get 48 more for just 59p. That’s a bargain. As the levels progress is becomes very challenging and there are some very nice touches in the gameplay that I won’t give away here that make it rather unique in its niche.
If you’re up for a puzzle challenge then this will hold your attention for quite some time.
Here’s the iTunes link for Bubble Ball.
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