Sunday, January 08, 2012
Tower Heist
I have become shamefully addicted to an iPhone app. Well, several, actually, but the current addiction is by far the worst I've had. I mean, I spent a solid week playing Family Feud five times a day, but that was just a blip compared to this. Words With Friends continues to draw my attention three or four times a day through the present, but that is by comparison rational. And Angry Birds is awesome, but it sort of gives me a headache, so it's never truly obsessed me. But Tiny Tower, of all things, has more or less taken over my life.
You see, Tiny Tower combines the addictive micromanaging of my favorite PC classics like SimCity and Civilization with the constant access of a handheld device. The result is that, whereas I used to have to eventually power down my computer and go to work after playing the Sims for, say, sixteen hours straight, with Tiny Tower I can just carry it with me. And although I do shut it down while I'm at work, I check it at lunch. And when I'm on my way to fill up my water bottle. And sometimes in the elevator. This is definitely a sickness.
To explain it to you in brief, the game has you manage a high-rise tower with all different kinds of restaurants, stores, and residences in it. You operate everything -- the elevators, the hiring, the stock of the businesses -- and can spend money to add on floors and buy cool new accessories and stuff. It keeps moving 24 hours a day, even when you're not paying attention, so when you come back after a while everything is completely messed up and you have to spend hours fixing it.
I'm cringing as I type this from how lame it sounds, but I can't help myself. I've finally found a game that is the functional equivalent of work and I think I'm in love.
I have become shamefully addicted to an iPhone app. Well, several, actually, but the current addiction is by far the worst I've had. I mean, I spent a solid week playing Family Feud five times a day, but that was just a blip compared to this. Words With Friends continues to draw my attention three or four times a day through the present, but that is by comparison rational. And Angry Birds is awesome, but it sort of gives me a headache, so it's never truly obsessed me. But Tiny Tower, of all things, has more or less taken over my life.
You see, Tiny Tower combines the addictive micromanaging of my favorite PC classics like SimCity and Civilization with the constant access of a handheld device. The result is that, whereas I used to have to eventually power down my computer and go to work after playing the Sims for, say, sixteen hours straight, with Tiny Tower I can just carry it with me. And although I do shut it down while I'm at work, I check it at lunch. And when I'm on my way to fill up my water bottle. And sometimes in the elevator. This is definitely a sickness.
To explain it to you in brief, the game has you manage a high-rise tower with all different kinds of restaurants, stores, and residences in it. You operate everything -- the elevators, the hiring, the stock of the businesses -- and can spend money to add on floors and buy cool new accessories and stuff. It keeps moving 24 hours a day, even when you're not paying attention, so when you come back after a while everything is completely messed up and you have to spend hours fixing it.
I'm cringing as I type this from how lame it sounds, but I can't help myself. I've finally found a game that is the functional equivalent of work and I think I'm in love.
