iOS Review - Star Wars: Tiny Death Star - 11/11/13
My reviews are split into 4 sections that are rated out of 10, CONCEPT (The aim/idea of the game), VISUALS (What the game looks like), GAMEPLAY (How the game plays and how fun it is), SOUND (The sound, funnily enough) and then given a final score out of 10.0 .
(When I say iOS, I may also be referring to Android. However I dont have an android phone, and therefore refer to it as iOS)
My first review on my blog, and I am going to start it off with an iOS game review. I am not normally a huge iOS game fan myself, however this game is new, and I have been enjoying it quite a lot.
First up is Star Wars: Tiny Death Star, the newest addition to the Tiny Tower series.
Concept
If you have played any of the Tiny Tower games before which are developed by NimbleBit then you will understand that these games are simulation games that require you to build levels, all of which do something different for your tower, and end up creating a tower of different levels, attracting Bitizens to come and live, work or maybe even just have a nose around.
As you create more levels, there become more opportunities for people to live and work in your tower, giving you more money and a nice steady income of Bitizens.
Bitizens are little characters that come and enter your tower via a small elevator in which they tell you what level they wish to go to, and you take them there, via the elevator.
The different type of levels that you have in the star wars version are Food, Service, recreation, retail, Residential and Imperial.
Each level typically does the same thing - gets Bitizens employed and also attracts more Bitizens to your tower/death star; and can give you tasks to do keeping you occupied.
So that is the overall concept of the Tiny Tower games, however the concept in Star wars is that you are trying to build the biggest and bestest Death Star in all of the galaxy, by attracting Bitizens to your tower/Death Star.
My verdict on the concept is that it is very simple, and therefore easy to pick up, they haven't tried to change the overall game concept for Star Wars, which means fans of the series can easily pick up this version and play it. It is also very addictive and qwerky, which gives it a slight edge over the thousands and thousands of people pleasing - simulation - iPhone games.
I cant really find a fault in the concept of the game, and therefore it would be unfair to give it anything but a 10/10 on this section.
Visuals
Visually Star Wars: Tiny Death Star looks great. It is styled in an 8 bit/16 bit type retro look. It really is a major part of the game, especially when seeing all your favorite places and characters from Star Wars in this style. Also this game has ALOT of menu's when you are employing bitizens, ranking up a level, adding a level, reading messages from the emperor and fortunately they all look very simple and are a dream to navigate.
First off lets start with the basic interface. When you first play you are presented with a screen that is not very exciting at first, but when you begin adding levels you begin to see basic rectangular rooms that resemble an actual place from the movies it begins to burst with life and Star Wars-ness.
Everytime you add a level, it is put on top of your previously added one, creating a tower effect. When you employ one of your bitizens to work in one of these rooms, they straight away appear in that room that you assigned them too. Unfortunately the only interaction they do is walk side to side, like a stir crazy animal, give or take the few embedded characters that are part of the backgrounds themselves.
The elevator I mentioned earlier is located at the bottom left of the screen.
After you create the first level, which is a residential floor (Where Bitizens Live), your first bitizen will arrive in all their glory and tell you to take them to level 1 (The only level you have added) this visually fits in well, because they tell you with a small speech bubble, which stays with the retro comical theme.
After this Bitizens will arrive more and more frequently to this ONE elevator pestering you to take them to the 55th bloody level which takes ages to get too, HOWEVER as this is the visuals section I will say that visually this is one of the game's strongest points. This is because each bitizen is different and are 8 bit star wars characters. So when you get a bitizen that resembles a famous Star Wars character you know, it really does give you a good feeling seeing them in this hilarious retro form. Especially when they want to live in your tower, and not just have some Wompa Rat Stew and then just be on their way.
I will come onto the characters more in depth in the Gameplay section.
One downside with the visuals, that is a very big problem for me, is that when you leave your phone off of the game for a while, and then you come back. The screen is littered with alerts about your stocks need replenishing or that someone isn't happy in there job or whatever it is, but it really does affect the game hugely from my point of view.
This is obviously because everything is still running in real time even when you are not playing the game. Fair enough this is so that your buildings can be finished and things, but to build up every single alert that has come up whilst you were gone and just absolutely cover your in game interface with them is quite frankly tiring and can actually put you off returning to the game.
Luckily once you read all the alerts and finish all the tasks that have accumulated whilst you got on with your real life, the game becomes a great joy to play and look at once again.
Overall the game looks great, the style is magnificent and is one of the main reasons why the game is so addicting due to the characters that you want to collect, and reliving the great locations from the film in 8 bit style. However the clutter that you get when you leave, looks ugly and means that you have to chore your way through these built up tasks just to get rid of them, when really it would be better to have some sort of automatic setting when you are gone.
Also the fact that the characters dont visually really interact with anything, and instead just walk around looking good, can make the game a little less interesting especially after you have done everything you can at that time, and are just waiting on stocks to come in or a level to be built.
Because of these mixed feelings I have for the visuals I am going to give this particular section a 7/10 down to the fact that I do think the good outweighs the bad here, but it isn't a visual masterpiece.
Gameplay
As I have previously touched on in the concept part, and briefly in the visuals section, the gameplay starts always with a Bitizen arriving in the lobby, entering the elevator and telling you what level they wish to go to.
It's a simple gameplay mechanic, but very unique and effective. It gives you no choice, but to interact with each Bitizen as they enter your Death Star, meaning one way or another you will always recognize the Bitizens that are occupying your tower, which gives the player a huge amount of interaction with the characters, as it creates a bond with them, especially due to the fact that each character has a qwerky star wars themed name, so you can remember them better.
Staying with the idea that the player begins to become attached to characters is also helped with the many options in the menu.
There is one option called Album. This in my opinion is a great way to motivate the player to getting lots of different characters in your tower and it lets you keep track of what characters you have "Collected" and what characters you can still get.
Basically it is a large categorized list that shows what characters you have seen and unlocked as a sort of album for trading cards. This section, along with the Star Wars theme, makes the game very motivating and addicting for the player, as it allows you to keep track on all the Star Wars characters you still need to unlock.
Not only does Album display characters, but you can also see what levels you have unlocked, and also allows you to view Scenes that you have achieved.
Scenes occur when you have completed a certain task, and they are literally just short cutscenes that are normally very funny, and a pleasure to watch and rewatch again and again. For example the first scene I unlocked was in Mos Espa Cafe, Jar Jar Binks walks in and eats one of those weird little lizard things hanging from the ceiling (Similarly to what happens in The Phantom Menace), and then the ceiling collapses and falls on him, revealing a few rubber ducks, and a smug Jabba the Hut. Its small things that occur like this that make the game so charming and a joy to play sometimes.
Another option is Holonet. This is my personal favorite, Holonet is the facebook for the Bitizens that live in your tower. They update statuses about work, or their fellow bitizens that live with them, and other bitizens like their statuses etc.
It is such an interesting thing to look at, and it really gives the bitizens much more character, as it sort of gives them a personality, and to use something that mocks another thing we are all so familiar with creates a brilliant satirical comedy that this game absolutely thrives off of.
One more section of the menu I believe is worth mentioning is the Bitizens option. This simply lists all your bitizens and what job they do. Helps you keep organised and is a well needed tool.
With each floor you add on, a bitizen has an opportunity to work there to stock and sell products, however you don't just drop any old bitizen in any old level, as each bitizen has their dream job. For example Darial Nadon's dream job is to work at Melahnese Food, however as I dont have this place yet, I have him employed at The Cantina as it is fairly similar.
This again gives each character a characteristic, unique to them. It can also lead to some interesting Holonet status updates!
Also along with a dream job, each bitizen is given a score out of 9, at how well they work in certain places. This is key to making maximum profit from your stores, as if they are highly rated where they work, they will be able to stock more products for you and sell them faster.
As I mentioned earlier the game consists of you building levels on top of eachother, and they are either Residential, Commercial or Imperial.
Residential levels allow your bitizens to live there and they have a limit of around 5 bitizens.
Commercial levels are where you bitizens work and earn you money. Each commercial level can employ 3 bitizens at a time and each bitizen can order you a different product, and after those ordered products are stocked, they begin automatically selling, even when your away.
Imperial levels are in my opinion pointless and annoying. They give you tasks to do, like find certain characters that may be hiding in your tower to interrogate them, but then alot of the missions require you to pay Imperial Bux the game's real money currency, which can be a nuisance and in my opinion the game would be much better of without it.
Talking about Imperial Bux, the currency in the game is split into two. Credits and ImperialBux.
Credits is the in game currency, in which you earn from selling things and you spend on ordering stock and buying new levels. You can also earn credits from doing tasks for the Emperor, these are basically tasks to make sure you don't forget what you are doing, however there have been a few times where you have to spend imperial bux to get past it.
Imperial Bux is the games currency that you add with real money. Fortunately you start with a nice chunk of it, however the tutorial makes you use a fair bit of it, and you end up spending it all pretty soon when you want to quickly finish building a level or ordering stock in.
Luckily you can earn the odd Buck here and there, when building levels and doing certain things, however 1 buck doesn't do much or last long, and then don't accumulate very quickly.
Overall the Gameplay is fantastic. Simple, addictive and full of amazing menu options that keep you motivated to carry on playing and help you keep organised with all the bitizen chaos.
Unfortunately it is let down by the Imperial level in my opinion, and how sometimes you are forced to pay real money. I understand that the game itself is free, and the money you spend on the bux isn't alot and the game does need to get profit, HOWEVER it is a shame that some younger people who cant pay for the money are slightly let down.
Due to the fact that my negative of the gameplay is very slight, I will give the gameplay a 9/10.
Sound
The sound in the game is simply an 8 bit style of the many Star Wars theme songs. There is alot of beeping when you press things and the elevator makes noises when you use it.
Simple as that.
It sounds good and its nice to hear the theme song in this style, but its nothing mind blowing, and the novelty can wear off sometimes.
I give the sound a 8/10 as the beloved theme songs do sound good in the retro style, but it can become tedious after a while.
Star Wars: Tiny Death Star is a cute and addicting simulation game. With minor problems that are ironed out by the brilliant characters and the amazing Star Wars features.
This makes it one of the best games on the App Store at the moment, especially being free, you would be psychotic not to download it.
