[Casual Friday] Tiny Tower

One of the biggest problems with the iPhone to date has been the battery life. Battery management has become a daily task that is as important as eating lunch - especially for those of us that our juggling several different games. But what if there was one game that you could become full engulfed with that can almost promise minimal battery drain? Boy, is Tiny Tower for you. However, readers beware: after twenty minutes into it, you will become a mindless slave and you won't even know why.

Graphically speaking, this is no gem, resembling the purer days of 8-bit gaming. Although it doesn't make for the most visually appealing game by any means, its simplicity compliments the gameplay very well. The premise is simple: you are in charge of a tiny (wait for it...) tower, where you build residential floors and various shops. Your residents also serve as the employees in the shops. Each of your residents or "Bitzens" are given different rankings in different job categories (food, service, creative, retail, etc.) as well as a dream job.

You earn money by stocking your shops with various items and selling them. This is where the game turns 'farmville-esq' because you must time the completion of your items to make sure your floors are fully stocked at all times to ensure that you are always earning money. Where this game really gets addicting is the push notifications every time a floor is ready to get restocked. That's like a drug dealer giving you a call every time you run out, and you're thinking "HOW DID HE KNOW?" immediately followed by a "YES GIVE ME MORE." These notifications come rather frequently too because some floors take only five minutes to stock and when you start having 30 plus floors, there is always something to do. There were times when I would finish making my rounds and turn off my phone to give it a break. Instantly, I got a notification that my pizza place was ready to be restocked. It wasn't long before that when I finally turned off push notifications.

The social intergration is pretty cool too. Tiny Tower has Game Center integration where you can see your friends' towers and scan through their floors as well aka stalker view. In the menu you'll also see a button that says Bitbook, which strangely resembles Facebook. When you enter Bitbook you can actually see status updates from your Bitzens and other Bitzens can 'like' their statuses, which are entertaining in their own right.

Overall, Tiny Tower offers an extremely addicting gameplay experience with catchy music too! If there is anything it can improve, it would be more social interaction with others. Maybe trading Bitzens or getting bonuses for visiting your friends. On the bright side, it does get updated fairly regularly, which could be potentially dangerous. If this gets any more addicting, then I'll never see the light of day again.