SimTower

SimTower
SimTower is a 1994 simulation computer game published by Maxis.

SimTower was made shortly after the release of SimCity 2000. Although published by Maxis, the game was originally developed in Japan and its license was acquired by Maxis. In Japan, it was published under the name of The Tower, and developed by Yoot Saito's company OPeNBooK Co., Ltd.

A sequel to SimTower, Yoot Tower was also developed by OPeNBooK and was published by SEGA in the U.S. in 1999.

A clone of SimTower for the PocketPC developed by eSoft Interactive was released in 2004 under the name of Tower Mogul.

A port of SimTower was made for iPad called Yoot Tower. One major difference between the original and the iPad version is that the new version has expandable security offices, housekeeping, and recycling/garbage centers. It also had crime where rooms too far away from an inadequately sized security office would go abandoned.

Tiny Tower, Corporation Inc., and Dream Heights were all inspired by SimTower.

Gameplay

As the name suggests, the objective is to construct and manage a towering skyscraper and keep its occupants happy. Offices, hotels, and condominiums give tenants places to live and work, while shops and restaurants provide commercial balance. Utilities such as hospitals and recycling centers become necessary as the tower grows in size. The player's progress is based on a star system, similar to how hotels are ranked, with new stars awarded for meeting population milestones and other conditions. Population is measured by the number of individuals currently in the tower; many hotel rooms will cause population to soar during the night. As the tower's rating improves, more facilities can be built by the player, such as a cinema. Like other Maxis games, gameplay is not designed linearly, and SimTower does not have a specific end point; however, the primary goal is a population of 15,000, which rewards the player with 'Tower' status. Another goal is to build a cathedral at the top of the tower and have a marriage ceremony take place there.

One of the key activities of the game is effectively managing and building elevators in order to allow occupants to move between floors efficiently. In fact, the original game was a program to test effective elevator layouts. Many users felt a more appropriate title for the game would have been SimElevator. Waiting for an elevator for too long would cause the residents stress (indicated by a black, pink or red colour as they become more stressed). Too much stress would cause them to permanently leave the tower.

Fires, cockroach infestations in uncleaned hotel rooms, thefts and bomb scares were the main challenges besides the financial aspect.