Game Reviews

Tiny Tower Vegas

Star onStar onStar onStar onStar off
Get
Tiny Tower Vegas

NimbleBit's Tower games have always done alright by us. We thought the ever-so generous Tiny Tower was worthy of a Bronze Award, and the Force-flavoured Star Wars: Tiny Death Star deserved every little bit of its Silver Award.

Now the company is back with another spin on the blueprint it laid out with the original game back in 2011, this time with a gambling theme.

How does it stack up against previous efforts? I'll be finding out over the course of a week, and documenting my findings every few days.

First impressions

If you've previously played a Tiny Tower game then the opening moments of Tiny Tower Vegas will be very familiar.

You open up new floors on an ever-growing tower, filling them with either Suites for high rollers, or new games and shops for guests to frequent (and earn you currency).

You'll need to employ staff, with each employee having their own particular set of skills that maximises the efficiency of the running of your tower, and you'll also need stock to sell.

Adding stock takes time, but if you upgrade a floor it can hold more items, making you more money from guests over a longer period of time.

An assistant helps you along the way and sets you little missions to complete, which gradually teaches you how to play Tiny Tower Vegas. There's not a lot to learn, but the guidance is definitely appreciated.

After my brief time with the game so far I've been reminded of one of the main reasons I enjoyed previous Tiny Tower titles - their abundant personality.

Already I've met customers based on real-world celebrities, such as Ronald Chump, the grumpy and candid business man.

I've also checked out Bitbook, the social network that your residents blather away on. It's a quirky peek into their weird little lives, but it also indicates what they're thinking about the operation I'm running.

Tiny Tower Vegas is, like the rest of the series, effortlessly charming.

Day 3: Gambling man

After a few days with the game, I'm very much back into the swing of the Tiny Tower way of doing things. Unlike a lot of free-to-play builders, NimbleBit's games reward you for coming back often, and for interacting with the game for longer.

To keep you busy, an elevator, which you control, will every so often have a guest in it that wants you to take them to a certain floor. You get a small coin bonus and, if they go to the right floor, a potential new guest to stay in your high-priced accommodation.

Each game you put into your casino can be played by placing a bet of a chip. So far I've unlocked a slot machine, which I'm quite unlucky at, and Poker, that I've somehow convinced myself I'm "good at". In these games you can win Bux, which is the game's hard currency and can be spent on floor upgrades.

Checking in often allows you to have fully stocked stores too,. This makes sure you've always got plenty of cash to spend on new floors, and on hiring more useful members of staff.

It feels like there's a fair bit to do when you visit your casino, and consequently I feel more of an affinity for the tower I'm building.

Day 7: Tiny improvements

As I wrap up my time with Tiny Tower Vegas, it's clear that this sequel isn't a vast change from the original, but that that's probably okay.

There are some small improvements and tweaks to the formula that Tiny Tower veterans will appreciate. The elevator seems to come to a stop a lot quicker than in previous versions, and the casino games on offer break up the building, scheming, and plotting.

Visual presentation is expectedly top notch, and is coupled with some superb lounge numbers to nod your head along to.

Everything about Tiny Tower Vegas is honed and tuned:. The UI is simple, there's always another thing to take care of to keep your fingers busy, and the art is so adorable that you'll enjoy seeing all the content the game has to offer.

It's not wildly different from Tiny Tower, and that's going to put some people off from upgrading to this new edition. But the teensy extras here, and the mass of new content, means that Tiny Tower Vegas will be a sure bet for most.

How are you getting on with the game? You can tell us and the rest of the PG community about your experiences by leaving a comment in the box below. Click here to learn about our free-to-play review policy.

Tiny Tower Vegas

Tiny Tower +. This trip to Vegas may not bring with it a load of changes to the formula, but the improvements are are welcome, and further consolidate upon the quality of the original
Score
Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.