Tiny Tower: Completed

In no way could I tell you when I actually started playing this game: my first post is dated September 14, 2011, so I'll just say it's been a year. It's been an addicting run, and where my friends "failed" I built on, surpassing 100 floors in a relative short period of time. The floors just kept piling up, and the time it took to build them increased exponentially. Earlier this year my playtime would decrease, stall to a near halt. I don't know how the citizens of my tower put up with me, but they were glad they did, as I attacked the game aggressively and built into the heavens as no man should.

When you are building so high, so many floors it takes millions of dollars per floor and days to create it. What really frustrated me was building a retail store - for instance - then not being able to staff it because the apartment floor would take me days to build (days to collect the money then days to wait for it to build). So I took out a new approach: save up enough money to build all eight floors at once. The idea was so sound and innovative that architects around the world gasped with joy. So I begin saving money, and it took weeks to get enough for eight floors. But boy, when I did build them all, it was heaven.

I also became loose with bux (in game super-money) to fill slots in the apartments, so that I could place people in the new stores immediately. I would evaluate citizens and freely eject them from the tower if they did not perform well. It took quite a bit of time but it was very fulfilling: spending the effort to do things properly. I chose eight because it works perfectly: three apartments give you fifteen people. Each store staffs three people, so five stores requires fifteen employees. So eight floors is perfect. I did this for a short time (ie months) until I hit the limit.

Not my mental limit, but the height limit on the tower. I didn't think it was possible. But let me explain: you can continue to build floors, but they will remain empty. There are only so many apartments you can build, or so many retail stores available. Once they are all gone, your tower is as good as done - but you can keep going skyward all you like (as far as I know).

And the game was over. With no reason to play anymore, I went looking for others to fill the void, but I know now that will never come to pass. It's been a solid year with this Tiny Tower that has become oh-so-big. There was a blip of hope as well in the form of a software update advertising more floors. But they only added eight: one for each type. I built those quickly and easily, then let the game die again.

Sure, there are other goals that I could come back for, like making sure every person is in their dream job, or completing the missions, but those tasks feel somewhat empty. This game, this way of life as it were - will be fondly remembered.

Here are a few stats on my tower at time of completion.

• 169 floors: 106 retail and 63 residential
• 315 bitizens
• 271 dream jobs (that's 86% dream job rate)
• 46 missions completed
• Retail floors are in descending alphabetical order (as are apartments, which are all on the upper floors)
• 419 tower bux
• 4,267 unread Bitbook messages