LEGO Tower is NimbleBit’s fresh new take on the legendary Tiny Tower, though with a fresh LEGO-themed coat of paint. The fundamentals remain the same though, with you attempting to build the highest possible tower. Generally, that involves making money …
LEGO Tower is NimbleBit’s fresh new take on the legendary Tiny Tower, though with a fresh LEGO-themed coat of paint. The fundamentals remain the same though, with you attempting to build the highest possible tower.
Generally, that involves making money to purchase new floors. You make money whenever a Minifigure visits your tower, and you’ll know they’ve arrived when the elevator pings. At this point, you simply tap on the elevator and guide the Minifigure up to their requested floor to get them to spend money. You’ll also generally earn money from the number of floors your tower currently holds.
When not making money you’ll perform a variety of side quests, which basically play out like Where’s Wally mini-games. A pizza delivery guy might ask you to help him find a missing ingredient, knights might attack your tower randomly, or famous customers might get lost. To complete them, simply find whatever it is you’re looking for and tap on it to earn Bux.
Bux is the premium currency in Tiny Tower, but you really don’t need it. These let you speed up any wait timers, which pop up when you place a new floor or order new stock, purchase new Mission Vehicles to vary up the side quests on offer, or purchase packs to unlock new Minifigures and pieces.
You’ll collect new LEGO Minifigures and pieces as you play anyway though, so you don’t really need to splash the cash on opening packs. This is just an optional extra for the impatient, and that pretty much sums up the monetisation of LEGO Tower. If you’re patient and don’t mind building up your tower over weeks and months, there’s absolutely no need to spend a penny.
It’s a pretty aesthetically pleasing and charming experience too. Each LEGO Minifigure is bursting with personality and charm, and you can customise every aspect of them with any piece you have unlocked. That includes their faces, hair, clothes, and more.
It’s all very minimalistic, but that works in its favour. LEGO is very minimalistic generally, and LEGO Tower does a great job of bringing the Minifigures to the small screen. It’s an absolute joy building up your own digital collection of LEGO Minifigures.
The UI is brilliant too. All of the information you could possibly want is displayed on the screen at all times, including when stock will run out, the mini-game item you’re seeking, or how much an upgrade will cost. You can head into the menu to get more information , but you’ll rarely need to and that’s to LEGO Tower’s immense credit. This has been designed by exceptional mobile game developers.
So far, so good then for LEGO Tower. However, if we have any criticisms, it’s that it’s far too repetitive. We can’t really imagine anyone but a younger audience sticking with it long term, as it shows its hand a bit early and doesn’t really vary up the gameplay over time. When your main mechanic is moving an elevator up and down, you’re going to have trouble keeping people engaged.
Ultimately, LEGO Tower’s longevity depends on the age of its audience and what they want from the game. If you want something to keep your LEGO-obsessed kid busy or you just want a simple game to dive into for a few minutes each day, LEGO Tower is an excellent and charming choice.
It’s also a great choice for those that are new to management simulators and are a bit intimidated with the depth usually on offer. If that’s you, LEGO Tower will ease you in gently and within an hour you should feel confident enough to move onto something more challenging.
Because ultimately, anyone looking for a game with a bit of meat on its bones will likely find LEGO Tower a bit unsatisfying. That’s the price the developers had to pay to build a game for a younger audience though, so we’re loathe to criticise NimbleBit too much for that. Solid stuff.
