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'Star Wars: Tiny Death Star' puts you to work for the Empire in glorious 8-bit
There's no shortage of official Star Wars-themed apps on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, but Star Wars: Tiny Death Star might be the most retro of them all. A spin-off of NimbleBit's popular iOS classic Tiny Tower, Tiny Death Star puts you to work for the Empire as you buy, build and oversee the development of its moon-sized space station. It's the result of a partnership between Disney, LucasArts and NimbleBit, bringing together all of your favorite Star Wars characters in the familiar Tiny 8-bit style. You'll also employ 30 unique galactic "bitizens," including Wookiees and Ewoks, as you build as many as 80 residential and commercial Death Star floors. Like other freemium titles, Star Wars: Tiny Death Star uses its own in-game currency, called "Imperial Bux," which boost construction and lift time restrictions, meaning you probably won't go it Solo in your fight against the Rebels.
LucasArts and NimbleBit team up for Star Wars: Tiny Death Star
You love Star Wars -- yes, you do, don't lie -- and if you're an iOS gaming fan, you probably also love Tiny Tower, the micromanagement game from developer NimbleBit. Now, the two have been combined in an all-new title called Star Wars: Tiny Death Star. The game tasks you with building an all-new Death Star, level by level, in the same adorable 8-bit style NimbleBit has been perfecting for years. Not much else is known about the game at the moment, as Disney Interactive has held back all but the details above, but the game is slated to arrive "soon" for "mobile devices," which will undoubtedly include the iPhone and iPad.
NimbleBit holding a fall sale, first episode of Tiny Tower Shorts out now
NimbleBit sent along an email announcing that the company was holding a fall sale, and it made me do a double take: how does a company whose games are all free hold a fall sale? Surprisingly enough, NimbleBit found a way. From this Friday through Sunday, all of the in-app purchases in NimbleBit's freemium hits Tiny Tower, Pocket Planes and Pocket Frogs will be available for half the price that they usually are, so you'll be able to buy Tower Bux, Plane Bux or Potions or Stamps for half price. In other NimbleNews (feel free to use that for your blog, guys), the company has released its first animated short based on Tiny Tower to go along with the Pocket Planes series that was already in progress. This one riffs on Tiny Tower's upgradeable elevators, and how they sometimes tend to go a bit too slow .. or too fast. Enjoy by watching it below.
NimbleBit talks about the release of Pocket Planes, and what's next
Brothers Ian and David Marsh's NimbleBit is finally releasing its latest freemium title today (following on the company's success with Pocket Frogs and then the hugely popular Tiny Tower) called Pocket Planes. The app borrows Tiny Tower's little pixelated denizens and moves them over into a growing worldwide airline, tasking the player with building airports and planes, guiding planes around from one real life city to the next, and ferrying cargo and passengers all of the world to earn in-game coins and "bux." Just like Tiny Tower, the title is free to download and depends on in-app purchases of bux for monetization, and just like Tiny Tower, it's completely addictive and super charming. And just like Tiny Tower, it's probably going to be a huge hit. Ian Marsh met up with TUAW here at WWDC in San Francisco today, and while he says he is a little nervous to be flying home to San Diego tomorrow as the game launches worldwide, you can tell he's not panicking too much. He's been through this process a few times already with his previous titles (though given how big Tiny Tower got, this game certainly has the highest expectations NimbleBit's ever faced), not to mention that he and his wife had a baby girl last December. In fact, NimbleBit's biggest issue with Pocket Planes, says Marsh, was that it took so long to make. Most traditional games can take years to put together, but NimbleBit is used to a much shorter production schedule, so Marsh says that Pocket Planes' development, at nearly a year, was a little too "stretched out" for the brothers. They've had to spend a lot of the last year dealing with Tiny Tower's success rather than making the game. And they have hired on a few more part-time people, but Marsh tells me that even with the success of Tiny Tower (and the presumably pending success of Pocket Planes), he still doesn't want to make NimbleBit bigger. "We like making cool games," he told me. "If we have a team of other people making cool games, I'll be jealous that I'm not making them." What would NimbleBit do if Pocket Planes fails, if the brothers start to face issues with their current Tiny company structure? Marsh grins at the thought of Pocket Planes failing. "Make the next game," he says. NimbleBit has done so well with its current titles, and has kept things so compact, that even if Pocket Planes falls out of the sky, they'll just make another game they like. Right now they're in the concept states of their next title, which will be a word game. Marsh says they're returning to an old NimbleBit title called Textropolis, from before the company's freemium days. That game requires you to make words from the names of places, and Marsh says the new game will play in a similar way ("We really enjoyed Textropolis," he says), but it will be very much influenced by Tiny Tower's aesthetic, presumably in the same way that Pocket Planes is. That's further down the line (the brothers' main task this week will probably just consist of getting feedback on Pocket Planes), but Marsh says that NimbleBit does want to make development a little quicker and simpler. "We like making relatively simple games," he says. In the future, he hopes to bring NimbleBit back to the point where it's releasing a few games a year, much like the company did when it first started on iOS. Other than that, Marsh is happy to just keep on making games that he and his brother love. "We always can," he says. "That's the great thing about not answering to anyone else." Pocket Planes should land on the App Store this evening -- we'll have more on the game itself later on this week after release.
Pocket Planes gets a trailer, looks great
I first saw Pocket Planes, Nimblebit's next freemium title, running at GDC earlier this year. Being a huge fan of both Pocket Frogs and Tiny Tower, I can't wait to see it in action on my iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, the game's not out yet (it's still "coming soon"), but Nimblebit has released a trailer below, so you can at least see what the game is like and how it plays. The game uses the same 8-bit aesthetic and characters as Tiny Tower, but instead of building floors in a building, you're growing an empire of airplanes, flying them around the world for fun and profit. You'll need to build up both planes and airports, and different types of planes fly at different speeds and have different fuel capacities, which can limit how far they can travel. The game looks really fun. It's a little more complicated than Tiny Tower, but shouldn't be any less addictive. As soon as it's on the App Store, we'll let you know.
NimbleBit builds a tiny empire of quality freemium apps
NimbleBit's David Marsh kindly met with me at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this week. While he's not interested in discussing the Zynga/Tiny Tower fiasco (a game he first showed me at GDC last year), the public's interest in that story is understandable. Zynga is a social company that uses analytics and testing to make its games easy to play and monetize. However, Marsh says he and his developer brother don't bother with a lot of analytics. "Part of the thing," he admits, "is that we don't try to figure it out a lot, because that's not the most fun part of making the game for us." NimbleBit consists of the two brothers, another programmer hired last August and David's wife, who manages support. The group is happiest while making good games that monetize themselves because users enjoy them so much. That's a contrast to many of the social and freemium titles out there. NimbleBit makes its games with love, and that's why it's funny when other companies try to copy their success without that key ingredient. When I asked Marsh if NimbleBit would consider acquisition by a larger game developer, he reiterated what he told me last year. "We're making enough money." Tiny Tower has consistently been on the App Store's top grossing list since its initial push, and then again after Apple picked it as the iPhone Game of the Year. "Getting Game of the Year for iPhone was really awesome for us," said Marsh. NimbleBit's next title, Pocket Planes, looks like it will follow the same pattern of success. Marsh gave me a quick demo of the latest build. The look and feel are very similar to Tiny Tower, but the goal is to build a network of planes that around the world, as opposed to an apartment building. Originally, says Marsh, the idea was to make a game about trains, and he even showed me a screenshot with train cars that had interiors using the Tiny Tower floors layout. But they found that running trains around tracks was too limiting and slow to be fun, so the trains became planes. Marsh says taking to the air has inspired a nice "jetsetting feel, about exploring rather than being stuck on rails." The build I saw looked great. You can buy planes with bucks earned either by playing the game or with in-app purchases, and then you can build airports at various cities, "unlocking" them with in-game gold (of course, any of that might change in the final release). Once you've got a plane and some airports to travel to, you can take missions from the in-game citizens, ferrying passengers or cargo from city to city. Each plane has a range, and each trip costs a certain amount, so the game currently consists of figuring out just how money you'll make versus spend on a certain mission. If you think that sounds complicated, you're right. Pocket Planes is the most complex freemium title that NimbleBit has put together yet. That doesn't mean it's inaccessible. While the worst you can do in Pocket Frogs or Tiny Tower is leave your frogs or bitizens unattended, in Pocket Planes you could lose money by playing badly. Could NimbleBit have the same success with a title that's more complex? Marsh says he and his brother are doing what they always do: making a game they want to play. "We're aware of the fact that it might have a smaller potential audience" due to the complexity, he says, "but that's one of the things we're interested to find out." Marsh also says that because it is still early in the development, there's lots of time left to spin the game more casual or complex. One idea he and Ian have played around with is "plane parts," which users could buy, trade, or collect, and use build planes with various stats. But that system isn't quite done, and it might not be included in the final game (or might be added in with a later update). NimbleBit hopes to release Pocket Plans in "summer, hopefully." Pocket Planes looks terrific, and it's great to see NimbleBit make great games that support a solid freemium model with excellent gameplay.
Tiny Tower mission pokes fun at Zynga and Dream Heights
Tiny Tower gets a new mission every Wednesday, and they're usually simple, themed tasks which players must complete for bonus Tower Bux, the game's currency. This week, a mission called "Beware of Dog" takes a shot at Zynga's clone, Dream Heights."After failing to buy your tower, a rival developer would like the following: 13,500 Tower Design (Architect Office) and 4,500 City Sim (Game Studio)." The icon for the individual awarding the mission is a little man dressed as a devil.We took a screen shot of the "Beware of Dog" mission. You can see it in full past the break.
Zynga's Dream Heights ready to build tiny towers on App Store
There's been plenty of controversy regarding the visual similarities between NimbleBit's popular Tiny Tower and Zynga's Dream Heights, but now the public can check out the full monty. Zynga announced that Dream Heights, which "surely isn't the first of many great games already in this category" according to the publisher, is now widely available. Zynga describes Dream Heights as the "most social" game of its kind, allowing players to invite their Facebook friends to the mobile title.As of this writing there are two polar reviews:1 star: "Simply awful and shameful attempt to capitalize on the success of Tiny Tower."5 stars: "Dream Heights is beautiful, fun and polished. Another must-play from Zynga."Check out Dream Heights and let us know what you think.%Gallery-145623%
Tiny Tower builds up 10 million downloads
Nimblebit's Tiny Tower keeps building up, up, up! Developer Ian Marsh tweeted last night that the addictive tower management title had reached 10 million iOS downloads. The company previously mentioned it has a million daily active users. It can't hurt that the game doesn't cost anything, but that's still quite a few folks building up tiny office structures!Tiny Tower, named Apple's 2011 iPhone Game of the Year, recently brought the fight to Zynga for its liberally inspired game Dream Heights. Whatever the legality is of such games, Apple is starting to take notice.%Gallery-145623%
Kill Screen on the legality of cloning game design
With the recent spate of cloned game stories -- namely those alleged to be the work of Zynga -- Kill Screen has put together an interesting article about the legality of the practice and its effects on the industry. In short, cloning an entire game and stealing its assets is illegal. However, cloning a game's ideas is not -- see Scrabble vs. Words with Friends -- and, while it can be morally repugnant, it can also be healthy for the industry.Game designers "borrow" from one another all the time, taking mechanics from successful games and implementing them elsewhere -- think stealth, cover-based shooting, power meters, triple jumps. That said, outright cloning is still a problem, one Kill Screen asserts we can address with education and a few notes from the fashion industry. In other words, teach consumers how to tell the difference between a knock-off and the real thing.
Tiny Tower dev wishes Zynga luck on clone
NimbleBit, the three-person indie team responsible for the iOS hit Tiny Tower, is voicing its displeasure with Zynga's Dream Heights via passive aggressive infographic. Posted by NimbleBit's Ian Marsh, the graphic wishes Zynga luck with its new iPhone game that shares more than a passing resemblance to Tiny Tower."We wanted to thank all you guys for being such big fans of our iPhone game of the year Tiny Tower," NimbleBit wrote to Zynga's 2,789 employees. "Good luck with your game, we are looking forward to inspiring you with our future games!"Marsh does note that Zynga did try to acquire NimbleBit first, but seems to have decided on a different route. The iOS scene, with its shorter development cycles and lower barrier to entry, has seen numerous examples of games the blur the line between "inspiration" and blatant theft.%Gallery-145623%
NimbleBit calls out Zynga clone of Tiny Tower
Zynga, which has made its fortune on Farmville, has released an app in Canada (not on the American App Store yet) called Dream Heights, which bears much more than a passing resemblance to Tiny Tower, a terrific and very successful freemium game from NimbleBit (the brothers-run company that we've posted about a few times before). By the looks of things, it seems that Zynga saw NimbleBit's success and decided to borrow most of the game's mechanics. NimbleBit is pretty genial about the whole thing, but co-founders David and Ian Marsh haven't been completely kind on their Twitter accounts. Both have called out Zynga and posted a big infographic that compares the two games and their extreme similarities. They've also needled Zynga, with 2700 more employees than NimbleBit's three person staff, for not making anything better than a pretty blatant clone of Tiny Tower. Other developers have jumped to NimbleBit's defense on Twitter. It's possible that Zynga may decide not to release Dream Heights due to the pressure from developers; more likely Zynga will release it, and the game will perform decently, but not nearly as well as Tiny Tower has done. I have asked NimbleBit about getting acquired before. The brothers seem like prime candidates for a larger company to come along and buy them out, and indeed Ian Marsh says during this whole affair that Zynga has offered to purchase NimbleBit and its games before. But as they told me, these guys aren't in it for the money. Certainly their games are very lucrative, but the Marsh brothers have said that they just like making great games on their own and will continue to do that for as long as they can. It's a shame that Zynga has so blatantly imitated the Marshes' hard work, but you know what they say about imitation and flattery.
Tiny Tower not so tiny, has one million daily users on iOS
The allure of building the perfect skyscraper is stronger than we initially thought. Tiny Tower developer Ian Marsh revealed via his Twitter account that the mobile darling currently has a million users stacking shops each day. And that figure doesn't even take Android into consideration!Those million people are responsible for over ten million sessions of Tiny Tower each day, which sounds about right to us. We probably restock our pubs with chicken wings that many times a day alone.
NimbleBit comments on popularity of Tiny Tower, working on new IP
Inside Mobile Apps has an interview with the winners of Apple's choice for best iPhone game of the year, David and Ian Marsh of NimbleBit. I was a huge fan of their freemium title Pocket Frogs, but it's their latest release, Tiny Tower, that has earned a lot of solid accolades (not to mention a bunch of in-app purchase money). I talked to the guys way back at GDC earlier this year before Tiny Tower came out, so it's good to get an update like this on where they're at now. Tiny Tower's been downloaded over 7 million times so far, and the brothers expect it to clear 8 million by the end of the year. And not only are people getting the game, but they're playing it, with nearly a million daily active users at peak, and around 600,000 right now. That's phenomenal for an app of this kind. Their income is also doing very well -- most companies were aiming for around 2% of the player base to be paying for in-app items, but NimbleBit says Tiny Tower is around 5% of the player base, with the average player putting about $10 in the pot. Overall, Tiny Tower has fewer "big spenders," but the bigger player population means there's more money coming in. Very interesting -- early on, the freemium market was mostly based on "whale" customers, or people who spent a lot of money to support a lot of cheaper players. But as quality goes up, we'll probably see more apps like Tiny Tower: high quality "hits" that have a large player base with a relatively high pay rate, but not as many "whales." Fascinating stuff. The Marshes also say they're working on a brand new title which will be a whole new IP, so we'll have to stay tuned and see what they're up to next.
2011 Holiday Buyers Guide: iOS
You'll forgive us, but we're banking on the concept of Aunt Eileen stuffing your stocking with iTunes gift cards rather than, say, a Zune Marketplace one. Perhaps that depends on if you've been naughty or nice? We're not quite sure how this holiday stuff works, but we're trying our best here. Anyway, below the break we've compiled another year's worth of great games on both iPhone and iPad platforms that we hope you'll love as well. Even if you don't get those gift cards, these games should still be affordable -- even after buying all those presents. Good luck with the relatives!
Tiny Tower breaks ground on Android
Android takes another step closer to iOS's arguably superior gaming offering, adopting cult low-fi sim Tiny Tower. Froyo is the minimum requirement for the game run, but given the very dominant status of Android 2.0 and up, most won't find it an issue. This management sim lets you create a mix of businesses and attractions to draw Bitizens (the pixelated chaps you see above) to come live, work and play in your property. There looks to be some kind of smartphone game exchange going on, with this not-so-tiny timesink transfer following the recent appearance of Minecraft on iOS. Those willing to write off the rest of the weekend can download it now at the source below. [Image credit: Box Brown]
Free games and big updates this weekend on the App Store
Another day of the holiday season brings a whole lot of great downloads from the App Store. What we saw yesterday was mostly new releases, but here's a list of free games (and free updates) you might want to check out. A whole bunch of great games have gone free for the weekend, including Baby Monkey, Redlynx's 1000 Heroz, Battle Slugs, Burn the Rope Worlds, Crystal Soul, Gem King, and Ragdoll Blaster 2. Every single one of those is worth a download if you don't have them yet. More free apps: Legends of Alekham, Sarge, Rise of Atlantis, Doomsday 2: Legions of Hell, and AtlantiSub. There are also some really great new freemium titles to play; Cosmonauts is one, and I've really been enjoying Battle Nations (you can friend me in that one -- I'm "toucansamurai"). Freemium title Tiny Tower has gotten a big update that adds missions, the ability to share stock with friends, and new floors and costumes to play with. Bungie's Crimson Steam Pirates is free on the iPad right now to celebrate the new 99 cent iPhone version, and there's a new Chapter 3 update with more content to play with. Zombie Gunship has added a new unlockable scenario, as well as full AirPlay support. Freemium title Rocket Chimp recently got an update for iCloud and iOS 5. Once again, there's more there to play than you'll need all weekend. Things are picking up as this holiday season gets into swing. Stay tuned, because I'm sure we'll see lots more of this over the next few weeks.
How to: Make your own Bitizen
If you've been playing the app Tiny Tower as much as I have (and since it's free and great, you probably should be), you have likely imagined yourself as a Bitizen, one of the little residents of the floor-by-floor residential and commercial construction that is your own tiny tower. And thanks to this tutorial by developer and pixel art creator Brandon Trebitowski, you can make that a reality. He's essentially reverse-engineered the design of the little Bitizen characters (though he admits they're not in as much detail as the Retina Display-enabled game versions), and walks you through step-by-step in Photoshop how to make one of your own design. All it takes is some Photoshop grid shadings and a little coloring, so you don't even have to be a super great artist (or like me, have any design skill at all) -- just keep tweaking it until it looks right. I love it -- just like NimbleBit's own Ian Marsh, I look forward to having a Bitizen of my own as a Twitter avatar. Now I just need to figure out how to open up this Photoshop template...
Portabliss: Tiny Tower (iOS)
Did you know that you can download handheld games now? That's amazingly convenient! The only inconvenient part of it is finding the right games to buy -- and that's where we come in. Three times a week, our new Portabliss column will tell you about a downloadable game on the iPhone, iPad, Android device, DSi, 3DS, PSP, etc. Today: Tiny Tower! Tiny Tower is fundamentally vertical Farmville with retro styling, and I'm not embarrassed to say that I love it. Well, no, I am embarassed, but I was tasked with kicking off our new mobile feature, Portabliss, and this is what I'm playing. So here we are.As the proprietor of an ever-growing tower, you'll choose which businesses to add to your skyscraper (depending on the desires of the "bitizens" that inhabit it). Then it's your job to watch over the businesses, keeping the shelves stocked and the stores staffed. As products are sold over time, you'll earn coins that can be applied to a new floor of your building and the terrifying cycle continues.
Tiny Tower picks up a million downloads in four days
Developer Ian Marsh of NimbleBit has been sharing some interesting facts and figures on Twitter about his new app Tiny Tower. Perhaps the most impressive overall is that the pixelated freemium tower simulation game has already gained a million players, despite only being on the App Store for four days. There's a large amount of engagement with these users as well; Marsh has also tweeted that each user is logging in for a number of different sessions during the day (the game encourages you to come back often to re-stock the various stores in your tower). That's added up to a lot of playtime -- over a quarter century and counting. Perhaps most importantly for NimbleBit, Tiny Tower is seeing about 2.6 percent of its users actually invest in in-app purchases, which is about double the standard amount for Marsh's other big freemium title, Pocket Frogs. Obviously NimbleBit hasn't released actual dollars earned, but you can do the math to know that there's some money coming in already. On a less-serious note, Marsh also tweeted something he calls "Tiny Tower Game Boy edition," basically just a grayscale graphics mode for the game. That's likely something that came up in development, but maybe NimbleBit is working on some new graphical styles (Update: Nope, NimbleBit was just messing around in Camera+. Oh well.). There is one update already out for approval (mostly bug fixes), and there's surely more to come.
