Yoot Tower
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Yoot Tower (known in Japan as The Tower II) is a 1999 simulation computer game developed by OPeNBooK9003 and published by Sega.
Description
The lead designer, Yoot Saito, who also worked on SimTower, produced this game as a sequel to SimTower, adding several new features while retaining the same general interface and style. The premise of the game essentially remains unchanged; players must build a profitable and unique skyscraper whilst balancing the needs of the occupants. However, Yoot Tower includes several new and additional features.
Gameplay
Using the provided starting funds, players must begin buiding their tower from scratch. As in SimTower, players may place offices and food courts to generate income, as well as being able to sell condominiums to families. There are also new buildings that can be placed such as rented apartments and public restrooms for food court patrons. Players can also build two towers next to each other and join them with skyways. Other income sources also exist, such as placing billboards at the exterior of the players' tower and selling them for advertising space.
Also new to this game is the ability to choose where the tower is built. The game is preprogrammed with three different locations: Tokyo, Hawaii, and Kegon Falls. Each locations present different difficulty levels as they have their own specific conditions, such as the amount of money players start off with, the limit of floors for each building, and the type of facilities in demand from the beginning of gameplay.
A fourth location, the Statue of Liberty, was planned to be available online, but the English version was never completed. It was released in Japan in February 1999 under the name Towerkit CD-ROM: The Statue of Liberty, and is presently rare. Saito also indicated the Tower team was working on a fifth location, "Tokyo Tower", but the addition was [never released at all]. A major feature of the game was the ability to expand it using plugins released for download which would add new features, such as new available establishments (e.g. additional shops and restaurants) as well as other aspects of gameplay. Unfortunatly, like the additional locations, none were ever released.
Critical reception
The game was dismissed by many game review websites and magazines for being too much a rehash of the original SimTower. Many wrote the game off as being basically identical to its predecessor, (especially graphically, which is in fact untrue; while the graphics may have looked similar at a glance, on closer inspection there was much more detail and many new animations). Due to the bad publicity, the game went largely unnoticed after release, contributing to its poor sales. This in turn is the most likely reason why none of the new locations or expansion plugins were ever completed. The game did have various update patches released for it, but none of these appear to have survived after the official websites relating to the game and OPeNBooK9003 went offline between 2001 and 2002.
External link
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