The Tower SP

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The Tower SP is a 2005 construction and management simulation game for the Game Boy Advance by Vivarium. It was published by Nintendo in Japan and Sega in North America. The game is a port and revision of SimTower (1994), with some ideas from Yoot Tower (1998).

In The Tower SP, you build a skyscraper for your boss Yama and manage shops, offices, residents, and visitors. Reaching the top “Tower” status is tough: you need 2,000 people in the building and a wedding must occur in a cathedral built at the maximum height. The cathedral must be full, and the building must have 2,000 people at that moment. The building can rise up to 50 floors (35 for the commercial tower), and its width grows as roads and nearby buildings are deregulated.

If you achieve Tower status with an Office Building, you unlock the option to build a Commercial Building. In this mode you can have a higher ground-floor lobby, but you cannot build offices, condominiums, medical centers, security offices, or recycling centers. You can have up to three cinemas, a spa using hot spring water, and hotel suites once you reach the required star rating. Designs can feel like a mall-hotel hybrid, depending on your choices.

The Tower SP borrows many features from Yoot Tower, adding new elements such as restrooms, nightly security checks, weekly housekeeping, and a cockroach infestation with three worsening stages that require increasingly strong treatments.

Tenants and visitors must be kept happy with a variety of shops and services. Reviews were mixed: GameSpot criticized the game for lacking depth in gameplay, visuals, and audio but praised the intuitive user interface and the range of shops and offices. IGN offered a more positive view, calling the gameplay simple and well balanced.