The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn’t necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable “best" thing. Instead, it’s more just us picking out the single game out of the week’s releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.
These picks might be controversial, and that’s OK. If you disagree with what we’ve chosen, let’s try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.
Without further ado…
Pocket City
SimCity 2000 holds a special place in my heart. My first computer that was actually bordering on being my computer was a Macintosh Performa 550 CD which could barely play any games. It had a CD-ROM drive, but was largely too slow for games like Myst and The 7th Guest. This kinda sorta left SimCity 2000 as the only game worth playing that both was a) available on the Mac and b) my Mac could run. Ever since the App Store started getting serious with more in-depth games, I’ve been dying to relive the nostalgia of SimCity. There’s SimCity BuildIt (Free) but … well, you guys know how the rest of that goes. A free to play replacement is no replacement at all.
Enter Pocket City ($2.99), the best SimCity replacement I’ve seen yet on the App Store. It’s not a 1:1 version of SimCity, but instead is one of those modern interpretations that leans heavily on the original source material but isn’t afraid to be bold with making changes to make it a better experience on mobile. We’ve got a full review that gets into some great detail on just how good this game is:
Right off the bat Pocket City will feel instantly familiar and in a good way. The game opens up with an isometric city on which gamers have their Town Hall and that’s about it. From here they are tasked with building infrastructure like roads, power stations and of course water towers. Those three tentpoles are the lifeblood of Pocket City because without them, no city can thrive. Yes, you will need to find the best way to set up your Residential, Commercial and Industrial zones – just like Sim City – but none of those can flourish without being watered, powered and accessible. You will do well to remember that as you start out.
The best part though, is that the game costs five bucks and has absolutely no freemium shenanigans. This is a game that is prime for premium currencies and all sorts of other trash, but it has none of that. Again, from our review:
Thankfully, nobody will be held back by the kind of things that normally cause constination with games like this. Right off the bat your $4.99 will get you the full Pocket City experience. That means that there are no timers, no in-app purchases and nothing to get in the way of your fun. That’s probably how I managed to lose an evening and early morning to the game, but that’s probably my fault more than its! The only limit to your play time is likely to be your battery and the in-game currency that, in all honestly, is so easy to accrue I cannot imagine ever managing to run out no matter how aggressive the city expansion becomes.
It’s really sort of messed up how it feels novel and unique that a builder on iOS costs money and just lets you play it as long as you want, but … here we are. I really, really like Pocket City, as does the rest of the TouchArcade team. It’s been responsible for draining quite a bit of productivity this week across the whole crew.
It's also less than 25MB in size! This is my kind of town!
Purchased. Gotta support non-free to play.
gaming business always goes in a cycle, next thing you know, shipping completed games with no DLC will be the new gold standard
Happy to have supported a developer offering a full game for a single fee, but a little disappointed in the game. I obviosuly wasn't expecting anything with the depth or complexity of Cities Skylines or Sim City, but I was expecting some depth. It's insanely easy, to the point where you barely have to do anything to keep the tidal wave of cash flooding in. Nothing seems to actually affect anything else other than completing quests which only ever end up in giving you more money that you don't need and probably can't accept because your coffers are always chock-a! Really hoping the game gets some meaningful updates ecause it looks beautiful and a lot of effort has clearly gone in to it.
Agree completely, Graeme. I thought that the quests, the stupidly powerful obelisk, and other stuff designed to make the game easy for beginners would be gone at higher difficulty levels, but nope. I emailed the developer with a simple observation: I have a city, on the hardest difficulty level, that fills all corners of the land. Stats say there are jobs that support 89% of my citizens. Happiness is high, and more people move in if I tear down something a build more residential properties. How, I asked, is this possible when unemployment is 11%? People should be moving away, housing prices falling, properties in decline, etc. There doesn't appear to be much logic in how the different elements of the game (taxes, jobs, crime, traffic, happiness, etc.) relate to each other and what citizens do in response to different conditions.
It would be a big change, but I would prefer the game implement a regular calendar system for time. At the end of every year, there would be a progress report. Rewards for meeting certain goals at the end of each year could be rewarded, with different levels of reward (and different goals) depending on difficulty level.
If that's too much of a change, then quests should exist only on easy or tutorial mode. On harder modes, citizens should be picky, ready to move out with any dissatisfaction, and cash should be sparse, not flowing in faster than you can spend it.
This is a buy for me.
Looks interesting, I think it’s time to put my money where my mouth is which is something I rarely do these days on iOS.
Spent the weekend playing this gem, it's definitely a lot of fun and worth the purchase, and no freemium nonsense.