Ok. I have recently got into The Simpsons Tapped Out, Family Guy Quest for Stuff, Plunder Pirates, Tiny Tower Las Vegas, and Happy street. I love the games (well the family guy qfs game not so much), but the F2P mechanics are wearing off their welcome. Can anyone suggest a good premium title that gives me a nice sense of accomplishment without the constant nag for money, or the proverbial carrot on a stick? Right now I'm leaning towards buying 'Rebuild' off of the strength of her other games, but I'm not sure that is what I'm looking for and the game is outdated (specifically the graphics look horrible in the gameplay video I watched). I'd love the communities input. Thanks
As the previous poster mentioned, Kairosoft titles might do the trick. In the builder genre 'Venture Towns', 'Oh Edo!' and the recent Kairobotica are more 'city builder' themed. Be warned that these titles have a slightly higher learning curve than the traditional F2P builder. There's also a port of Settlers 3 on iOS and if you like indie I personally enjoyed Towncraft.
The only Kairosoft game I've tried is Game Dev Story. I loved it, but that particular title isn't anywhere near a city builder so I never considered their others. One of the things I like so much about TSTOand Plunder Pirates is the aesthetics and the design elements. With Kairobotica you can't really get creative and build the town the way you want, right?
I would recommend 1849, it's a premium (only 1 IAP, and it's a $2 charge for DLC) city builder with a campaign mode as well as a sandbox mode. And, in my opinion, is well worth the $5 premium price.
Well I admit 1849 looks good. In the thread you seemed very critical of the game and you rated it 3/5, Jake, what keeps it from getting the last two stars? Also, in the thread there's several comments about a lack of sandbox mode. Has that changed? "It's a decent enough game, but it's hard to recommend it at $5 without a sandbox mode. As it stands, 1849 feels unfinished, with only a campaign mode to play through, the game feels restrictive and the replay value is limited. Thankfully, there are absolutely no freemium elements to speak of, but the gameplay leans more towards Virtual City then Sim City."
I really like Rebuild, I wouldn't descibe it as outdated - it's retina & optimised for iPhone 5 widescreen. I think you'd enjoy it based on the other games you've listed as liking. Game Dev Story is unusual for a Kairosoft game, most of the others involve some sort of city (or store or boat) building. With Kairobotica you are quite limited in how you can design your city - see screenshots in App Store, you can only build in a fixed grid. One of the others might be more up your street. As StratAll mentioned Venture Towns and Oh! Edo Towns might be your best bet. Beastie Bay is sort of a city builder too. Although lots of others involve building too, even if it's not actually a city that you are building. Grand Prix Story, Pocket League Story, and Pocket Stables all have only minimal building. Dungeon Village has a bit of building, but all of the others have a lot of building. They aren't all retina though, so if that bothers you, you can download the free versions to see which are and which aren't.
At launch it definitely wasn't worth the $5 asking price, but the developer has responded to complaints and critiques by providing excellent support. 1849 has received many free updates to the campaign mode, adding both new cities to the campaign as well as additional depth (more challenges, goals) to existing cities. This was followed by an free update that added a Sandbox mode, and the most recent update, a $2 IAP that adds a completely new campaign to the game. 1849 is now well worth the $5 asking price: a pure premium city builder, with plenty of content, and excellent developer support. The $5 gets you a beefy campaign (the entire state of California), and a very well done sandbox mode with plenty of cities to choose from. The $2 IAP is for the Nevada campaign DLC, and is well worth the price. And is very fair IAP in my opinion. Now I'll head over to the 1849 thread to update my rating. Sorry about that.
Thanks everyone. 1849 looks really cool. In (edit) the game "rebuild" can you place buildings where you want, and get involved in the design of the city, or are you simply rebuilding the city as it is without the creativity involved?
There is most definitely creativity involved, in placing buildings, creating production lines, and opening trade routes. The game is level based, so there is also a puzzle/solution element to it as well. The sandbox mode really helped complete the experience in my opinion. Without it, the game would feel a little too restrictive.
Sorry. My comment was confusing. I was asking about the gsme 'rebuild'. I'm assuming you're talking about 1849.
Yeah, my mistake, I was talking about 1849. As far as Rebuild goes, that one is still in my backlog. Not sure how that compares.
There's been some great suggestions here so far. I think I'll probably be grabbing Rebuild and 1849, unless something else catches my attention.