Yoot Saito has announced in a blog that a version of The Tower/SimTower is coming to Nintendo’s popular DS system.
If you don’t recognize the name, then you may know one of Yoot’s other game’s, which include the Dreamcast man-fish sim “Seaman” (as well as Seaman 2) and the GameCube pinball-military/microphone-controlled game “Odama”.
What you may not know is that it was Yoot Saito who created Maxis’ “Sim Tower” in 1994, a game that was labeled as another in the long-running “Sim” franchises and a “Simcity”-style off-shoot, although it wasn’t technically. The skyscraper-building sim was made with the same king of quirky care that he puts into all his products, with a bizarre charm all it’s own, which included the ability to read into the thoughts of every resident of the tower.
“SimTower” was released in Japan as simply The Tower and there it was published by Yoot Saito’s own company OPeNBooK Co., Ltd.
That game though was followed up with a sequel called “Yoot Tower“, which got a March 2006 release on the Game Boy Advance as simply “The Tower SP” in the U.S. where it was published by Sega.
Now the overlooked building sim is set to get an updated release for the Nintendo DS. Hopefully the two screens and the touch-screen will be put to good use, as it seems to be a perfect fit for the portable. Yoot Saito is hoping to have the game out before Summer.
Here’s a gameplay video of The Tower DS.
And here’s the features list for the Game Boy Advance version:
* Design an incredible building – one that’s a marvel of both efficiency and design and earns recognition
* Build a tenant base to earn money — then use that money to expand your tower and build more
* Deal with a multitude of real life situations such as fires, insect infestations, burglaries
* Complete all the objectives to earn yourself a high rating – see if you can make it to 5 stars — Via DSfanboy