GDC: Build-a-Lot First Look

By Matt Dunn, USA
for www.touchgen.com

Published: March 26, 2009

A casual, but frantic, Sim Cityish game.

This game has been around for several years as a PC game, but Glu Mobile has tweaked and improved (mainly graphic-wise) it for the iPhone. If you’re looking for a light sim game to take up your time, Build-a-Lot looks like a solid choice.

The game revolves around buying, improving, and selling properties to turn a profit. It’s not as simple as this though, as you have to manage and purchase resources, workers, blueprints, etc to accomplish your goals. You can upgrade various aspects of your homes, as the better they are, the more money you get for rent periods. As you complete challenges, you will unlock new neighborhoods to work in.

The game itself looks good, but was the most aged-looking of the games we saw from Glu. Still, compared to the original it’s definitely an improvement, and it’s not a bad looking game at all. The interface for building and managing your properties is very slick and intuitive, and it seems that everything is really accessible.

The game includes 35 career levels to complete, with increasingly difficult goals and challenges in each. At higher levels, buildings can get damaged, as well as other financial pitfalls. The game is strictly a single player experience, as with most games of its type.

Build-a-Lot will be released on March 30th for $4.99.

Review disclosure: Any games reviewed on this page may have been provided to us by the developer for the purposes of this review. Note: the resulting review score is never impeded by this fact, all opinions are that of the TouchGen reviewer and not the developer. This is in keeping with our O.A.T.S oath. Read more about O.A.T.S here

One Comment on "GDC: Build-a-Lot First Look"

Kay on Wed, 1st Apr 2009 6:11 pm

It´s a great game, with wonderful graphics, but it helps if you know the game already from PC.
Control is easy, and the look is just marvelous, with a lot of details.
If you´re tired from time management games, this is the real deal. Get it, you won´t regret it!

GDC: Build-a-Lot First Look

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