When it comes to playing games on my iPhone, there's only one game I obsess about. After moving from a suburban town where I've lived my whole life to one of the biggest cities in the States, I have more than enough experience from different areas to apply to my own city of Elmhurst (named after my hometown) through a virtual reality that allows me to manage materials production, commercial item distribution, and daily income. While others might think it's a waste of time, here are a few good reasons why SimCity BuiltIt is a character building experience you don't want to miss out on.
1. It Teaches Time Management
The time is takes to build steel to the time is takes to produce a hamburger, the time involved varies definitely. While steel is a materials item and takes a speedy one minute, a hamburger, a commercial item, requires more steps beyond the 35 minutes it takes to produce. To begin making a hamburger, you must first create meat, bread, and a grill, which at most can take up to 2 hours and 45 minutes -- but production doesn't start there. Meat requires 3 items of animal feed which takes 6 hours to produce, then that animal feed is used for the meat, which will take you 2 hours and 15 minutes. This process is quite long and tedious and one would ask him/herself why go through the struggle, but it teaches time management as you must be patient to receive your next item which in the end and the gain is creating your beautiful buildings.
2. Progress and Growth
As you wait for all your items to finish, you can check which in-progress buildings require which items and you combine them to upgrade to a more luxurious residence. All the time spent waiting for items is paid off as you see your city grow to become the metropolis you've always dreamed of creating. Although not all pleasure it put into building your buildings; you have to make sure you don't exceed your utilities buildings' distributions. Making sure you don't build near residential homes (because who likes living next to a sewage plant!), taking care of your residents in your town feels great when that warning exclamation point goes away and you start to make them happy again.
3. Healthy Competition
In Contest of Mayors, a few day long competition leads you to collect as many points as possible in this friendly competition against other mayors. Some of these points are made by deliver air cargo shipments from the airport or just regular cargo shipments from the docks. Not limited to just shipments, you can make items or earn a number of simoleons. The catch is you have a certain amount of time to complete each contest, so that time management comes in handy! At the end of it all, you may receive wonderful prizes like speed tokens to shorten those lengthy production times and sometimes you even earn keys! Keys unlock special buildings which provide a cool new look for your city!
4. It's EPIC!
Not only is the game fun, it's epic! Instead of sticking to plain old buildings that might not be as luxurious, with specialization buildings you've unlocked with your keys you have the opportunity to build epic buildings. To build an epic building you must receive epic points by making required items. The more specialization buildings you have, the more chances you have at gaining epic points. Also, the higher amount of epic points you receive, the better speed tokens are awarded in the end. When completed, epic buildings produce speed tokens used in your commercial buildings -- only 10 points gets you the bronze type. These provide useful if you want to quickly complete those Contest of Mayors contests or just quickly get those beautiful buildings built.
As an daily player, I've ranked up to level 32 and currently have about 242,000 Sims in my city and counting. This game has made me happier every day as I look forward to the beauty hidden within the game. I hope this shows you a light you've never seen before and you choose to play an amazing game today!
