Yoot Tower

Exiting from basement shops to the lobby

Using the provided starting funds, players must begin to build a tower from scratch. As in SimTower, offices and food courts can be built to generate income, as well as condos that can be sold to families. There are plenty of new facilities that can be placed such as rented apartments, vending machines and public restrooms for food court patrons. There are also many changes to existing items that featured in the original game, i.e. a notable difference between the shop item in Yoot Tower and the one originally in SimTower is that it no longer functions as a rented space where the player has no control over what the shop sells; rather the player is provided with different types of shop from the start from which the income they make is part of the player's earnings. Another interesting addition is the ability for players to build two or more towers next to each other and join them with sky bridges. Other income sources also exist, such as placing billboards outside and renting them out as advertisement space.

Also new to this game is the ability to choose where the building is built. What the player can do in these locations varies, such as how many stories high the building can be, what the player is actually allowed to build, and how much money the player starts off with. The variation gives each location its own difficulty level compared to the others.

Yoot Tower includes a non-invasive form of static in-game advertising. Users can place billboards for Apple Computer (in Mac version only) and Sega, whilst there are tenants featuring real-world stores like GameWorks, Orange Julius or Air Jamaica. Some updates include more real-world tenants and billboards. The Japanese version includes a Glico store.

The Tower II is a fully 32-bit program unlike SimTower which was 16-bit. It can even run on all 64-bit Windows operating systems. The Tower II also has a resizable window that can support very high resolutions (3200 x 2160).

A new addition of the game is the ability to expand the game using plug-ins released for download which would add new features, such as new facilities (e.g. additional shops, restaurants, and services, ranging from a Glico store to a swimming pool), new events, billboards, and movies, as well as other aspects of gameplay. Inspection of the game's official website through web archives indicates that although the American version never got any true additions, the Japanese version got several updates, including new movies and locations. However, none of these appear to have survived when the official websites relating to the game and its developer OPeNBooK9003 went offline between the years 2001 and 2002. Through translations on the Japanese downloads page, an Austin Powers movie can be downloaded.

The original Tower II game came with Tokyo and Hawaii. The American version had Tokyo, Hawaii, and Kegon Falls. However, unlike in Japan, America did not get updates. In Japan, each expansion pack was sold under the Towerkit title.

The game was dismissed by some game review websites and magazines as being too much a rehash of the original SimTower. Many wrote the game off as being basically identical to its predecessor. Due to the average reviews and spotty distribution, the game was largely ignored by the mainstream gaming public after release, possibly contributing to its poor sales. This in turn is the most likely reason why none of the new locations or expansion plug-ins were ever localized for the English version. It sold well in Japan, however, and received several new plug-ins. Another criticism was that some in-game text was not localized effectively. This resulted in some minor text errors and unfamiliar items to American audiences (such as placing cigarette machines commonly).

• The Tower II homepage (Japanese)
• Archived support website, contains patches to the game. (Japanese)
• Yoot Tower at MobyGames