Game: My Town 2
Developer: Booya Studios
Platform: iOS (Link to iTunes)
Price: Free

Let me make this simple for everyone. My Town 2 by Booya studios is a game that will appeal to one type of gamer. The Builder. If you owned a copy of Sim City and played it till the disk was a molten sludge of glistening plastic, clearly you needed to get out more! However this game will be ‘kind of’ up your street. Kind of being the operative phrase.

The idea is a simple tried and tested formula. You build a town providing shops and housing, street lights and such. However here is where this game differs from your standard build format. There is no pressure. Normally with your typical build game you have invading armies or taxes, natural disasters, over-population housing issues and all manner of issues to keep you on your toes by simply building. With My Town 2 you have none of that. See where the kind of comes in now. You will either love its laid back approach and simply enjoy building a town or, you are going to get bored as there is no aspect of diversity other then earning cash and building.

If you are like me, you’ll love this game! It’s the kind of game the iPhone does best. The game operates on a real time basis. So if you build a house or take a job to earn more cash and experience you are given a set of options, work for thirty minutes, two hours or ten hours.  All in real time. So you can set the town on autopilot, go about your day-to-day business, come back a few hours later, collect your rent and wages, build some more jazz and do it all over! It is the perfect game for people who have real lives and not hours of game time to spare.

Now don’t think because it lacks any sense of urgency you won’t have plenty to occupy you. There is a multitude of structures to build with new ones becoming available as you gain experience. Some are pretty cheap, others vastly more expensive that make you want to save till you can buy that skate park or Town house. The game is free but if you’d like more cash quickly you can buy it for a reasonable price, it all depends on how patient you are. Personally I found the game quickly begins to reward you so I didn’t feel the urge to part with real cash to buy myself a fire station or space station.

The game also uses a check in system and location options. So the buildings you can chose in the game are actual businesses right down the road from you. You can check into these locations to earn special bonuses like speed boosts and extra cash. Also you have new challenges ranging from simply planting 5 types of tree to checking into 5 restaurants in one day. Either way there is plenty to do and achieve in this game.

The graphics are colourful and well displayed with smooth running animations. Impressively there is little slow down even when the town becomes vast and there is a lot of movement going on. Sure it is a little jumpy on the load up but it’s no big deal. On occasion you might struggle to tap on certain buildings or objects that might have become lost behind your other more impressive structures. Luckily you can zoom in and out with ease making this only a minor fault. The music is fitting with the game as are the sharp sound effects.

All in all this game will offer plenty for the casual gamer and more hardcore. It could do with maybe a touch more urgency to the gameplay, maybe add some interaction between the townsfolk and yourself. Other than that it’s a top notch game for the free price tag.