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Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me find iPhone simulation games

Dear Aunt TUAW,

Finding games (or any app) for iPhone, or iOS in general, is a series of hit and misses. Let me be frank. It's mostly misses. I was wondering if you knew of any good Empire Building or (preferably) Company building games out there.

Any help would be most appreciative.

Thanks,

Your nephew Mike E.



Dear Mike,

Auntie is right there with you on the "mostly misses" thing. She's tried some of the major sim games (and so have many of the TUAW crew) and has found that the translation to touch-based interaction kills most of the fun. Surely there's got to be a good finger-powered lemonade stand or Empire application out there in App Store land. Yes, some bright names like Catan have been well received, but even Catan is more of a board game than a simulation game.

So, Auntie's turning this question over to the TUAW braintrust otherwise known as all of her nieces and nephews.

What games have you found for Cousin Mike that are fun, well designed, and work well on iOS? Let Auntie know in the comments!

Kisses,

Auntie T.

Mike Schramm: Hey it's your other Cousin Mike here. Auntie's memory must be the first thing to go -- she didn't remember that we've posted about lots of great simulation games, including Civilization Revolution, Simcity, the excellent but often overlooked Kaloki Adventure, and just recently, Ngmoco's new We City game. So yes, there are lots of great sim games on the App Store to play through.

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Dear Aunt TUAW, Finding games (or any app) for iPhone, or iOS in general, is a series of hit and misses. Let me be frank. It's mostly...
 

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16 Comments

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Danny

The Settlers is an awesome, can't recommend that enough!

September 27 2010 at 10:00 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dmost714

Castle Craft by Freeverse is quite fun, and social if you use the 'chat'. You build up a city, then explore about take over some mountains and forests, and start up new cities.

I bought Civilization Revolution for iPad. It is completely lacking in guidance, so takes a while to figure out what you're supposed to do. Also, it crashes almost non-stop.

September 24 2010 at 4:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Reylas

Don't forget 'The Settlers HD'. It is out now for both iphone and ipad and is a pretty good sim for the price.

September 24 2010 at 2:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tlflow33

Give Virtual City a try. It's pretty fun and quite challenging.

September 24 2010 at 1:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark

Another vote for Civilization Revolution, but they really need to update it with two things:

1) support for Retina Display to make it easier to visualize your vast empire
2) online leader boards. I'm racking up 40-50,000 points on Deity and want to see if I'm as dominating as I think I am.

September 24 2010 at 12:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Mark's comment
TheCastro

But you'll cry when you find out you're not....

And I already am realizing how bad I am. I think I played it once on diety and only won because I was furthest when we ran out of turns.

That game is awesome I love playing it, but I like winning through domination, everything else takes too long for my lunh break.

September 24 2010 at 1:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lograh

AirTycoon has been around for a bit and while the UI needs some help it can be enjoyable enough. There's also a 'lite' version for free to see if you like the style.

September 24 2010 at 11:22 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Justin

Another vote for Civ Revolution here!

September 24 2010 at 11:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mph66

I can't stop playing Civ. Revolution, but it can- keeps crashing. Other than that, you can't beat it for just $7.

September 24 2010 at 10:27 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
spam

hotel mogul, virtual city

September 24 2010 at 10:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to spam's comment
Screw

Hotel Mogul is a fun game. Bit tricky sometimes, but fun to play en it captures you so you want to keep playing.

September 24 2010 at 11:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
spam

... and I've just discovered Vacation Mogul. Probably the same engine, but different graphics.

September 24 2010 at 11:55 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
markneustadt

I can't stop playing Civilization Revolution!

September 24 2010 at 10:22 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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