Tiny Village – Tycoon Builder Game with Prehistoric Fun
by Paul Wilks
Dec 21, 2011 1:29 PM –
Install
Tiny Village is a cute little tycoon/building game that puts you in control of creating your own pre-historic village! The gameplay is varied and, while the game includes the ability to increase your funds via real-world money, it doesn’t hinder the game to the point that similar titles do. The graphics and sound are rather adorable and the game seems to have a sort of Flintstones theme that is relatively new in this genre. Definitely worth a look if you like tycoon-style games, but don’t expect historical accuracy!!
Price: Free, In-app Purchases
Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Cute and detailed graphics!
- Immersive gameplay!
- Fun tasks and missions!
Cons
- Aside from the prehistoric theme, the game doesn’t add much to very familiar gameplay.
- Steeply priced in-game purchases.
Features:
Tiny Village begins with two dainty stone-agers being chased by a hungry Dino. Now, while archeology academics might be silently dying inside, the game is still incredibly cute. For another historical giggle, the Villagers are currently looking forward to Christmas. Yes, really.
Anyway, the game is a typical tycoon/building/accumulation game, presented with a stone-age thematic which allows you to create your very own Flintstones-type village. After building initial settlements, you need to build up a quarry, stores and resource storage areas. Once up and running you can expand these to create toy and candy stores, jewelry stores- even a bowling alley! For the stores to operate, you need resources. These can be harvested after creating farms, mini forests for tree-chopping, a quarry and even a Mammoth Pen for collecting mammoth fur. Resources can be accumulated and you can trade these with fellow Tiny Village players online. So, despite it’s cutesy look, Tiny Village is a highly capable and interactive tycoon game in its own right.
To help you get acclimatised to the game there are series of mini-tasks which are shown on the left of the screen. These help you build little houses and early resources. The idea is to expand you village and grow ever bigger. Similar then to games like My Country or Rock the Vegas.
Tiny Village allows you to use real money to purchase in-game currency. This is divided into coins, and the more flexible crystals. Crystals are the currency items that enable the most progress. While there isn’t quite the reliance on these items than there is in similar games, I did think the prices of crystals were pretty steep. There is even an optimistic option in the crystal market for users to buy 1400 crystals for $99.99! You do begin with a few of these crystals to get you started however, so use them wisely!
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Tiny Village – Early settlements
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Tiny Village – Building dialogue
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Tiny Village – Wood cutter and quarry
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Tiny Village – Place items
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Tiny Village – Notifications scatter thoughout the game to let you know when something needs to be done
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Tiny Village – Pre-game backstory
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Tiny Village – Mini tasks show you around the game
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Tiny Village – Haulers are required to ferry good from the resource stations to storage areas
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Tiny Village – Grow and expand the village
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Tiny Village – New dinos
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Tiny Village – Save up coins
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Tiny Village – Goal completed
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Tiny Village – Buy decorations
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Tiny Village – Settings
Fun Factor:
If you’re a fan of the tycoon genre, this will be right up your pre-historic street. It’s a game you dip into on a regular basis rather than prolonged periods of play, but it’s fun and there are always new elements of build on and explore.
Addictive:
Once immersed into the features and functions of the game it can become as addictive as any accumulation game. Because of the characters and gradual expansion, it reminded me of games such as Farmville and Cityville; so people who love this kind of game on platforms like Facebook will probably love Tiny Village on their mobile device.
Graphics:
Graphics are pretty cute and very well themed without being really amazing. The theme though is cool and works throughout the gameplay area and menus. It is all has a very Flintstones feel to it and it works well.
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
The sound is a kind of plinky-plunky musical score that is on loop which is bearable for a while, but can be muted for those of you with less tolerance!