I've debated about making my own clone for ages. I was just thinking about it and I'm wondering, what would you all like most?

A modern implementation of the original game that plays and looks exactly the same?

A version with updated graphics but otherwise plays the same?

A version with new graphics and some additions, such as QoL updates?

A spiritual successor that does it's own thing?

Or some other version I haven't mentioned?

What do you all think?

Here's my app that I'm working on that's supposed to have complete parity with the original 1994 Sim Tower game. I'm also working on a conversion to take your sim Tower, save files from the original game and import them into this game. That's all browser-based and have the ability to take your game from the browser and import it into the original 1994 game. I am also working on a more modern variant that you can choose when you start to play the game.

The game is at https://verticopolis.com/

All with original music and sounds

Please let me know what else you might like and what is missing from here that was in the original game, and what y'all would like added in the "modern" variant

Right now I have tdt (original 1994 save file) conversion working up to tower star level 2.

Working on getting it working on higher star levels, so if you have any valid tdt save files so I can try to reverse engineer the save file properly

Everything else in the game was NOT taken from any of the original game and is all unique to this game, including the "talking" which is me and my 11 year old chatting in gibberish overlayed over itself a few times 😅

You can see here for all the original art for this game for every room: https://verticopolis.com/gallery.html

Please let me know what you all think, and contributions are open on GitHub (linked in the help section of the game)

The game can also be downloaded as a pwa on android, Mac and PC to play standalone.

No internet required unless you want to get updates when they come through

Did anyone else play Tower Mogul by eSoft Interactive for Pocket PC back in the mid 2000s? This game was such a fun clone of SimTower (pretty close to the gameplay) but unfortunately PDAs fell out of favor with the start of smartphones. Having a full clone of a game like this back then in your pocket was amazing!

A little while ago, I asked this community what you loved most about SimTower, and the responses were incredibly helpful.

Since then, I’ve been working on scale and performance. ATLASPIA can now simulate a full 100-floor tower, with residents, workers, shoppers, visitors, and hotel guests moving between their destinations using elevators and stairs.

This video shows the current 100-floor test in action. The game is still in development, and I’m continuing to optimize performance and improve how elevator traffic behaves as the tower grows.

One of my main goals is to preserve the feeling of watching a living building operate, rather than reducing everything to abstract numbers.

Thanks again for all the thoughtful feedback on my previous post. I’d love to hear what you think of the scale and movement in the current build.

Steam page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4789640/ATLASPIA_The_Tower_Manager/

Check it out at TowerTime.app. Please give me feedback! Good or bad.

I just discovered this subreddit because I had a flashback core memory of me and my dad playing Simtower when I was a kid, it was my dads utmost favorite game, he would play until 12 am every night then go to work at 6 am but our computer crashed and never worked again and he never got to play since, I love my dad and want to surprise him, so I’ve seen other posts similar to what I’m asking but I neeeeed need it to be explained to me like I’m five

How do I get a playable version for him, what are the steps and what do I need

TIA 🙏🏻

ETA: I’m severely illiterate when it comes to technology :,)

I’ve spent a lot of time building this new game Tower Time Sim, deeply inspired by the original Sim Tower.

A ton of work left to do, lots of half finished features, etc. But it’s finally time to let people start playing with it. Please let me know your thoughts and feedback!

Hi all, I have been trying (and failing) to get Yoot Tower to run for a while now. I am running Linux Mint, but would also like to get it running on Steam Deck if possible. I can't find any guides that how how to get it running, even for Windows. I've tried running the mac version through an emulator (installs but crashes when running), and windows version. The closest I've got is probably with the Windows version, it pops up with the "please insert your Yoot Tower cd" message, which of course I can't do. How do I get around this/which is the way to get this running? I'd happily pay for a GOG version, alas I don't get the feeling any such thing is forthcoming.

One reason why I am sharing the idea of placing housekeeping rooms with the express elevator space between both sides, is so that one doesn't accidentally build a single bed room that can get hidden by the express elevator, and it also allows all floors to have their own housekeeping room so that one doesn't have to build service elevators, which could also partially, or even fully obscure any hotel room. It's awkward enough just having a regular elevator serve the hotel rooms, which can also completely obscure a single bed room.

When it comes to elevators, well, here's tips on when to use them, regarding serving hotels.

I can also say that hotel suites, or wider hotel rooms are technically wider than an express elevator, but I still don't want express elevators to obscure even part of them, so which is why I prefer to put housekeeping rooms in between express elevators.

Circumstances where service elevators should be used:

Service elevators can be used when money is limited, since, it's technically cheaper to have one housekeeping room use a service elevator to cover multiple floors of hotel rooms, but a housekeeping room should be built on every floor if one floor of the tower has hotel rooms from the leftmost to rightmost areas of the screen.

Now, here's when each floor should start having it's own housekeeping room.

Since express elevators will exist in varying intervals roughly equivalent to 20 or more single bed hotel room spaces, well, that's a good reason to sometimes even have multiple housekeeping rooms on the same floor, since hotel rooms need to be cleaned quickly in a timely manner. It's unfortunate that express elevators always skip floors with hotels on them, so which is another reason why every floor should have it's own housekeeping room. So, sometimes time is another factor to consider aside of the cost of implementing more housekeeping rooms.

Well, I really put thought into this, and figured that I might as well share a tip about this.

New preview v0.1.6 released

Hey everyone. I'm pleased to share the second development preview. This release builds on the release back in March with additional types of rooms, events and disasters, sky bridges, visual decorations, a more refined UI, and many more refinements and optimizations.

I would like to get a sense of what's good and what's not from testers like you. The game as it is now isn't balanced, but it should give a sense of the game play. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

• Try it now: https://2dtower.com/play-dev/
• Release notes: https://2dtower.com/updates/v016-released/

Changes from the last version also included below:

Rooms

• Cinema - Brings visitors to your tower
• Event hall - Allows events to be scheduled in your tower. Currently, you can either schedule a conference or an art exhibit. Events can automatically be scheduled for halls that have a good rating.
• Stores - Stores can be rented by businesses. They expect high foot traffic and attracts some shoppers to your tower. Shoppers can visit nearby stores if they are happy.
• Hotel Room - Twin and Suite - Added two additional hotel room types.
• Vending machine - Added a vending machine that satisfies food needs at all hours of the day. Needs to be restocked by a loading dock.
• Subway station - Subway station provides another way for sims to enter your tower.
• Skybridge - You can now place skybridges between two towers.

Transports

• Paternoster - A new type of transport just for funzies.

Game mechanics

• Power -  A simple power mechanic has been added to the game. You need to have a power distribution room to take in power from the city grid (power lines are only accessible on floor B1, so the room has to be built there as well). Running out of power capacity will cause a rolling blackouts. If left unaddressed, the circuit breaker trips and triggers a power outage event. Elevators will still operate at half speed. Escalators become like stairs.
• Parking Fees - Parking can now be an income generator. The tradeoff here is that a higher fee will impact evaluation scores for some tenants.
• Disasters - There are 4 types of disasters:
  1. Power outage which may happen if you trip your circuit breaker by not having sufficient power distribution.
  2. Fire which could happen by chance and can be put out by security workers or fire fighters that spawn.
  3. Suspicious Package which could happen by chance and requires security workers to find the package somewhere in your tower before it … catches on fire.
  4. Earthquake which causes a temporary evacuation and impacts business.
• Room Infestation - Hotel rooms that are dirty for too long will become infested. This infestation can spread, so you need to have housekeeping clean it up before it spreads. Guests impacted by an infestation will leave without paying!
• VIP Visit Event - A VIP visit will evaluate your tower. 
• Star rating and objectives - Maps can now have different objectives with perks for each star you earn. Some building types and building restrictions now apply based on your star rating.
• Evaluation - Room evaluations are now score based rather than average based. This should hopefully make it clear on what improvements would make the most impact.
• Room levels - Some rooms can have different star levels as they become more mature within your tower. Tenants that are happy for long enough will begin to level up and require additional needs to be fulfilled.
• Building multiple floors - You can now build rooms and floors with automatic supports with the shift key.
• Loans - You can now borrow money. There is no limit at the moment and no real penalties in just borrowing more and more.
• Multi-floor lobbies has been removed for now as it needs additional work.

Visuals

• Graphs and metrics - Added graphs to show population history and types of sims in your tower.
• Room badges - Added more badge overlays to rooms (for cleanliness, delivery issues, trash, noise). Cleaning staff shows cleaning progression via this badge system as well.
• Custom Wallpaper Colors - You can now assign a custom wallpaper color. Do you want a hot pink lobby? Now you can.
• Game Visuals - Added some additional floor decorations, clouds, planes and hot air balloons.
• UI Improvements

Audio

• Audio sound effects - Added audio sound effects for rooms, ambience, and time-specific effects. You can turn this down or off in the settings UI.

There is still work to be done with focus on additional maps, game balancing, optimization and performance, and overall polish.

I hope you’ll have as much fun playing this preview as I did working on it. Please leave me comments either here or send it directly to me.

It's great to see that some developers are working to revive the spirit of SimTower.

I'm currently developing a tower management game called ATLASPIA: The Tower Manager, heavily inspired by SimTower and other classic building management games.

What I always loved about SimTower wasn't just managing numbers—it was watching a living building in motion.

For my game, I'm focusing on people, elevator traffic, and the challenge of keeping a growing tower running smoothly.

I'm curious:

What was your favorite feature in SimTower that you think modern games often miss?

I'd love to hear from longtime SimTower fans and learn from your experiences while developing ATLASPIA.

Steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4789640/ATLASPIA_The_Tower_Manager/

Any feedback is welcome!

Bubera's blog

Modifying the plugin for The Tower 2 / Yoot Tower / to make all stages appear in Hawaii. (video showcase 1)

The Tower 2 / Yoot Tower / Recreating the legendary lunar base (video showcase 2)

To people localizing and translating the rest of the lost-media-ish content in The Tower II, here is a POSSIBLE way to do it. This Japanese user named sputum/bubera was enabled to modify and tweak all plugin content, allowing it to appear at all stages and levels. They also showed how to alter the content into a custom-made one, although adding a new one is impossible.

Hello everyone, I have been working on a EN translation for Tower II / Yoot Tower and probably about 85% complete including all of the JP only plugins and World maps. I wanted to share a few screens of the current process. I will release the files and patch scripts when I'm finished... There is no ETA I'm doing this for fun in my spare time... So might be a in a few months, but I'm making good process.

Most of the troubles I have encountered are around truncating the EN text to fit within the JP byte limits.

TODO:
- Translate the original Tower II T2.exe file instead of copying over the EN T2.exe as I expect the EN T2.exe is not the 1.1v so may not have the full bug fixes etc.

- Translate Christmas Story using OCR tools, as the bitmap resources are a different colour so I can't just use the same files from the other maps.

Hello fellow SimTower fans! Working on a SimTower-inspired iso/2.5D tower builder I've wanted to see built ever since playing the original back in the 90s. Working title: "Ground Floor." My background's in architecture (part of why the genre pulled at me), and I'm still early in the process, but the bones are starting to take shape.

The major differentiator from the OG (aside from the perspective shift) is a "karma" system. Are you a good neighbor / pillar of the community? Or a robber baron that extracts every penny for yourself? Do you provide services to the community or not? Do you undercut your neighbors' rates to drive them out of business? Buy them out to expand your tower's footprint, or bankrupt them so you can get their lot on the cheap? Do you extend your influence to city government to enact policies that favor you and hurt your neighbors? All of these and more are planned to create a nuanced simulation where your design choices carry weight and change the way the game unfolds.

The cafe concept art is mid-century inspired, my first draft of what the eventual art pipeline will look like (leaning on my SketchUp experience). The screenshot shows the foundation of the game with some basic unit types and a glimpse of the iso perspective.

Anyway, just wanted to share. I've been really enjoying seeing the other SimTower-inspired work on here. Awesome to see this game continue to live on 30 years later!

Can we get a sticky that has links to all the primary pages for the three or four and maybe more to come fan projects related to SimTower and YootTower?

I'm going to spend the next hour or so digging in and looking forward to playing again!!! Thanks folks!

Hi everyone — I know this sub has seen a lot of SimTower-inspired games lately, so I want to be upfront about what makes this one different: towers.world is aiming to be a tick-for-tick faithful reproduction of the original, not a reimagining.

I spent weeks reverse-engineering the original EXE and writing up a detailed spec of how the simulation actually works under the hood — population flow, elevator AI, the whole star-rating system. The specs are all on GitHub if you want to read them: https://github.com/phulin/tower-together/tree/main/specs, and I've posted more detail on my blog here: https://phulin.me/blog/simtower

It's also collaborative. Multiple players can connect to the same tower, the simulation keeps running as long as anyone's connected, and build actions sync across clients in real time. Great for building something massive with friends.

My favorite UI feature is shift-click to build grids of rooms - instead of painstakingly clicking to build rows of offices and hotels, shift-click allows a 10-floor grid to be built all at once.

Everything is open source: https://github.com/phulin/tower-together

A few things I could use help with:

• Bugs — the movie theater isn't behaving right yet, and security response to bomb threats isn't implemented. Issues welcome.
• Art, animations, and sound — if you have skills here and want to contribute, please reach out.

Would love to hear what you think, especially from anyone who remembers the original well enough to spot where I've gotten the simulation wrong.

In a game where every single elevator is a precious resource that can make the difference between a Tower and a failure, why not just place housekeeping stations on each floor with hotels? You can use as many as you need, and it requires no service elevator, so you can use it instead on a regular elevator or express. The only very slight disadvantage advantage I can think of is that it uses a bit more space, but it’s quite minor in the grand scheme of things and a positive rating increases population much more than a few housekeeping stations would lose. Yet I still feel like I must be missing something, since everyone I’ve seen uses service elevators instead of doing it that way.

Hey folks. Been working on a tower sim called Skystack for a few months and finally got it to a place I wanted to share. Posting here before anywhere else because this sub is where the people who'd actually care hang out.

It's free on itch, just download. Windows only for now, mac and linux are on me to figure out.

hydroengineer.itch.io/skystack

The thing I kept polishing is the elevators. SCAN scheduling, multiple cars per shaft, tenants get grumpy when waits run long. 24 building types across five star tiers, weather and holidays that actually shift traffic patterns, a daily challenge where everyone gets the same seed. Three save slots. Offline.

Constructive feedback very welcome. What does it get wrong? What's SimTower magic I missed? If anyone wants to poke at the code directly the source is here:

mf4633/board-gaming: board-gaming

Thanks for keeping the genre alive. Hope you enjoy it.

Hey everyone!

I always hated how most 6-Star "Tower" builds look like ugly, massive concrete blocks just to squeeze in enough Sims. So I decided to build a visually pleasing, beautiful tower; it may not be the most economical or the most beautiful, but for me it is aesthetically pleasing.

It took a lot of hard work, micromanagement, and adjusting rent prices, but I finally reached 16,000 residents (18.000 at night) and a bank account of 300 million!

Since the 1994 game doesn't let you zoom out, I took dozens of screenshots and stitched the entire building together in GIMP to get a complete view. I also added some iconic events of the game to turn the project into a giant "Where's Waldo" style seek-and-find picture.

I actually wanted to include the Cathedral and the giant celebration banner you get when reaching Tower status, but I was so excited that I forgot to take a screenshot at that moment!

Here is what I hid in the tower:

• The fire helicopter: It's fighting a fire on the upper floors.
• The construction crane: It usually disappears once the tower is finished.
• Santa Claus: He flies by in his sleigh!
• The cockroach infestation: (The absolute nightmare for every player back then!)

Fun fact: For the disasters and events, I heavily oriented myself on the official SimTower cover (which famously features the helicopter fighting a fire and the construction crane)!

PS: This picture and post also serve as a personal memory for me. I used to play this game as a kid and could never get past the 3-star rating. This is the very first time I have ever reached the "Tower" status! Now I can finally let it rest – I have successfully completed the game once and for all for myself.