SimCity: BuildIt

SimCity: BuildIt
Developer(s)	Maxis EA Track Twenty
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Series	SimCity
Platform(s)	iOS Android
Release	Android CAN: October 22, 2014 WW: December 16, 2014 iOS CAN/AUS/NZL: October 24, 2014 WW: December 16, 2014
Genre(s)	City-building simulation, mobile game
Mode(s)	Single-player with multiplayer functions

SimCity: BuildIt is a city-building simulation mobile game. Developed by EA Maxis and published by Electronic Arts, it was launched in late 2014. The game is part of the SimCity franchise.^[1]

SimCity: BuildIt is a game developed for mobile gameplay. It is available for download for iOS and Android. It is a free simulation game in the app store and play store.

This game allows users to solve real-life situations like fire, pollution, and traffic. Players can connect and compete with other users for more connected gameplay. ^[2]

Gameplay

The game is free-to-play, with in-app purchases. The game utilizes music as well as graphics similar to the 2013 SimCity game, although it is slightly down scaled in order to fit in with the iOS and Android devices' graphic capabilities. The game starts with 25,000 simoleons and 50 SimCash on hand. There is no zoning feature in SimCity: BuildIt. Instead, buildings are moved manually. Commercial and industrial buildings produce items, and residential zones require them in order to upgrade to a higher density. Factories can also be upgraded, although it requires demolishing the original building when it is not producing anything, then replacing it with a new one.

There are also special buildings based on Season tournaments; and based on holidays such as Christmas, New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving that can be placed in the city. Each season plays every three months, giving the categories of the types of buildings every season for a limited time such as movie studio buildings, amusement park buildings, wild west buildings, special landmark buildings, extra university buildings, parade buildings, and buildings based on real world promotional events such as the promotion of the Lays Max potato chips. These occasional buildings based on the Season tournaments and holidays provide a beautiful look and appearance of the city. Once you have used all the City space available, you can only store or swap out these buildings, but the game now has three additional Regions that you can switch to and develop. This has extended the gameplay to provide varied new land, buildings, and materials and lets you also use the Season buildings.

The player can only build two-lane roads using the build tool. The player cannot manually build higher-capacity roads; they must upgrade them instead. Initially, only two, four and six-lane roads are available at launch; three more road types (avenues, boulevards, and streetcar avenues) were introduced in Disasters update.

Users get to be the mayor of their own towns and make choices in order to keep their townspeople happy. Users can trade, chat, and join clubs with others players for connected online gameplay.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic 58/100[3] Review scores Publication Score IGN 3.5/5[4] X-Play 3/5 Pocket Gamer 2.5/5[5] TouchArcade [6] PC Magazine 4/5

As of October 2017, the application has seen over 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store and ranks number four all-time in simulation games downloads operating on Android.

References