TGDB.net - Game news, cheats, solutions, walkthroughs, trainers, saved games and much more!

-------------------------------
SimTower FAQ/Walkthrough for PC
-------------------------------
Author: Kiwizoid
First Print Date: 2/25/04
Latest Update Date: 9/19/04
You are reading Version 1.37

This FAQ should only be on:
Gamefaqs.com(most recent version available here)
DLH.net
neoseeker.com

If you see this FAQ on any other website than the ones listed above, please
notify me at kiwizoid-san@japan.com.

Contents*:
1) Intro(SNES)
2) Version History(DMCT)
3) Getting Started(NINT)
4) Transportation(WIDW)
5) Buildings(PSX)
6) Events(ATRI)
7) Walkthrough(FEB)
8) Semi-Cheats(PS2)
9) FAQ(JAN)
10) Credits(SEGA)
11) Copyright(SONY)
*The words in parentheses are shortcuts to the section before it. For example,
SNES is the shortcut to Intro. To get there, hit Ctrl-F on your keyboard and
type in SNES. Hit Enter, and it should lead you straight to the Intro section.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Intro SNES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wow, my first FAQ, and I have NO idea what to say.

SimTower is probably the best Sim game I have played in a long time. It has a
sort of...nostalgic value to it. It is the game you play when you have one of
those days where you want to play a game from your past (Super Mario RPG for me)
that you loved but don't have the old system anymore. It's a game that has a
simple foundation, but gives you the most difficult time trying to achieve the
goals. You start playing and can't get off of it. The game gets to you through
pure addiction. Starting at the beginning is simple and people underestimate
the game. "No problem. At this rate, Tower rating will be mine by the end of
the day!" By the end of the day, however, you're at a three star rating and
are close to pulling out your hair trying to keep your tenants happy. You're
either going to love this game for that difficulty or you're going to hate it.

Any questions, comments, or suggestions can be sent to kiwizoid-san@japan.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Version History DMCT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.37 - 9/19/04
------------
When did this margin rule occur? Arrgh... i'm going to be spending some time
fixing all these errors and making sure it doesn't go over the required 80
characters.

Version 1.36 - 9/19/04
------------
No, I did NOT forget about this guide...I just never got around to writing it.
With the addition of school homework on my regular schedule comes the
annoucement that I have received two e-mails since my last update 5 months ago.
These two e-mails alone have reminded me that there are people around the world
are reading this guide and it is my sole duty to finish it. So, I'm pleased to
say that this guide will be finished soon enough! Hopefully. This update is
really just to add in that I'm not dead and that I'm adding in the two comments
which are pretty awesome. Big thanks to David Zhong and John Kao (I hope I
spelled those right...) for re inspiring me to finish this guide. You may have
noticed that this is Version 1.36. So, where's 1.35? I skipped it. I felt that
this wasn't too big of an update to receive a full .1 upgrade, but it was too
big to received only a .01 upgrade. So it receives a .02 upgrade.

Version 1.34 - 4/12/04
------------
Started 3 Star Walkthrough. Still no e-mails... :(

Version 1.24 - 3/5/04
------------
Changed 2 star requirements to needing only 1 Security Office, not two.

Version 1.23 - 3/4/04
------------
Started the walkthrough section.

Version 1.13 - 3/3/04
------------
I feel so popular... added neoseeker.com to my accepted sites list.

Version 1.12 - 3/1/04
------------
Added DLH.net to the accepted sites list.

Version 1.11 - 2/28/04
------------
I won't be working on it every day, but I still have a lot of stuff I forgot
about.
-Added in FAQ section(coming soon).
-Added Rain in events.
-Added in Walkthrough(coming soon).

Version 1.01 - 2/27/04
------------
-Added something in semi-cheats from GameWinners.

Version 1.00 - 2/26/04
------------
There. I think that's everything. There's still a lot of stuff missing that I
can't remember, but it can be added in later. Here's to finishing my first FAQ,
I guess.

Version 0.50 - 2/26/04
------------
The morning after... Mainly got through Buildings and finished up the
Transportation section. Going online soon, hopefully.

Version 0.00 - 2/25/04
------------
After writing the Intro, I can see how much work this will be. Expect a lot of
changes as I get submissions (if any =P).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Getting Started NINT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every game has a goal to reach and rules to set. The section here is going to
explain those goals and give personal advice.

Clicking on New Tower gives you a mini-map, an info bar (with a clock), and a
tool window. Looking on your mini-map shows blue skies, moving clouds, and a
gray box showing what you are looking at. By the time you've become experienced
at the game, the blue skies will be replaced by a giant gray shape that is your
tower.

The mini-map in detail will show many things eventually, but for right now has
four buttons on top: Edit, Eval, Pricing, and Hotel, currently grayed out.
You should currently be in Edit mode; if not, click on it. See how the clouds
are moving in it? Edit mode is the only mode where time will pass in the game.
Eval mode will automatically pause the game. The gray in here will either turn
blue, yellow, or red. These represent your buildings. As described just below
the buttons, blue means an excellent evaluation of the building. Don't change
a thing. They're happy, so leave them. Yellow is the cautionary status of a
building; this is still nothing to worry about. However, if you ever see a red
building, this is where you worry. At the beginning of each quarter, some red
tenants will move out, and you lose the profit of the rent. This is bad for
condos, because after the current tenants move out, more might move in almost
instantly. Condos are the only building that you *cannot* change the rent for
after purchasing. All other buildings are OK.

Each rentable building has four price levels, which vary. The next button,
Pricing, shows the price level for each building by a color, again explained
underneath the buttons. Red colors mean the price is at the highest rent price.
Yellow signals the average price (second from top in drop list), green coloring
is sort of low (second from bottom), where as blue is the lowest rent available.
My personal strategy has been to set all the prices to blue. This generates the
lowest income, but a blue price also gives an indefinite blue Eval as well. In
other words, the tenants never move out when they're given the lowest price of
the bunch. I find it handy, even though I lose most of my 2.1 million income to
a 2 million maintenance cost.

The hotel buildings are a building that become useable starting with the single
room at the two star level. The minimap will show rooms that are dirty in red.
In order to clean them, you need a housekeeping staff, also available at star
two. However, note two things about housekeeping: a) They CANNOT be bulldozed.
Once you place them, they sit there until the end of your tower, good or bad.
Therefore, plan carefully as to what you will do before you place items like
housekeeping. b) The maids will not use a regular elevator to move between
floors. Instead, you need a service elevator to transport maids. This may be
confusing, but all will be explained.

With the mini-map finished with, go ahead and close it with the little square
in the top-left corner of the mini-map, not the whole application. You can open
it later in the windows menu. The next focus is on the info bar with the clock.

The clock is... well, a clock. If you can't read analog, it's OK. The clock is
sort of unimportant in the whole scheme of things, unless you like watching
people on their lunch break or something. You'll have more important stuff to
do anyways.

The star is your rating. As you can see, there are four hollow slots for you
to fill with stars. So, how do you get the stars? The little chart here will try
to help.
Stars Requirements
----- ------------
1 None; you start here.
2 Population of 300
3 Population of 1,000 & 1 Sec. Office
4 Pop. of 5,000, more than one Hotel Suite, Recycle & Medical
demands met, and a favorable VIP rating (see Events about it)
5 Pop. of 10,000 and a Metro Station underground
TOWER Pop. of 15,000 and a Cathedral. (VERY hard! Been here once)

To the right of those stars is a chart e.g. 1st WD/1Q/1st Year. This means:
First Weekday of the first quarter of the first year. In each quarter, there are
2 weekdays and 1 weekend. Office workers show up on the weekdays, while most
shopping profits can be made on the weekend. After the weekend, it's the first
weekday of the next quarter. After the fourth quarter, it's a new year.
Offices fork over the rent at the beginning of each quarter, so be sure to make
the tenants happy before then, or you'll lose money.

Fund and Pop are your funds and your tower population. Pretty self-explanatory.

The little white box at the bottom of the info bar is very, very, important.
That box tells you the important things in your tower: when your buildings are
sold, transportation problems, when your recycling centers are full, etc. Pay
attention to it. Some messages go too fast to read, but they will be repeated
most of the time.

Some advice for your starting tower: don't make your tower lobby too big. You
won't be able to jump all hurdles in a single bound. Instead, try something
simple and use offices. Offices have a good population with low risks if you
try a variation of my low-price policy. This game isn't linear at all, so
experiment a little! Half of this game is trial and error; the other half is
frustration. I personally believe condos can be good, but have caused too many
of my towers to fall in later years. Just try to use offices, since you can
change rent whenever you want. When you get into later stars, try adding a hotel
division to your tower.

Oh, right. Something I forgot... offices are loud and busy, and will annoy
buildings like hotels and condos, but don't mind being next to each other. So,
If you do build hotels, use the magnifying glass to make sure there's no note
that says "Office neighbor is too noisy". If it does, move it further away.

That about does it, I think.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Transportation WIDW
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transportation is no joke in this game. Long elevator waits will stress outside
visitors and might discourage them from suggesting the tower to friends and
family. This can then lead to those people not coming back and causing less
customers in shops and fast food stores, effectivly killing $5,000 from your
funds and in the long run, assuming you do not recognise the problem at hand,
kill your tower expansion. If you are foolish enough to try and raise money by
raising rent, which you hopefully aren't, it then encourages the office tenants
to move and kill another $3-4,000 of your funds until you're stuck with an empty
tower. But, that's a worst case sceneario. In reality, it won't get that bad,
but it helps not to get all of your customers angry at your one elevator.

Sims will only take two methods of transportation to their destination. For
example, let's say you have two elevator shafts. One shaft goes from floors
1-30 and the other goes from 30-59. Elevators can only span a maximum of 30
floors, so this would be neccesary to reach something like floor 58. The Sim
enters the tower on floor 1 and needs to get to his office on floor 58. There
is only one elevator car running the 30 floor shaft. The Sim was late to work
and showed up during the lunch hour. Assuming 2 Sims were on every floor except
1, the elevator would pick up the first 21 people and rush to floor B1. It
rushes back up to the next floor and so on and so on. The Sim finally gets to