A representation of my modest Hawaiian Yoot Tower.
I’m not sure if I have ever seen a Hawaiian hotel feature a ocean facing billboard for aquarium simulation software before (Aquazone); but thats the exact fantasy you can live out in Yoot Tower! The 1998 Sega published sequel to SimTower from director Yoot Saito. The goal is to build as big of a retail/hotel/apartment tower as you can while keeping everyone happy and maybe toss a little flair into the works. The flair is whats going to stand out to anyone wondering why they should give this 20 year old title a chance. I am sure many other Sim/Design games have come along with far better quality of life options and customization, but no others are going to have the quirks and charm that Yoot Saito brings to the table. He’s got a proven track record at this sort of thing; show me a luggage sorting simulator that is more charming than his 2012 3DS release Aero Porter! Don’t get me wrong, the Maxis titles in the 90s were certainly charming, thats why I assume Yoots initial “The Tower” grabbed their attention to fold it into their Sim line. I’ve never played the initial SimTower title, but my internet research has made me believe that Yoot Tower improves on SimTower – still features all the strengths, fixes a few weaknesses, and maintains a bit of the obtuse and confusing economics of the game. My lack of instruction manual made it a bit of a challenge to understand how to accomplish a lot of the basic initial goals, but with some research and some time to fail and experiment i’ve begun to get a hang of things and have my visitors saying aloud “I hope to get the Potato” or “I have a lower back pain”
Above is an illustration of my modest Hawaiian hotel. Its got a few floors of twin rooms, a few suites, and some condos for sale on the top floor. There is a burger restaurant in the basement. Its turning a profit. Plus, as mentioned above, a nice big billboard for the real life software “Aquazone: Desktop Life” on the outside of the building to get some exposure to anyone buzzing by on their Sea-Doo. Why bother with the real thing below the waves when you can go inside and load up “Aquazone 2: Deluxe with Guppies!” Err, wait, no — thats from the OTHER series of series of aquarium simulation software called Aquazone, not OPeNBook9003’s (developer of Yoot Tower) series of aquarium simulators. Ive gotten myself distracted! Lets get back to Yoot Tower, here is an inside view of my hotel:
Yoot Tower holds up quite well in 2019, it has a lot going for it if you can allow yourself some of the learning curve. Plus, this 1998 Windows 95 game still works (mostly) perfectly fine in Windows 10! I did read some people having issues with save files getting corrupted in Windows Vista/7, but mine have loaded with no issues in Windows 10. There is some graphical issues with the daylight transitions, but that is not too distracting. Its an extremely relaxing a charming title, and you can just let it run in the backround — maybe a V.I.P. will show up to honor your efforts!
PRO TIP: Use CRTL+SHIFT+ALT+D to get a huge “Debug Bonus!!” of $500 million dollars to give you all the leeway you want. However, it does seem to be a legit Debug Mode because all of the visitors comments change to what their programmed route and goal is, rather than the usual fun phrases like “Run or miss the bus”, but it seems to revert to standard speech when you load the save.