7. Tiny Death Star

Tiny Death Star
Developed by Disney Mobile and Nimblebit
LucasArts, 2013

Genre
Simulation

Honors
None known

Review

"Where have you been?!" exclaims Emperor Palpatine as I return to the Death Star.  "Behold! While you were away, the Death Star has earned...1341 credits."  This app for Android and Apple platforms puts you in the world of Star Wars on the Dark Side, helping Emperor Palpatine build the Death Star level by level.  Similar to Nimblebit's earlier game, Tiny Tower, the player starts with a lobby level and enough Credits to buy a Residential level to start the tutorial.  After completing the tutorial, the player knows almost all there is to the game and starts the process of earning credits, the main in-game currency.  Most tasks in the game require a waiting period that increases as the player levels up.  "Bux", the other in-game currency, can be earned slowly or purchased with real money (a password can be required to make in-game purchases, helping to ensure any undesired purchases don't occur).  It can be used to speed up the waiting periods, making it tempting to spend money often.  There really is no storyline to the game; players just earn enough credits to keep increasing the size of their Death Star.  Even when the app is closed, credits are being earned and time still goes by.  Overall, this is a repetitive, but fun game that you can revisit frequently during the day to make sure your Death Star is running smoothly and keeping the Emperor's plans on track.

Opinion
My experience is that the older version of this game had lots of bugs and caused problems on my phone, so I stopped playing.  When I got a new phone, I revisited the app for this project and found that the developers updated it and many people, including myself, haven't had problems since.  New features were added, like connecting to Facebook which allows the player to earn rewards as their friends work on their own Death Stars.  I have found this app to be an entertaining time waster and visit it frequently in short bursts as it is a game you can put down at any time without affecting progress.  Being able to put it down is a different challenge as the repetitive tasks in the game can become very attractively mind-numbing and addicting.

Idea
While not intended to be educational, it helps players learn to manage resources by deciding if they want to use their limited resources to make purchases in the moment, or if they would like to save for a larger goal.