Star Wars: Tiny Death Star hands-on review: all personality, not much fun

In my time with the game, I was constantly making sure that the stores and restaurants were stocked with goods, and the underground Imperial machinations were progressing as you might hope. Even during the course of writing this hands-on review of the game, I had to take a few breaks to pop open the game and see what was happening. And, I found myself spending real life cash money to get more stuff in the game. From all of this, you might think that I would have a lot of positive comments about Tiny Death Star; but, the trouble was that I eventually realized that I wasn't actually having any fun. 

While the game is available on Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows 8, for the purpose of this review I played Tiny Death Star on a Nexus 5 running stock Android 4.4 KitKat.

All personality with some annoyances...

That's not to say that there is nothing to like about the game. It is positively brimming with personality and small touches. The 8-bit characters are well designed, and there are quite a lot of so-called "bitizens" to populate your ever-expanding Death Star. Early on in the game, you'll mostly be seeing fairly generic characters with a few crowd favorites thrown in, and more well-known characters added in over time. One of the first characters that will pop up is a generic Gungan (not specifically Jar Jar Binks), and you will see numerous Princess Leias coming into the Death Star. And, there seems to be no real rhyme or reason as to what levels the characters ask to go to. 

I've seen Princess Leia show up and be asked to go to a restaurant, the gym, a random residential level, or even to one of the Imperial level. And, despite the fact that everyone knows Leia to be sympathetic to the Rebels, you have no choice but to deliver her to the Imperial level if that's where she wants to go. Of course, it's not like she can steal any secrets or anything, so no harm, no foul, I guess.

Sometimes, when a character goes to a certain level, you will see a short cut-scene. The first of which involves the Gungan getting squashed by Jabba the Hut. Unfortunately, these cut-scenes are only activated on certain levels. So, if you don't have the right level, or the right character doesn't ask to go to that level, you may never see the cut-scene. For example, I have only seen 2 out of the 26 cut-scenes listed, despite having built about 10 levels that have cut-scenes available; and, this is over the course of 4 days of fairly constant playing. Similarly, the more famous characters are very slow to become unlocked, and this could contribute to the lack of cut-scenes because they may require more famous characters to activate.

The music is a nice 8-bit variant on the well-known Star Wars theme and Imperial March, but in all the time I played, I never heard anything other than those two songs. And, there would be long bouts of nothing except the hum of the elevator, and the droid sounds of items being made. Beyond all that there is a Twitter-like feed of status posts by the bitizens in your Death Star, but there is basically no reason to bother looking at that, and there is the actual "gameplay" if you want to call it that.

Look, right off the bat, you may love this game, but I did not. It felt like a never-ending grind with no real challenge, no objective, and no rewards. The entire "gameplay" mechanic is simply tapping your stores and restaurants, and making sure items are in stock. In-stock items generate credits, which are used to build more levels, where the process begins again. Really, that's it. 

Sure, there are layers on top of that, but they really don't add much. Each bitizen has ratings for different job categories which translate into faster production times on items; and, each has a "dream job" which gives you a supply boost if you put them in the right place. You can also move around levels, so get more customers. But, that just varies the core process which is just waiting for items to be made, collecting them, waiting for them to be sold, and making new items. There are also missions from the Emperor, but those really just serve to tell you what to do next and don't add much. Some are random (like capturing Rebels), so they can take a long time to even present themselves, and it isn't something you can actively work towards. 

Don't get me wrong, it's an addictive system; but, addictive is not the same as fun. Addictive means you feel like an idiot for dropping a total of $10 on in-app purchases. Which is exactly what I did. The in-app purchases come in because the addition to the "gameplay" is "bux" which allow you to speed up processes in the game. So, you can spend 1 bux (apparently the singular and plural is the same) on instantly finishing item production, or item sales. You can also spend bux to upgrade supply amounts on levels, speed up construction of a level, unlock characters or unlock elevators. 

And, that last one is the absolute worst of them all. There is literally no other way to unlock faster elevators than to spend bux. The elevator is the only mode of transport to get bitizens to each level; and, once your Death Star gets big, that elevator can be the most aggravating thing in the world because it makes everything feel so slow. Sure, you can save up all your bux and maybe just maybe have enough to get the first upgrade to the elevator which costs 25 bux. But, after that, you're into real money territory, because saving up 75 bux for the next upgrade would take a long long time. 

The problem with Star Wars: Tiny Death Star isn't that it's a free-to-play game, because there have been plenty of examples of free-to-play done well, like Plants vs Zombies 2, Robot Unicorn Attack 2, Draw Something 2, or even Puzzle and Dragons. There have also been plenty of good games that offer management level gameplay in a fun way like Sim City or Football Manager. But, Tiny Death Star does neither well. Instead, Tiny Death Star is more on the level of a Star Wars-themed Farmville - there is no skill involved, it is just a grind.