The guys from NimbleBit (developers of Tiny Tower, the game handpicked by Apple as iOS Game Of The Year) are on a bit of a tweeting spree tonight, blasting out two big ol’ gems of knowledge in as many hours.
First: Zynga just launched a new iOS game, and it looks a lot like Tiny Tower. Second (and this one makes that first bit all the more interesting): Zynga allegedly tried to buy NimbleBit at some point in the past, but NimbleBit turned them down.
The new game, Dream Heights, seems to only be available in Canada thus far. Perhaps Zynga thought those nice folk north of the Border somehow hadn’t heard of Tiny Tower yet? It’s not like it’s a hugely popular game with a massive fan base or anything, right?
As word of Zynga’s latest release got back to them, NimbleBit’s David Marsh hinted at the refused buy-out:
Even when you refuse to go work for Zynga, sometimes you end up doing work for Zynga anyway.
A few minutes later, co-founder Ian Marsh swooped in and nailed out the confirmation:
They did go the honest route and try to acquire us first.
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Bringing it all together, the NimbleBit guys blasted out the image below comparing the two.
Inspiration is one thing — but this… is pretty friggin’ blatant. One could argue that Tiny Tower is itself influenced by past games like SimTower, but seriously, just look:
We’ve reached out to Zynga for a comment, but haven’t heard anything back on the matter just yet.
