2020: My Country breaks ground on Windows Phone and Windows RT

Last month, Russian publisher Game Insight’s popular city building game 2020: My Country launched on Windows 8. The game did not run on Windows RT at that time, nor was the Windows Phone 8 version ready. Optimizing for ARM-based hardware takes a little more time, and Game Insight wanted to get the lead version out in the wild in the meantime.

One month later, 2020: My Country has arrived on Windows Phone 8! And the Windows RT version is now available as well. If you enjoy free to play town-building games, the sequel to the original My Country is definitely worth a try. Read on for impressions and Store links!

Build the city of the future on your phone

The Windows Phone 8 version of 2020: My Country plays just like its bigger brother. You’ll start out with a tiny city on the cusp of major growth. Erect buildings, hire professionals to work at those buildings, and complete missions to unlock new things to build. Like other free to play city builders, it’s a time-based game; everything takes real time to complete. That works well on the phone, since you can check in when you have a few minutes throughout the day.

The phone version, like the RT game, understandably runs a bit slower than the Windows 8 game. You can’t pan around quite as fast, but it’s not a big deal. The UI actually fits the phone screen a lot better than the Windows 8 version does when running on a high resolution monitor.

2020 doesn’t support cloud saving on any platforms, so Windows Phone and 8/RT players can’t share save data yet. But fear not! Game Insight plans to incorporate cloud saves at some point in the future.

Lonely Island

Since the Windows Phone 8 version of 2020 popped up, users have noticed that the Friends feature is down. Try to access it and you’ll receive a message telling you to check your internet connection.

You get access to the Friends menu upon reaching level 6 in the game and completing a specific mission. Ordinarily, it would allow players to send gifts to friends and visit their cities. Helping friends gets you Reputation stars. Acquire enough rep and you’ll unlock a few exclusive monuments for your town. Honestly, the rewards for friendly interaction aren’t very compelling. Still, it’s always fun to see how your fellow players’ countries fare.

As it turns out, the Friends connection issues don’t only apply to the Windows Phone 8 game. The Windows 8 and RT versions are experiencing the same issues right now. That means the problem is coming from Game Insight’s servers. The publisher is aware of the problem and hopes to get 2020’s social server back up soon.

Head on over to My Country

2020: My Country is one of the best free to play city building games in town. The genre is not for everyone. Waiting for energy refills or tasks to complete can be a drag. But with the right temperament, games like this can be a lot of fun. Learn more about 2020 in our full review.

  • 2020: My Country – Windows Phone 8 – 41 MB – Free – Store Link
  • 2020: My Country – Windows 8 and RT – 94 MB – Free – Store Link (opens in new tab)

Paul Acevedo

Paul Acevedo is the Games Editor at Windows Central. A lifelong gamer, he has written about videogames for over 15 years and reviewed over 350 games for our site. Follow him on Twitter @PaulRAcevedo. Don’t hate. Appreciate!

34 Comments
  • Finally!
  • it has happened to me, right in front of my face, and I just can not hide it.
  • It´s there for a while.   BTW Dragon´s Lair is on the Windows Store as an XBox Title
  • Saw that. $9.99 for a click cartoon?!?!?!? Are they nuts. Very nostalgic, but they have reintroduced this game a dozen times now and WAY overcharge for it everytime. No way this game is worth $10.
  • Yes, i´m not going to buy it either.....too expensive.
  • Pls give me its link here cant find it on store
  • http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/8a7ae321-96fb-4c9a-a9f5-c9840bed7fc5    
  • I'm old enough to remember this in the arcades (yes, when arcades still existed). It was awful then, it's awful now.
  • I'll play it when I can transfer my city between devices. But what if me not playing it is the one player they need to actually develop that feature. But I really want that feature... ;)
    Seems like a fun game
  • I am with you, if my game doesn't sync across all my devices I won't play it. I switch phones and tablets so often. Game developers really need to understand that this feature is absolutely required.
  • And also requiring Facebook to play the full game is so annoying. I will never have a Facebook account, these developers need to use Xbox Live for Windows RT / Windows Phone games.
  • Better to make an account to use just when things require it. Doesn't hurt you at all.
  • Exactly. For game save state I just made a 'fake' facebook account.
  • I feel the same way.
  • Same here. If at least there was a way to backup your data so if there is a problem and you need to reinstall you don't need to start over.
  • +1
  • Have it for my Surface 2. Confusing at first, but you kind of get the hang of it on your own after a while. Other than that a very nicely polished game.
  • Got too break free anyone? :D
  • No Cloud Save killed the first game. Still not being here is a fail to and I will not fall for this again.
  • Cloud saves are definitely coming though. I've discussed the matter at length with the game's producer.
  • Ok I have to admit, when I saw the 2020 in the title I immediately thought Nokia is releasing a new tablet. The actual news was a disappointment. :(
  • Haha.... Me too.... But i liked d game
  • Sounds fun, but I find myself not playing non Xbox titles since I'm hunting for achievements, but I'll download it just to make devs know that there are gamers available so they might consider making more Xbox titles.
  • When I saw this. I remember that we need AOEIII :)
  • No Xbox No buy
  • Its F2P, you dont need to buy anything.
  • Not playing till it gets cloud support. Made this mistake on my 920, had it replaced and all my work was gone. So not even going to bother to start this one till then.
  • I may play once it has quick resume multitasking on phone. Waiting 10 seconds for it to reload every time the screen sleeps or I switch apps is too painful for me.
  • Make for WP 7.8...
  • Perhaps it's just the first hour or so, but I'm basically just tapping whatever it tells me to tap until I run out of energy, then I do something til it refills and tap again. Am I missing something, or is this the whole game?
  • Yeah, same for me. No skill or strategy involved at all so far. If this is all it is, it's definitely a game for kids (say under 12)
  • Why are not available for the L520? Is the hardware specifications are not compatible? I 've update to Lumia Black and the rest of the space is 1 GB
  • My daughter has this game on her Lumia 520..
  • Means the possibility because this game is not available for the Indonesian region. thanks paul