Title: Tower of Guns
Developer(s): Terrible Posture Games
Publisher: Terrible Posture Games
Release Date: March 4th, 2014
Game Engine: Unreal Engine
Number of Players: Single
Gene: FPS with Roguelike elements
An interesting title. This game was made by two brothers, and I’ve seen this on Steam before. It was one of the ‘Recommended For You’ games.
So, what is it? It’s a FPS with roguelike elements. Basically, your only goal is to ascend a tower of guns. No reason to ascend it, nor are you told if you die that it’s game over. So yeah. Permadeath.
The controls in the game are quite strange. You got to hit your OPTIONS button to start the game, then start playing after you picked your stuff.
You get to pick from two guns from the start. One is a crappy laser pistol, and the other can throw saw blades. How you get better weapons, I dunno. I assume the longer you stay alive, you unlock more stuff. Not really explained.
There’s also a Perk system, that stays with you of that current run. You get two from the start. One that makes you immune to fall damage, and one that allows you to triple jump. How do you get more perks? Again, I don’t know.
Gameplay is fast-paced of what you should expect from a roguelike game. You’ll usually enter a small room with coins on the sides. Going past the door, you’ll enter another room. This one will have these strange robots that spawn in, walk over to you with their happy robot faces. And when they get near you, they… adore you for some odd reason.
You can either ignore them, or shoot them. They shockingly won’t attack you, but run around in a panicked state. Killing them will drop red and blue gems. Red gems, I don’t know what they do. But blue gems upgrade your gun’s power (as in XP). Getting hurt reduces some of this power.
To get out of the room (and future rooms), you have to shoot the door for it to open. Another strange mechanic. Then in the 3rd room is where the chaos begins.
There’s four known (to me) enemy types. Cannons (some can float, some are multi-cannons which are quite vicious), saw blade launchers(with blades that can bounce off walls), flying discs, and flying bombs.
If you survive the horrors of nature, you’ll eventually see a door with a skull on it(that looks just like the logo). This is the boss room. So if you didn’t think the game was difficult enough, you got a fucking boss.
If you manage to defeat this thing without dying, you can get a powerup for your gun. Granted though, if you want to KEEP it, you can’t die in the next level! The game is all about testing how good (or bad) you are in an FPS. It’s about constantly moving(in the game). Sitting still will get you killed. Any gamer will tell you that.
.
And now for my verdict;
Good:
-Infinite ammo
-Randomly generated levels
-I do like when you have to play again, the dialog is different
Bad:
-Confusing, punishing gameplay
-Permadeath without even explaining it ingame
-Even if you die before the boss dies, you don’t get the credit
Final rating… this is a “just not for me” game.
If the punishing permadeath wasn’t in the game, I would like it. It’s just too fast-paced for me. So, no thanks.