charming and pays tribute to old sci-fi schlock. doesn't do much else.
6,8/10
The gameplay is very poor, there are 2 buttons for the whole game, hit and shoot, the whole map is 1 big location with a tower. But the announcer's comments are not bad, but not enough funny.
The gameplay is very poor, there are 2 buttons for the whole game, hit and shoot, the whole map is 1 big location with a tower. But the announcer's comments are not bad, but not enough funny.
campy unique era to be inspired by for a game but not particularly inspired gameplay
Played the demo. The witty meta narration is reminiscent of the one in Ratchet and Clank, which makes more sense here but doesn't make it any more good. The combat seems like it could have some potential with more gadgets to use, but as the demo shows it, it's very boring and unengaging.
50's Sci-Fi Campiness on videogame form
this thing is a tragedy because they get the Ed Wood shit so right and the everything else so bland
I played this game because, as a fan of cheesy sci-fi B-movies, it boasted an aesthetic that I've never seen a game explore before. Visually, The Deadly Tower of Monsters does a wonderful job of recreating the feel of an Ed Wood-style production because it's full of enemies in terrible costumes, enemies who fly onto the screen aided by some easy-to-spot string and enemies who move in stop motion. Some of the visuals really hit the spot and the game hits a homerun when it comes to emulating that low budget movie feel.
The central conceit of The Deadly Tower of Monsters is that you're watching a director provide a DVD commentary over his own movie and, it has to be said, the writing is actually quite funny. The fact that the voiceover DOESN'T get annoying is a welcome surprise, it's fun.
Beyond all of that window dressing though, there's not much more to it. This is a game that nails it in terms of the art directions but falls flat in terms of the gameplay. It's a basic Diablo clone with extremely repetitive combat and no other game mechanics to speak of. The combat isn't particularly impactful and gets pretty boring, which is a shame because the style alone screams potential. It's a nice looking game but it needed a bit of extra spice in the gameplay department.
The central conceit of The Deadly Tower of Monsters is that you're watching a director provide a DVD commentary over his own movie and, it has to be said, the writing is actually quite funny. The fact that the voiceover DOESN'T get annoying is a welcome surprise, it's fun.
Beyond all of that window dressing though, there's not much more to it. This is a game that nails it in terms of the art directions but falls flat in terms of the gameplay. It's a basic Diablo clone with extremely repetitive combat and no other game mechanics to speak of. The combat isn't particularly impactful and gets pretty boring, which is a shame because the style alone screams potential. It's a nice looking game but it needed a bit of extra spice in the gameplay department.
One of the best ideas for a game. Love the commentary and concept.
Gets an extra star for the fake stop-motion as well
Gets an extra star for the fake stop-motion as well
Really fun and well designed game! I like a good short game that has lots of replay-ability.
A B movie satire, sadly with B movie quality.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters is a fantastic idea on paper. A game pretending to be a studio doing a directors commentary recording to an old Sci-fi B movie as you play. Sadly though the premise is great, and it sometimes gets aspects of it right, it doesn't always land all it's punches where it should leaving a fairly flat experience by the end.
You play the role of one of three characters, Dick Starspeed, Scarlet Nova and Dick's co-pilot, the unnamed Robot. Dick crash-lands on a planet to find out it's emperor is mistreating the apes that live there, teaming up with the emperors daughter they decided to scale the tower and overthrow him. That's pretty much the extent of the story.
As they travel the game uses a ton of tributes to retro sci-fi media visible everywhere from Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, King Kong, Buck Rogers etc. One of it's strongest aspects is it's retro aesthetic and designs with old glass dome helmets, strings visible from enemies like puppets, the color filter etc. It also makes really good use of the director's meta commentary about things happening as you progress and while not every line is a winner some of them are genuinely quite funny. It's just a shame the final act and ending are so unneeded and generally poor letting the rest of the game's theme and characters down.
What really hurts the game though and leaves it such a mediocre experience is the gameplay itself. To be blunt, it's clunky and boring. The game is essentially a twinstick shooter but it just feels awful to play. You can either attack in melee or with a variety of guns expanding your arsenal as you travel. When attacking up close and personal enemies will often hit you first and rag doll you onto the floor so you end up just flailing attacks towards them to stop it. The ranged attacks aren't hugely better with aiming being a bit dodgy at best. I found a lot of the guns pretty meh to use as well which considering the theme was a let down really. What compounds all of this is that the camera is mostly fixed and it feels like it shouldn't be due to the tower climbing nature of the game I kept trying to move it around , I just found the whole thing uncomfortable in a way I don't with most twin stick shooters.
It did have one stand out mechanic I felt was under baked of pressing R1 to look over the edge and fire at enemies coming up the tower to attack you. I found that it didn't always work though unless you were in the exact right spot to do it and a lot of times enemies came up so fast that you had to break out of it to attack them normally. This could have been a much cooler feature than it was, but that applies to the whole game, it just feels like wasted potential.
For example you can play as 3 characters. Each character has maybe 2-3 abilities that are really different and one each needed to make progress against certain tower obstacles. It's just pointless, it's very rare this happens forcing you to find a change point to change characters to do it. Everything else is the same, they share weapons and the very basic upgrade system and don't feel unique at all so why bother? Speaking of upgrades, I forgot half way through to do them at the stations because they were annoying to use and the game was so easy you simply didn't need more health, energy or cooldowns really.
The entire game is full of good ideas just poorly implemented. Overall getting the platinum and seeing everything took 6 hours. I got it free on PS+ 5 years ago and only just got around to it so can't complain, I just feel frustrated because this had a lot more potential to be a funny and clever experience but sadly just ends up something I'll totally forget about in a month or so.
+ Idea is great.
+ 50's sci-fi aesthetic and references add character.
+ Director can be genuinely entertaining to listen to.
- Ending is nonsense. Part 4 feels redundant.
- Gameplay is clunky feeling.
- Camera angles and no free movement didn't really work for me.
- Multiple characters and ability obstacles seem pointless.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters is a fantastic idea on paper. A game pretending to be a studio doing a directors commentary recording to an old Sci-fi B movie as you play. Sadly though the premise is great, and it sometimes gets aspects of it right, it doesn't always land all it's punches where it should leaving a fairly flat experience by the end.
You play the role of one of three characters, Dick Starspeed, Scarlet Nova and Dick's co-pilot, the unnamed Robot. Dick crash-lands on a planet to find out it's emperor is mistreating the apes that live there, teaming up with the emperors daughter they decided to scale the tower and overthrow him. That's pretty much the extent of the story.
As they travel the game uses a ton of tributes to retro sci-fi media visible everywhere from Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, King Kong, Buck Rogers etc. One of it's strongest aspects is it's retro aesthetic and designs with old glass dome helmets, strings visible from enemies like puppets, the color filter etc. It also makes really good use of the director's meta commentary about things happening as you progress and while not every line is a winner some of them are genuinely quite funny. It's just a shame the final act and ending are so unneeded and generally poor letting the rest of the game's theme and characters down.
What really hurts the game though and leaves it such a mediocre experience is the gameplay itself. To be blunt, it's clunky and boring. The game is essentially a twinstick shooter but it just feels awful to play. You can either attack in melee or with a variety of guns expanding your arsenal as you travel. When attacking up close and personal enemies will often hit you first and rag doll you onto the floor so you end up just flailing attacks towards them to stop it. The ranged attacks aren't hugely better with aiming being a bit dodgy at best. I found a lot of the guns pretty meh to use as well which considering the theme was a let down really. What compounds all of this is that the camera is mostly fixed and it feels like it shouldn't be due to the tower climbing nature of the game I kept trying to move it around , I just found the whole thing uncomfortable in a way I don't with most twin stick shooters.
It did have one stand out mechanic I felt was under baked of pressing R1 to look over the edge and fire at enemies coming up the tower to attack you. I found that it didn't always work though unless you were in the exact right spot to do it and a lot of times enemies came up so fast that you had to break out of it to attack them normally. This could have been a much cooler feature than it was, but that applies to the whole game, it just feels like wasted potential.
For example you can play as 3 characters. Each character has maybe 2-3 abilities that are really different and one each needed to make progress against certain tower obstacles. It's just pointless, it's very rare this happens forcing you to find a change point to change characters to do it. Everything else is the same, they share weapons and the very basic upgrade system and don't feel unique at all so why bother? Speaking of upgrades, I forgot half way through to do them at the stations because they were annoying to use and the game was so easy you simply didn't need more health, energy or cooldowns really.
The entire game is full of good ideas just poorly implemented. Overall getting the platinum and seeing everything took 6 hours. I got it free on PS+ 5 years ago and only just got around to it so can't complain, I just feel frustrated because this had a lot more potential to be a funny and clever experience but sadly just ends up something I'll totally forget about in a month or so.
+ Idea is great.
+ 50's sci-fi aesthetic and references add character.
+ Director can be genuinely entertaining to listen to.
- Ending is nonsense. Part 4 feels redundant.
- Gameplay is clunky feeling.
- Camera angles and no free movement didn't really work for me.
- Multiple characters and ability obstacles seem pointless.
Si eres cinéfilo de clásicos de culto y películas tipo B como el planeta de los simios, king kong, barbarella y demas... este juego es para ti.
- el arte es hermoso, cada escenario, cada monstruo, y cada melodía... 10/10)
- el gameplay es sencillo y bastante pulido, como un hack n slash a la diablo 3... claro mas feito
-tiene bastantes armas en tu arsenal las cuales desbloqueas... desde rayos laser hasta lanzacohetes... o bien una rasuradora... el juego esta bastante variado en este apartado.
-mejora de armas y tu personaje tipo rpg (subes de nivel y stats)
-la historia: es una comedia... si buscas jugar algo serio no contemples este juego.
-el narrador de la historia te acompaña siempre con un toque muy bueno.
-la variedad de enemigos... el mismo juego lo dice, es de lo que mas brilla a pesar de estar todos tontos... tiene gran variedad de ellos. (mas en el capitulo final)
-Las secciones de plataformas a pesar de ser pocas son épicas y hermosas de ver.
- el arte es hermoso, cada escenario, cada monstruo, y cada melodía... 10/10)
- el gameplay es sencillo y bastante pulido, como un hack n slash a la diablo 3... claro mas feito
-tiene bastantes armas en tu arsenal las cuales desbloqueas... desde rayos laser hasta lanzacohetes... o bien una rasuradora... el juego esta bastante variado en este apartado.
-mejora de armas y tu personaje tipo rpg (subes de nivel y stats)
-la historia: es una comedia... si buscas jugar algo serio no contemples este juego.
-el narrador de la historia te acompaña siempre con un toque muy bueno.
-la variedad de enemigos... el mismo juego lo dice, es de lo que mas brilla a pesar de estar todos tontos... tiene gran variedad de ellos. (mas en el capitulo final)
-Las secciones de plataformas a pesar de ser pocas son épicas y hermosas de ver.
The premise of playing through a 60’s B movie is amazing but sadly the gameplay has the same quality of the filmmaking of a B movie with non of the charm
This is a cool game that is targets film enthusiasts. Gameplay wise nothing special. Interesting comments during the game.
This game is right up my alley as a fan of old campy sci-fi, with an homage to Harryhausen's stop-motion monsters, executed with absolute perfection! The "movie poster" (title screen) had a different combination of two of the three main characters - one carrying the other, each time the title screen loaded, and a little commentary on why they chose that dynamic for the poster (the one in the thumbnail here caters to the Robot community).
The game acts as a DVD of an old movie, narrated by the director's commentary track. When you die, the director will say this is the wrong clip, rewind, and start the scene again. Because the villains you fight are also actors, whenever you stumble, they actually wait around for you to get up again, which I found an absolutely fantastic little detail. You can see the wire on almost all the floating/flying things. And I know I already mentioned the stop-motion, but that really was the highlight that sealed me in for the long haul on this game.
In the fourth chapter, which the director doesn't remember shooting, they start to slowly break the fourth wall until they completely shatter it. This is where I felt a bit blah about it. It didn't TOTALLY take me out of it, but the ending really felt like they pumped the brakes on the whole thing, which was intentional, but I felt a little bit robbed.
However, overall, it's a gorgeous game with good voice actors (many of which, this is their only project that I could find). I would definitely play this again for a nice chill game day.
The game acts as a DVD of an old movie, narrated by the director's commentary track. When you die, the director will say this is the wrong clip, rewind, and start the scene again. Because the villains you fight are also actors, whenever you stumble, they actually wait around for you to get up again, which I found an absolutely fantastic little detail. You can see the wire on almost all the floating/flying things. And I know I already mentioned the stop-motion, but that really was the highlight that sealed me in for the long haul on this game.
In the fourth chapter, which the director doesn't remember shooting, they start to slowly break the fourth wall until they completely shatter it. This is where I felt a bit blah about it. It didn't TOTALLY take me out of it, but the ending really felt like they pumped the brakes on the whole thing, which was intentional, but I felt a little bit robbed.
However, overall, it's a gorgeous game with good voice actors (many of which, this is their only project that I could find). I would definitely play this again for a nice chill game day.
deadly because i almost died of boredom playing it
They can't all be Zenoclash
This game on paper reeks mediocraty. The "top-down" gameplay is repetitive and uninspiring, some mechanics are just straight up bizarre (the "shooting down on a edge" mechanic is ???) and it looks quite rough for a 2016 game.
Despite all of that, I always look rather fondly back to this game. The setting - A 1950s sci-fi movie set inside a directors commentary - and characters ooze soo much charm and personality that it basically carries the game. The ending though is quite confusing and weird.
If you have nothing else to do, maybe check this game out.
Despite all of that, I always look rather fondly back to this game. The setting - A 1950s sci-fi movie set inside a directors commentary - and characters ooze soo much charm and personality that it basically carries the game. The ending though is quite confusing and weird.
If you have nothing else to do, maybe check this game out.
a funny and unique little game that is let down uninspiring combat, but it’s short and sweet!
A game that makes for a better experience than an actual game. The gameplay is kinda bad. There's two attack buttons, one for gun and one for melee. All combat is the same. Either spam the gun or spam the melee. The camera works against you in places and the platforming can be wonky. But the actually concept for the game is brilliant. The game plays out like an old school monster / b-movie and the director is providing commentary throughout the game. Almost everything you do he has something snarky to say about it, even just spinning in circles. I honestly wish the game felt better to play. I would recommend this to everyone if it did. But as it stands I can only recommend it to people who find the premise interesting.
Original Steam review made right after streaming the game
After I had finished off Cringetober 2022 I had decided to experiment in clearing my backlog of games through a list of games I had not actually played yet, but had been really wanting to! I was in the mood for something Sci-Fi related and this one had my interest, considering it being based on the old retro sci-fi from many movies made infamous by MST3K and such that often get referenced along with the meta humour in the narrative of this game. I was also reminded of those many times I watched some of those cheesy B-movies with my dad such as "The Earth Dies Screaming" or "This Island Earth" and more, many of which do get referenced in this game in many ways.
The story is the director of the movie has come into a studio to record lines for a director's cut of his movie, "The Deadly Tower of Monsters" about a typical hero character (flying in a ship held up by strings) crashing onto this tower to fight the evil overlord of this enormous tower, but soon ends up free-falling to the bottom and having to work his way up to the tower, getting companions along the way in the form of a robot and the daughter of the villainous overlord. Stopping you from your ascent are men in monkey suits weilding "Laserblast" arm blasters, kids in rubber octopus suits, claymation dinosaurs, giant ants and so much more!
The gameplay is of a twin-stick shooter in many ways and you can not only upgrade your weapons, but get a variety along with extra abilities specific characters that can help you progress up the tower and into hidden areas to collect items for upgrades and such. I also love the mechanic of being able to aim off the edge of the tower to shoot at any approaching monsters that are trying to scale their way up to get at you and many boss battles are based around this, making it feel like they a truly massive monsters. The whole time, the narrator is talking to the one hosting this director's cut, asking questions and getting answers he really did not expect to get such as if you die in the game, it's considered a cut scene and that the one who died was "Just an extra" or how the villain was a used-car salesman with an evil laugh that they hired on the spot after the producer had been scammed by him.
I really did love streaming every moment of this and reflected that love in going through the game to get all the achievements as possible because of how much I loved it. I even over-streamed, going over 5 hours because I was having such a good time with it!
I highly recommend it for any big fan of these B-movie settings out there and absurdist humour.
One line that'll always stick with me when collecting film reels:
"Ah, so that's where the cut sex scene went. I didn't think it was that awkward. Especially with the robot in the corner."
Stream/Gameplay
After I had finished off Cringetober 2022 I had decided to experiment in clearing my backlog of games through a list of games I had not actually played yet, but had been really wanting to! I was in the mood for something Sci-Fi related and this one had my interest, considering it being based on the old retro sci-fi from many movies made infamous by MST3K and such that often get referenced along with the meta humour in the narrative of this game. I was also reminded of those many times I watched some of those cheesy B-movies with my dad such as "The Earth Dies Screaming" or "This Island Earth" and more, many of which do get referenced in this game in many ways.
The story is the director of the movie has come into a studio to record lines for a director's cut of his movie, "The Deadly Tower of Monsters" about a typical hero character (flying in a ship held up by strings) crashing onto this tower to fight the evil overlord of this enormous tower, but soon ends up free-falling to the bottom and having to work his way up to the tower, getting companions along the way in the form of a robot and the daughter of the villainous overlord. Stopping you from your ascent are men in monkey suits weilding "Laserblast" arm blasters, kids in rubber octopus suits, claymation dinosaurs, giant ants and so much more!
The gameplay is of a twin-stick shooter in many ways and you can not only upgrade your weapons, but get a variety along with extra abilities specific characters that can help you progress up the tower and into hidden areas to collect items for upgrades and such. I also love the mechanic of being able to aim off the edge of the tower to shoot at any approaching monsters that are trying to scale their way up to get at you and many boss battles are based around this, making it feel like they a truly massive monsters. The whole time, the narrator is talking to the one hosting this director's cut, asking questions and getting answers he really did not expect to get such as if you die in the game, it's considered a cut scene and that the one who died was "Just an extra" or how the villain was a used-car salesman with an evil laugh that they hired on the spot after the producer had been scammed by him.
I really did love streaming every moment of this and reflected that love in going through the game to get all the achievements as possible because of how much I loved it. I even over-streamed, going over 5 hours because I was having such a good time with it!
I highly recommend it for any big fan of these B-movie settings out there and absurdist humour.
One line that'll always stick with me when collecting film reels:
"Ah, so that's where the cut sex scene went. I didn't think it was that awkward. Especially with the robot in the corner."
Stream/Gameplay