Tower of Heaven

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Tower of Heaven
Tower of Heaven Cover Art.jpg
Developer(s)Askiisoft
Publisher(s)Askiisoft
Designer(s)Justin Stander
Programmer(s)Justin Stander
Artist(s)Godsavant
Composer(s)flashygoodness
EngineGameMaker 7, Flash
Platform(s)Windows, Browser
ReleaseWindows
  • WW: August 13, 2009
Browser
  • WW: 2010
Genre(s)Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Tower of Heaven (also rendered as 天国の塔, Tengoku no Tō in Japanese) is a 2D platform game developed by American studio Askiisoft. The game was built in GameMaker, and was released for Microsoft Windows in 2009, with a Flash version released in 2010.

The game was critically acclaimed, and was noted for its short length and difficulty.

Gameplay[]

A typical level of the game, showing the first law that is given to the player to impede their progress.

In Tower of Heaven, the player controls Eid, a silent protagonist with a large, onion-like head, who scales the Tower of Heaven, a mysterious monolith that promises glory to those who scale it.[1] During the journey, a voice assumed to be God talks to Eid, getting angrier the further he climbs.[1] He gives Eid the Book of Laws. The voice imposes more and more laws, and the player dies instantly if any of them are broken.[1]

The game also includes a speedrun mode, where you are timed, and a stage editor mode for the Flash browser version, where you can create and play your own stages.

Development[]

Tower of Heaven's soundtrack, composed by FlashyGoodness, and graphical style are heavily influenced by the Game Boy, which was called "sly and deliberately deceptive" to hide the "brutal" difficulty.[2] The game lacks a lives system, and instead uses a timer on each floor to encourage players to continue.[2]

The game has been said[by whom?] to "expose" the "arbitrariness" of long-standing platform game design by giving the Tower an in-universe source and ultimately revealing its design as artificial and in need of destruction.[1]

Reception[]

Tower of Heaven received positive reception from critics. Michael Rose of Indiegames.com called the game a "wonderful platformer" despite its difficulty.[3] Joseph Leray of Destructoid called the game's soundtrack "absolutely killer".[4] Fraser McMillan of Gamasutra called the game "almost more liberating" than open world AAA games, due to the fact that it makes quitting the game and the player's quest a perfectly valid option.[2]

Tower of Heaven received a tribute in the form of a playable stage in the 2011 platform fighter Super Smash Land and its 2017 spiritual successor, Rivals of Aether. The stages feature a similar "law" mechanic to Tower of Heaven, where players who do not obey a law while it is active will take damage.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d "Nothing is sacred: killing God atop the Tower of Heaven". Destructoid. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  2. ^ a b c McMillan, Fraser. "Analysis: On Tower Of Heaven - It's Hard To Be A God". Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  3. ^ "IndieGames.com - The Weblog Freeware Game Pick: Tower of Heaven (Askiisoft)". www.indiegames.com. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  4. ^ "Go down, Moses: for the love of God, play Tower of Heaven". Destructoid. Retrieved 2017-07-03.

External links[]

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