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[tower57]

Hey everyone,

it's been roughly 3 weeks since we last posted, and what 3 weeks those have been!

However I'm happy to say we are nearly done with our Kickstarter preparations and are preparing to submit for review ahead of our August 3rd launch date.

So to celebrate the only way we know how, here are some gifs from our campaign (this is the "unpolished" source material) showcasing various features or aspects of gameplay.

Hope you all enjoy them, we'll post some more when we launch, just to harass everybody one last time ^_^'

Cheers!

[MrHelmut]

The impaling gun.

[tower57]

Hi everyone,

so after almost a year of weekly dev-blogging on TIGsource, we have finally launched our Kickstarter campaign!

Please do check it out, even if you don't intend to pledge, all feedback is more than welcome

Also a big heartfelt "thank you" to all who posted in our thread, provided feedback, comments, words of encouragement, and much more! Hopefully this will be the final stretch before being able to focus 100% full time on Tower 57 =D

Obligatory Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/514621648/tower-57

And here is our trailer:



Wish us luck!

Marco / benitosub

[Mattie]

Backed! Good luck with the campaign (:

[Nathan (@nathanenglert)]

I am backing as well, good luck guys!

 

[tower57]

Thanks to both of you!

[Keith]

Congrats!

I'll back you once I can. Being a college student doesn't exactly allow a lot of funds. Haha. I can't wait to see this successfully funded. 

[Benitosub]

Hey @Keith, no worries I'm pretty broke too ^_^'

A tweet and / or a post on Facebook also go a long way to helping spread the word

Thanks for all the support!

[Seiseki]

I'm backing this for sure!
Gonna spread the word to everyone I know as well!

[Benitosub]

Hey Seiseki,

thank you so much for backing! And thank you for spreading the word, we certainly won't make it without the help of our awesome backers!!

Cheers,

Marco

[doczal]

Hey man, I discovered about Tower57 some time ago from a pixel art submission by Cyangmou on Reddit if I'm not mistaken! I'm a big fan of his pixel art work, so I'm glad to see it being put to good use in this game.

Having said that, it's pretty clear that this game doesn't just look pretty. Art style aside, the gameplay itself looks very impressive and seems like a lot of fun! I can't begin to imagine how much work you guys have put into it. I unfortunately won't be able to back your Kickstarter, but I really hope you guys succeed. Will definitely purchase the game if/when it comes out :D

[RafaSKB]

Wow, I'm in love with these graphics! Can't wait to play it!

[MrHelmut]

Awesome trailer! You really are doing an amazing work. Best of luck to you, it looks like your campaign will do well.

[Benitosub]

@doczal hey no worries, if you're active on twitter on facebook you can always post something about us, that actually helps a lot too, and if not it doesn't even matter, just knowing you're out there and rooting for the game to be funded is a great motivation to keep fighting, so thanks for that!

@RafaSKB hope we can bring it to you soon

@MrHelmut thanks, we started off nicely, but now we are entering the dreadful "mid-campaign slump" ... We planned a few ideas to try and keep the ball rolling, and now is when we'll see if they pay off or if we end up short Either way it's an amazing ride so far, I guess the journey really does matter as much as the destination...

EDIT: we just posted an updated about co-op mechanics, if anybody wants to check it out it's right over here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/514621648/tower-57/posts/1318198

all updates are public so no need to pledge to check them out

[talkingalone]

@Benitosub The game looks amazing. Brings back old memories from my childhood playing SNES games. Probably you have already mentioned it, but what language/framework are you using to develop the game?

[tower57]

Hey Guys,

We have been very busy with getting our Kickstarter going and now as we reached the middle of the campaign we have a bit more time.
So we thought it might be cool to post the KS updates we created during the last days here, because they illustrate some not very evident mechanics of tower 57 or show new stuff.

Link to the KS-Campaign

Update 1: Twinstick Shooters:

For the first update I wanted to talk about twin stick shooters, since it's at the core of our gameplay.

Despite Wikipedia telling me they date as far back as 1975, the first twin stick shooter I actually played was Smash TV (I'm not that old!). This is what the cabinet looked like:



and I was instantly sold! Nowadays the idea of using one stick to move and another stick to aim seems obvious, thanks in no small part to console FPS games and dual stick gamepads, but back then it was pretty revolutionary.

When we started working on Tower 57, this control scheme quickly became a natural fit, and considering it's such a core component of the game, we took extra care in refining the controls and the game-feel through a lot of play-testing and showing the game at local indie conventions.

For example one thing that always bugged me is when characters retain their direction even when you're not aiming, as in this gif:

for the sake of the gif I'm actually aiming up-left the whole time, but this is what it would look like

However in Tower 57, if you let go of the right stick, and move around with the left stick, it actually looks like this:

using just the left stick (or right if you're left handed - you can swap them around in the options)

 "But wait!" I hear you say (not really, but let's pretend ^_^), "doesn't that mean you can just walk around with the left stick and shoot stuff? why do you need the right stick then?"

Well I'm glad you asked! There's actually nothing stopping you from doing that. However no aiming (using right stick) means exactly that, no aiming:

that looks pretty unsafe...

 Versus using the right stick to aim:

much better!

 So if you intend to hit something in Tower 57 (at least on purpose), you should probably practice your thumb-to-thumb coordination ^_^'

And there you have it, our very first Kickstarter update! (hope it wasn't too long?)

They will get meatier as we progress, including new characters, but you can actually vote for the next topic through the upcoming survey, so I don't bore you all to death with intricate code details nobody wants to hear about =D

And finally I wanted to respectfully remind everybody that a tweet, facebook post. forum post etc. can go a long way to spreading the word!

Thank you all for backing, and see you in the next update!

Marco / benitosub

[Benitosub]

@talkingalone sorry I missed your comment! I use c++ (language) and my own little engine, which in turn uses SDL and OpenGL to ensure painless cross-platform rendering Everything else is from scratch except the network library. Hope this answers your question!

Also just butting in to add a gif showing how to take advantage of the enemies



Cheers!

[tower57]

Update #2 - Destruction

And now on to the update: destruction seemed to be the most popular topic in the comments, so here we go:

The first time I played Final Fight back at the arcade and hit a phone-booth with a metal pipe, I was blown away!

I instantly imagined punching bad guys through glass windows in a bar fight, with destructible tables and chairs, a destructible jukebox, a destructible pool table … How great would that have been?

Sadly due to technical limitations the destruction was greatly limited back then to the occasional gimmicky crate (except 3 Count Bout on the NeoGeo in the parking garage stage!).

However modern hardware solved the issue, and Cyangmou thankfully didn’t need much convincing (if any…) to see how the value in this mechanic would make it worth the extra effort!

Destruction works on two levels in Tower 57: dynamic items, and tiles.

Dynamic items are everything that is not part of the “ground and walls”, so tables, chairs, plants, machinery, vehicles, columns, lights, etc.

Fragile items like crates or explosive barrels break down into debris:

yes it's a red barrel, and yes it's explosive, some classics you don't mess around with

 Other, more resistant items, go through several stages of destruction before completely breaking down:





 The effect in an actual level might look something like this:
https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/004/268/240/970a2768506cd41e44cc750ae9a21d6d_original.gif?v=1438815334&w=639&fit=max&q=92&s=6c66dc5f4632ad1d8c53b8777f7344f3
before...

... and after!



 In addition to the dynamic items, some of the tiles which form the levels can themselves take damage:



And on top of all that, we have “damage decals” for things such as explosion scorch-marks:

 Of course we need to keep at least *some* things like walls more or less intact...

nah, just kidding...

See you all tomorrow for another update, and thanks for backing!

Marco / benitosub

[SunWuKong]

There is actually WAY too much awesome in this devlog! HOLY MOLEY!!! LOVE IT!!

HAHAHAHA

Best of luck!

-Tim

[Bombini]

Just gave you my support on kickstarter!
All the best!