The High Tower

Alright. I'd like to say that [i]The High Tower[/i] is done and dusted, but in reality, the autosave system combined with some of the bugs in this game put me in a position where I would need to redo half of my playthrough in order to get back to the highest point I reached, and then try to get to the first ending. Which I was unwilling to do. That said, the core concept here is something I appreciate, and this is actually my type of raw Indie experience. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3715072003 Which, the core concept is that after a global catastrophe, the surviving religious caste began to build a tower to the heavens. More or less. At some point, all the workers on said megastructure went crazy and essentially became highly aggressive zombies, ala 28 Days Later or some such. You initially play as a Church Scientist trying to get to the top to open a dimensional portal believed to be up there, in order to escape this world. Assuming you complete that, you unlock one or both of the remaining characters to do it all over again, but with story changes and likely different weapons and zombie placement/numbers. And then, assuming you complete all three runs…

Maybe I should start by noting that I actually have a fear of heights. At least I feel uneasy when I can look TOO far down. Games like VALLEY and THE LAST CARETAKER have shown me that my brain likes to be tricked by the digital world when my eyes see it. So actually, it's not a game for me. I was wrong. So, welcome to THE HIGH TOWER. The Story? Humanity did it again. Pollution, destruction, all has gone to hell. A very high Structure seems somehow to be the last Hope. Well, the Problem is somebody has to climb it … to the top. As you think Right, YOU are the choosen one. The Church send you to do this. Will you have that it takes? Find out. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3679950241 This is not a High End Game. This is a one Dev Indie Game, so don´t expect too much. THE HIGH TOWER is a, lets call it Puzzle Climber. In Chapter one, you are on the Floor and learn the Basics the Gameplay. In Chapter 2 you will continue to the Structure. And in Chapter 3 you start climbing the Tower. And yes, it´s very, very, very high. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3679948981 At the Feet of the Structure you will find a Rocket Pack. But be care…

On the one hand it is an indie game and there is clearly some love in the design. Getting up was at times fun. The two twists on the other characters were nice. Though then again game looks kind of drab. The climbing is mostly pressing the "up" key and can feel a bit hanky at times. The story is obtuse and the sound design rather headache inducing. Adding slightly different game modes with the other two characters, apparently linked to different endings, is a nice idea. Yet I kind of bricked the game with the 3 character when I fell down past like 6 enemies and didn't get a pointer to where they were on the tower. I won't climb that thing again. I can't recommend it though it isn't like totally the worst. You might still like to give it a try.

This is a nice climbing adventure with some simple combat. The climbing is fair and isn't like one of those rage climbing games. There is some jank, like when climbing diagonal pillars, but it's nothing too bad and your jet back is your fall back option. It's about 90-120 minutes for a single run after which you unlock other characters to get all 4 endings. I think it's worth the asking price.

Nice atmosphere, some story put in it. Keep working!

I am very thankful that I was able to get this game key through Keymailer so that I could give this game a try. I really like what they tried to do with the game story wise, but I have to be honest and say I didn't love it. The controls definitely felt like they were fighting me while I was trying to play and even though the game says "mostly playable with your controller" I had to switch to mouse and keyboard. Chapter 3 for the scientist involves climbing up to the top of the tower and the climbing did not feel very fluid. There were also times where the character didn't really react to the controls when I used them, this resulted in me falling and having to restart at the last checkpoint. I think this game could be a lot of fun, but it feels like it still needs some polishing.