Tower of Dreams

Yeah I'd say this game is cool there's this funny frog dude in it and he makes a funny frog noise. Sour Lemon, you've done it again. I am particularly fond of the frog creature

This game is really fun! I've been following it since it was featured in SAGE a few years ago and I was happy to see it get a release. In its current state, it's a solid little action platformer that has enough to do in it to justify its modest price tag. The controls are tight and the level design is pretty good. Although I do think the S rank requirements can be a big difficulty spike. I feel like the armor item could use a buff to help protect your S ranks and to loosen up the window for error on your runs, you would just have to make armor and armor related items harder to find. Still, I'm looking forward to the next content update.

It's a good game and one I can recommend with a caveat: It's only vaguely a roguelike if you squint reasonably hard. Right now, the way things work is that effectively each level of the tower has a pool of static levels it can pull from, and then a few side areas (like shops, or treasure chests with a pool of powerups). So once you know how a level plays out there you're really relying on what power ups the game gives you to spice up the experience. If it wants to lean into the roguelite aspect it needs a bit more meat to it. It doesn't need full proc gen or anything like that, but level modifiers. Or levels built out of predefined chunks that link to each other. Some additional stuff that can affect how each level plays out beyond the baseline. That said, everything else here is generally pretty good. The platforming feels good and responsive, the game has a good art style and the music is great too. So at a minimum you're getting a decent platforming experience out of it and I think that makes it a worthwhile pickup.

Feels great to play, really fun gameplay loop and the art is simple but clean and pleasant!

Sour Lemon Studios is very responsive to community feedback, so there’s great potential here. They’ve said, “I have an active Discord server for playtesting and feedback, and will be paying close attention to the game's reception to prioritize what to work on and fix for the full release.” With this attention to community feedback, the promise of additional content, and an already fun roguelike experience, Tower of Dreams is setting itself up for a must-play game of 2025.

Short but sweet