Knightmare Tower

Developer: Juicy Beast Studio | Publisher: Juicy Beast Studio | Release Date: 2014 | Genre: Action / Casual / Indie | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Ten princesses have been locked in a 25km high tower and a brave knight has been tasked with saving them. Undeterred by the fact that the tower only has a floor every few kilometers, the knight launches himself up the tower with a rocket and lets momentum do the rest. The monsters infesting the tower aren’t just going to let him fly by though, and there is also the small matter of boiling hot lava bubbling up behind the intrepid hero.

The gameplay in Knightmare Tower is as straightforward as the storyline. You press a button to launch your hero up the tower, aiming for a money awarding perfect blast-off if possible, and then slash enemies to generate speed and momentum on your upwards journey. Getting hit by enemies cost you lives, but falling off the bottom of the screen only cost you momentum as the knight re-appears atop a new rocket. You’ll want to avoid slowing down though because if the lava that is hot on your heels catches up to your knight it is game over. Like I said, it is a very straightforward concept, but addictive enough that once you start playing it is very hard to stop.

Initially, your knight is woefully underequipped to make any real progress up the tower. Sooner or later the lava catches up to him or the enemies simply become too tough to dispose of quickly enough. That’s ok though, as you earn cash from killing monsters and collecting the money bags that sometimes appear. The cash can then be used to upgrade your knight in key areas such as armor, accessories and potions. Upgrading your armor will allow your knight to last a little bit longer while upgrading his sword means it becomes easier to dispose of enemies. Eventually you will start to break through floors and rescue the princesses, each of which has further advantages to bestow on you. What this all adds up to is a game where you will continually want to have just one more go no matter how many times you die.

To make each attempt a bit more interesting there are over 70 quests to complete. These range from objectives such as killing a certain amount of enemies or collecting a certain amount of power-ups to challenges like reaching a certain height within a set time limit. If you beat a challenge you are rewarded with gold and a new one appears to take its place, which means you have at least 3 objectives to aim for on each attempt. Standing between you and the boss at the top of the tower is more than 50 different types of enemies. Some of them are pretty harmless and can be used for easy stepping stones while others are fast moving, shoot projectiles or grow spikes at random intervals which makes them trickier to deal with. There is never really a dull moment in Knightmare Tower as you frantically move your character around the screen while judging when and where to launch a downwards attack on enemies.

Visually the game has a nice polished cartoony look with excellent enemy designs. As you upgrade your knight, his new armor and sword is shown on the character which is also a  nice touch.  While Knightmare Tower was originally a Flash title, the developers rebuilt everything in Unity for the version that is on Steam. If you are curious about how the title plays you can still try out the free Flash version on Kongregate, but I guarantee that you will want to own the Steam version once you are hooked. The game also boasts a very cool soundtrack, which is done by Hyperduck Soundworks. Their repertoire includes work on Scrolls and Dust: An Elysian Tail so they know what they are doing and the awesome tunes really add a lot to the atmosphere of the game. Players used to the mouse controls in the Flash version may find it puzzling that only the keyboard and controller is supported in the Steam version. Using a controller feels the most intuitive, but after some practice, I was able to complete the game using the keyboard as well. Hopefully the developers will implement mouse controls at some point as it worked quite well in the Flash version.

I had an absolute blast playing Knightmare Tower and it only took a few tries before I was completely hooked. Blasting up the tower slicing and dicing every monster in sight is incredibly addictive and after completing the normal campaign you unlock a survival mode with even more challenges. There really isn’t much that I can fault about Knightmare Tower apart from the lack of mouse controls. The game offers incredible value for money and the price is an absolute bargain considering how much time you will spend playing it. Knightmare Tower has the look and feel of an early 90s arcade title, but thankfully it wasn’t release back then because it would have bankrupted me if I had to cough up cash every time I had another go!