Adventure in the Tower of Flight
Adventure in the Tower of Flight is a retro-styled platformer in which you fly instead of jump! You are Wing, a young adventurer. Wing must climb a seeming endless the tower and collect all five known relics held within to become the ruler of the known world. Each relic, however, is protected by a series of battles, puzzles, and precision-platforming rooms. Do you have the skill it takes guide wing while he ascends the tower?
A Retro-Stylized experience!
- Over 160 hand-crafted levels with fine-tuned difficulty progression
- Over a dozen beautifully drawn retro-inspired environments
- Over 20 chip-tune music tracks
- 4 difficulty modes that allow new and veteran gamers to be challenged
- Dozens of secret rooms filled with treasure
- Hundreds of small secrets for true adventures to find
- Achievements for gamers to unlock
- Community Trading cards, emoticons, and backgrounds
- And more!
Story
In ages past, five kingdoms ruled the known world. Each kingdom possessed a sacred relic given to the kings of old by the god themselves. The relics guided and protected their armies in battles. As time passed, younger kings desired to gain absolute power of the land and waged countless wars with each other. The gods were displeased with the reckless actions and greed each kingdom took part in, so they took back the relics, hid them in a large tower, and proclaimed: “Whomever is able to pass the challenges of this tower will become the ruler of all known land.” Years passed. generations passed. No one, man woman, or child has been able to complete the challenges within the tower. This is the story of one such adventurer, Wing, and his Adventure in the Tower of Flight.
Steam User 23
After years of war the gods decided they had enough. Removing powerful relics from the hands of the kings they hid them in nearby tower. Anyone that was able to retrieve all relics would once and for all be known as ruler of the known world. Playing the roll of Wing you set out to take your chances at glory and perhaps peace across the lands.
Gameplay quite similar to Alex the Kidd, which isn't a bad thing. Progress is made by surviving through rooms which contain enemies, puzzles and traps. Not required to kill every enemy and they often respawn if you walk off the screen so technically you would be there for an eternity. Climb the tower further and fight bosses followed by eventually reaching segments that showed a minimap dictating new zones. New areas held one of the sought after relics that rewarded a new skill or weapon along with changes in visual themes, music and increased overall difficulty.
Decent chiptune soundtrack that could use a little more variation in the loops but it was certainly upbeat and fitting, soundfx took me straight back to yesteryear. Responsive controls though I would suggest a gamepad, will be doing a lot of button tapping using the characters flight skills. Something that tried to set it apart from others in the genre but I personally felt it just made the game easier as it could easily be exploited but likely by design.
Enjoyed my time spent playing thus far and if you enjoy platformers, more-so of the retro variety it's worth checking out. Keep in mind it's not without it's flaws and as it stands @$10 would give it a solid recommend. Would suggest doing further research yourself as always. Cheer folks. :)
Likes
Simple Controls
Clean Colourful Pixel Art
No 'widescreen' support didn't bother me.
Dislikes:
Pointless Item Shop
Looping Rooms (bugs)
Bit on the easy side for veterans
NOTES:
Gametime isn't logged correctly since I play offline.
Developer provided a steam code. Never changes my thoughts.
Steam User 13
A fun little gameboy style retro platformer. On normal mode it's incredibly easy except for some of the boss battles having odd difficulty spikes, particularly the last one. Worth a playthrough despite that.
Steam User 17
Update: Completed Game Review
Ok as this game stands it's good but not great.
First off the gameplay is solid at first, you can fly as long as your meter is full (which can be exploited a bit when you figure out to tap the the jump button). although the hit detection of your sword is a very short range and can get annoying when you move up to enemies to hit them only to get hit yourself. Once you get the dash attack ability (Has you dash in any 4 directions) the game gets an increase in enjoyment when it come to gameplay.
The Item shop, (after you buy the Health increase) is useless. For coins you can get a health refill (Enemies drop health, sooooooooo..... pointless?) an extra life(if you run out you just start back at the last check point you crossed, plus unlimited continues), and for feathers you can get a magic feather (that makes you invulnerable for 15 seconds.......... right after you leave the shop...... wait WHAT? o_O) and a magic potion that refills your hearts once they run out (AKA fairy in a bottle).
Some enemies are programed in Unnecessary Bull shit that seeps at their very maw........ ok mostly just the flying enemies. The butterfly's do make it difficult in the beginning since the range of your sword is short, and they fly at you in a Boo like fashion from mario bros. Seriously screw butterfly's.
Update: Or maybe I just suck, but you know what, I ABSOLUTELY HATE THOSE DAMN BAT'S THAT FLY FROM THE EDGE OF THE SCREEN IN THE LAST LEVEL. SCREW YOU! YOU F***ING BATS!!!
And that's the only thing I hate from the final level - end anger enduced rant
There are also some area's that will leave you confused, since you have to remeber where you have been and if you go through the wrong door, the door behind you closes and you have to trek through that area all over again just to get back at the area that has multiple doors. Not too much of a problem for me, but for some that could get annoying.
Progession is Great, as you keep going up the game will get progressivly harder, but it seems it's mostly at your pace. Once you learn to deal with some enemies naturally over time, you feel more confident then when it gets to the next area it adds another difficulty. This is pretty solid right here.
Once you get an item that has you charge up your sword....... it takes way to long it seems and just seems to leave you open and is only effective towards one enemy that can be easily avoided.
Update - I was told by the developers that they fixed the sword charging problem, Great job guys. This made me want to use the charge up way more, and once fixed made combat enjoyable again........... except for the bats in the final level.
Update: Bosses are cool looking but can sometimes seem exploitve. I was able to find parts of the bosses where you could find an area to just hang out and spam your attacks. But that could also be a necessity since sometimes the bosses attack paths seemed ridiculous to dodge. Like the Total Biscuit Butterfly Boss battle, that would spawn Little Biscuits to attack you...... I'm still wondering why Total Biscuit was a butterfly. Final Boss was definetly the best part of the boss battles, I won't spoil anything but he's a good fresh challenge.
So overall The game is good, but not something that you should go out of your way to get.
Update: I do love the fact that the developers were able to hear out their audience and fix some problems, and I understand that they cannot go back and make the magic feather of invicibility a more useful item since that might entail changing code which could cause the game to glitch or crash. But thanks again Pixel Barrage for improving after release.
My recommendation:
Update: I still stand by my original conclusion, though Pixel Barrage willing to hear the criticizm and improve upon the game from those remarks, definetly gets a plus in my book.
If you're looking for a new sidescroller, get it.
If you're interested but have some doubt's from the price, you can pass it and get it later.
It's really nothing you need now, but can be fun at times
Steam User 10
Don't let the bad art on the store page fool you, very bad art. Sorry to the dev but damn. This game feels so NES like, you'd think this was a port of a old Nes game. There's lot of imitators, who inspire to make games that's reminiscent of a old NES game and end up doing it badly.
The devs for this game brought the feel and even the sound. i literally felt like i was playing a Nes game. had this game came out back in that era, this game would of been on of the best. i enjoyed this game a lot. the game as similar structures to Castlevania, Metroid/Zelda ability loot system with kid Icarus and Kirby feel to it. This is more of a point A to B kind of structure with branching path, by which door you choose to take.
The game doesn't have that hard Nintendo feel to it, though it clearly could if it wanted to, had it take out some form of element after you die. Adventure in the Tower of flight is a most definitely recommend for me, very enjoyable game. I own this game for a couple of years and disappointed in myself for playing it now.
Steam User 4
A nice vertically oriented platformer, with a pleasing aesthetic that seems to take equal inspiration from NES classics like Kid Icarus and early Apogee hits like Crystal Caves. The ubiquitous jumping mechanic is replaced with flight: a generous meter allows you to float almost freely about the lofty, linear stages as you suddenly strike out with a dash attack or charge up your blade for a power-swing. The mostly deliberate speed of Wing's movements, together with the pacing of the levels themselves, gives the game a slightly foggy, meditative feeling -- as in a pleasant dream decorated with fleecy clouds and slowly billowing draperies that stretch up beyond the limit of sight.
When I was an NES-addicted kid, I had lots of dreams about playing games that didn't exist, mostly games set in towering castles with slow, low-G action; I know I must not be the only one, since somebody made a game like this, drawing undoubtedly from the collective unconscious that all 2D gamers share. Throughout my playthrough I felt a warm buzz of everyday mysticality, like an amplification of the little thrill you sometimes get when you walk away from a radio mid-song, only to hear the end of the same song sounding from a parked car a couple minutes later. There's nothing truly magical about everybody getting the same broadcast, but it's easy (and fun) to let part of yourself believe that there is.
(If you are a calloused veteran of old-school platformers, attain maximum enjoyment by cranking the difficulty up to MASTER -- but no higher!)
Steam User 2
A moderately epic tribute to the early days of 8-bit. Snappy controls, creative level design, and moderate replayability highlight a platformer that's worth your time (and the asking price).
I mean, the story is godawful, but that too is faithful to the era that the game is emulating. And you're not buying ultra-retro games for the story.
This game really needs to be better-known.
Steam User 6
It's... okay. If you're a fan of retro platformers, you'll probably like this game. The problem is, though, that the genre is just oversaturated to the point where a retro platformer needs to really be execeptional or really unique to stand out. Unfortunately, Adventure in the Tower of Flight doesn't really make itself stand out.
HOWEVER, that isn't to say that it is not fun.
The game is fun enough for what it is. The two main differences here are 1, you can fly from the beginning and 2, you occasionally pick up upgrades as you go through the game. It's almost like a metroidvania lite in that aspect, but you don't have an open world to explore like in a metroidvania. Once you leave a room, the only way to go is forward.
There's also a shop, but it's kinda lame. You save and you save and you don't get anything really interesting out of it. Useful, sure, but not interesting.
It's not great but it's not bad, but I think it's better picked up on a sale.