Adventure In The Tower Of Flight Available & My Thoughts

Adventure in the Tower of Flight was graduated from Steam's Greenlight system to a full release recently. Set in a world where the gods have built a giant tower whose treasures have the ability to unite the world and usher in an era of prosperity. Scores of adventurers have attempted to climb it and no one has ever reached the top. So it's up to the player to make his way through differently-themed areas of the tower and collect the treasures and ultimately reach the summit.

The core gameplay is rather basic. Most of the game comprises of straightforward platforming as the main character makes his way from room to room to the top of the tower. The twist is that from the very beginning players have the ability to fly, draining a magic gauge when doing so, and so this makes obsolete some of the more precise maneuvering that's expected in other platformers. Other than that, it's a standard slog through different areas, trying not to get hit by enemies and occasionally fighting boss battles. There's little in the way of backtracking or swapping back and forth in areas so it's more or less a linear game.

I enjoyed the game's overall design. It reminded me of something like Kid Icarus or the NES/ Early handheld era but more vibrant and colorful. I thought that the area and enemy designs were varied save towards the end, where the game decides to throw more of the same instead of doing something really unique. Music comprises of the expected chiptune soundtrack and is generally competent, if not a little forgettable. Some of the bosses looked good, as did the background effects, but it's nothing truly remarkable.

A patch released today changed what would have been my largest complaint with the game: that it's too easy. New difficulty modes have been added and I've yet to play them. In what used to be the only difficulty, however, the abundance of money and health drops meant that any meaningful challenge was nullified. Even the hardest sections, or the final boss, only took me two tries to adapt to and deal with efficiently. I appreciate the gradual introduction of enemies and hazards but the challenge often doesn't increase correspondingly.


The game also suffers of a distinct lack of imagination towards the end. I felt like I was going through the motions instead of exploring new and exotic areas which was in no way helped by the reappearance of some of the earlier bosses. Not only that but the upgrades that the player acquires during gameplay are simplistic and don't really change up things significantly. A bow allows for ranged attacks and the boots allow for dashing attacks but other than that the upgrades are passive and just make killing enemies or taking damage a little less tedious.

Perhaps what's most difficult to stomach is the game's length and overall lack of content. It took me under three hours to complete a relaxed run and there's really no reason to play through it all again. A simple way to fix this would have been to include mutually-exclusive routes that the player could take up the tower. With the addition of new difficulties there's some reason to give the game another playthrough but I think that the addition of a challenge mode or time trial might make things more interesting. There are secrets, sure, and I'm relatively certain that I missed a lot of them, but I don't think that it's anything that would appeal to anyone but the most bored or dedicated fans of the game.


Despite my criticisms, I liked Adventure in the Tower of Flight. It was certainly charming and I felt compelled to see it through to its end. Controls were responsive and I encountered no bugs or problems that marred the experience. The problem is that as much as I might have enjoyed myself, it's hard to recommend. There are many other adventure games and platformers available on Linux and nearly all of them bring something more interesting to the table than the flying mechanics. There are a few basic puzzle-like sections with switches in the game that, for example, would have made gameplay more varied if they were more complex or spanned across multiple areas.

The developer has taken heed of some of the post-launch cirticisms and addressed them in patches. I'm always glad to see game get post-launch content and this may go a long way in making subsequent playthroughs more appealing. If content continues to be added to the game, it'll be easier to recommend the game in the future to a general audience.

You can grab Adventure in the Tower of Flight on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.