About

The Only Tower is a minimalist action roguelike inspired by Dome Keeper and Vampire Survivors.

Presskit

Protect the Tower

You're the only one that can operate the Tower! Stay nearby to keep it powered up in order destroy the hordes of enemies trying to bring it down.


Upgrade the Tower, Upgrade Yourself!

Leave the comfort of the tower to pickup resources in order to upgrade the tower, weapons, and the player.

Upgrade the Enemies!?

After every wave, you'll have to choose which enemies to face next, as well as how to upgrade them. You'll have to choose carefully if you want to succeed.

Survive?

Be not afraid.

Controls

Keyboard

  • Move: WASD, Arrow Keys
  • Dash: Space

Gamepad

  • Move: Left Joystick
  • Dash: Xbox: A, Playstation: X

Press/Streamer Kit

Presskit

Tiny Mass Games

The Only Tower was created in association with Tiny Mass Games, a loose collective of small teams and solo developers who aim to create an exciting new game every quarter. Check out our other work at tinymassgames.com.

StatusIn development
PlatformsHTML5, Windows
Rating
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
(74 total ratings)
AuthorGiant Light Studios
GenreAction, Strategy
TagsRoguelike, Roguelite, Singleplayer

Download

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Click download now to get access to the following files:

OnlyTower_Windows.zip 38 MB

Development log

Comments

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Viewing most recent comments 1 to 40 of 80 · Next page · Last page

"Be not afraid."

💀💀💀💀💀



Can you make it playable on Linux ?

found this similar looking game on the app store 

did you guys contribute on this or...

(+1)

ugh. Nope! didn't contribute to that at all. They actually have another clone of this game that is a little less shameless. Ah well, I'm at least confident that their work leaves them miserable and unfulfilled :)

it would be really cool if these "eye games"  all turned into part of some larger game or arg lol

I do think of them as all being part of some kind of extended universe. See also: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1624550/Betty__Earl/

(+1)

interesting... can't wait to see your next prototype lol

i cant start the game im prob just dumb but help

(1 edit)

 Died just before redacted 3. Great game though, pretty fun. 

Tip: get thumper with fire. (Second upgrade)

What do the upgrades do?

Love the game tho

They play a sound effect and unlock future upgrades!

what are the upgrades

still hoping for more content lol

hat do the upgrades even do?

(+1)

devilishly difficult,    took MANY tries to get past the first eye wave

(+2)

Enemies get WAAAAAY too OP. I'm not a fan of enemies being 50% faster, 50% tankier, or dealing 50% more damage. Maybe have a difficulty option or a Zen mode because I don't like having 50% more battery recharge speed on wave 2 with 3 hulks shredding my tower.

Yeah the RNG is not fair sometimes.

(+1)

its fun but im noob so i cant beat it 

(my best so far)

(+1)

I believe in you! 

(+1)

so close yet so far

(+2)

So unique and genuinely fun, really enjoyed it

thanks so much!! Glad you enjoyed it! 

(+1)

Really rich visuals and sound effects, and just nice polish overall.  Choosing the enemy upgrades in successive rounds added a complexity to it -- it's a difficult game but I made slow progress on each play, which is a good sign.  Gameplay was smooth -- nice work!

Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it!

In both web browser (firefox latest) and download (windows 10), the game will randomly stop accepting inputs. its very frustrating since the game is fun, but i cant play it

hmm, strange that it would happen in both the browser and in the downloads. I haven't gotten any other reports like this. Are you using a controller, or keyboard? 

(1 edit)

my best was 132 (round

)

for some reason I can't see the eye in the start screen

(mac book air - opera Gx )


(+1)

That's so strange. Maybe try a different browser like Chrome or Firefox?

how do you start the game Like I pressed every button and clicked on everything 

(pressing ``Space`` makes sound but does nothing)

You gotta move the eye onto the circle labeled 'start' and then wait for the white outline to wrap around all the way.

(2 edits)

What eye???

Edit: I can´t see the eye for some reason but for a second i saw the white out line on the start button

(+1)

Fun game, honestly! Well done!

Thanks so much!

(+1)

You’re welcome! Keep up the good work!

Please give us interim reports.

I think the game is really good! Keep up the awesome job!

Thanks so much!

i think the main issue with the latest update is the fact that enemies get all their stats upgraded (such as the 75% hp 25% speed and 25% attack upgrades). it makes trying to target one type of enemy harder. have you tried fighting hulks with +100% speed?! I like the idea, but once you're past wave [REDACTED] it becomes way too hard... maybe after you beat wave redacted you get a "super upgrade" that can maybe give a fourth level to weapons? i don't really know, i just think that if its going to get exponentially harder after wave [REDACTED] there should be something to make the player still viable. i really enjoy the game and this game has become my go to game when i'm bored. i hope the feedback helps, all i want is to see this game get better and better!

Hey yeah! Definitely helpful. I do think I need to dial back the enemy upgrades, though I am still going to try and get 'upgrades to multiple stats' to work. Also, for the full game, there would be some other big change (go to a new zone? unlock a new character?) after beating [redacted], so I'm trying to balance the game to where just being [redacted] is a satisfying challenge on its own. For now, the post [redacted] gameplay is just for the people who've really figured things out. Will definitely do a balance pass though, it's still too hard.

Maybe add a visual pool of how many mobs are there in the next round, and when you select the difficulty, add the mobs into the pool. the pool then disappear (maybe all the mobs animate out of the camera area) and get game started. Help player know what will they face next. XD

This is a really great idea, thanks for the suggestion!

I watched other streamer played your game and got an inspiration. How about you select the difficulty first, then select the level up and the higher difficulty you add, you can have stronger weapon.

(1 edit)

Awesome! I like the idea of the upgrades being tied to the difficulty level.

Do you have a link to the video?

yes! it's from bilibili, a china video share website. here is the link, I'm not sure whether you can click it. I copied the link and it showed in Chinese. Maybe try to click it:  【小游戏】用最简单的画面做出了最强游戏性?!极简风格塔防类幸存者《唯一的塔(The Only Tower)》游玩解说流程_哔哩哔哩bilibili

The player didn't comment on the game but only tried to play his best. The comment below the video are discussing the game design and mechanisms.

He cites your link on the bottom of the description of the video.

So cool! Thanks so much for sharing, it's really awesome to see someone from the other side of the world playing my game :D!

Thank you for your game! It's really cool XD!

btw, its from bilibili:【小游戏】用最简单的画面做出了最强游戏性?!极简风格塔防类幸存者《唯一的塔(The Only Tower)》游玩解说流程_哔哩哔哩bilibili, probably you'd like to find out some other comments

Still need some balancing, break through Wave 12 is really hard, but if really could get to about 30 waves even more is really fun, hope this game could go further.

Deleted 1 year ago

Really appreciate the feedback. Agree that things still need a lot of balancing, but trying to get to a good baseline challenge level where getting to the [redacted] wave and surviving is satisfying. Wanted to fix the scaling stuff by itself without disturbing any of the other elements to see what happens. I'm curious what new strategies might be required this way. Really helpful to know from players which ones are dominate, so that I can increase the others.

Thanks so much for the thoughtful feedback, and sorry that you're feeling frustrated!

(+1)
👁👁👁 Be not afraid 👁👁👁

👁👁👁 Be not afraid 👁👁👁

Got to essentially invincible loadout with freezing sprinkler, shotgun max range, and freezing grenade launcher. For the eye select "attract pickups when eye is at tower", extra drops upgrade, and higher pickup radius. Avoid picking boomers, choose some hulks at the beginning of the run so you can leave your tower and collect powerups when needed, you can kite those hulks away from the tower. Eventually I got to a point where nothing could get through, so I selected weirdos every time I could to max enemy drops (they have a lot of drops and they drop them close to your reach without charging all the way in). No need to dodge the Be Not Afraid boss, its damage doesnt seem to scale so just tank their hits. You eventually become invincible with this strat, I only died because I got bored and wanted to use my points.

ahh, i suppose with the new way that enemies increase all of their stats for leveling up, this run is much harder now.

Yeah, it's definitely a lot harder. Still dialing it in, would love to know what you think after you've had a chance to play a few times.

You have better to perform enough playtest before release new update. Enemy increase numbers & default enemy HP too higher to Enjoy this game in Ver.0.10.1b.  At least Ver.010.1b's content quality reduced than Ver.0.10. I know, Good games go all out for killing player after "Tutorial is Ended".

And, Bomb Object damage is bugged now.

(-1)

engrish

How many languages do you speak?

zero, I'm illiterate

I like the theme / aesthetic, but the difficulty curve needs tuning. Depending on your RNG early levels can be impossible.

(3 edits)

   when i pick the enemies come slower i feel like they come faster is it a bug? anyone else get it?                                  i played the game and it  threw all the  enemies at  me   when i picked slower eneimes

sorry to necropost but thats bc the enemies move slower, but have the same spawnrate

(+1)

could you make an upgrade system for the enemies and yourself like when you make yourself stronger you get less xp and when you make the enemies stronger you get more xp

I tried the bomb to kill the angel, but went for it too soon.

(+1)

can you make boomers explode and leave an AoE of the effect they had on? it seems like it would be a pretty cool feature

like if they're on fire and they explode they leave a fire area for a short time

oo, this is a really interesting idea. I like that it synergizes with the other powerups. I'll definitely give it a shot!

From one game dev to another. How did you get your game on my itch page, what did you do to get your game popular.

Well I think I got a bunch of comments early on, and I tried to respond to everyone. I think that boosted my popularity. It was popular enough that it was at the top of roguelikes for a while, which also helped. This then turned into Wanderbots playing, and he's got hunders of thousands of followers, so that was obviously a huge boost.

(1 edit)

But what if my game has 100+ downloads but not a single comment?

Im not a developer but I've seen that happen before   it's just something that can happen i guess

Love the game! I was just curious about the "Eye is immune to fire" and "Eye is immune to ice." I originally thought they had to do with the appearance of element-attribute upgrades? I don't really know what they do though....

This really only does anything if you have the appropriate grenade launcher upgrades, as nothing else is capable of applying ice or fire to Eye.

Did anyone else pick up the nuke power-up and then just lose the game?

Ugh :( This is a bug. Really sorry about that! Will have an update out hopefully tonight to fix it.

(+1)

could you make an upgrade tree, so I can see what the upgrades do? (also, I totally thought the nuke was intentional lol)

Lol same ngl.

Huh, interesting. Maybe I need to introduce mimics :)

W idea. That would be so annoying... 

I love it.

Also is it just me or is the sprinkler and rifle the same thing.

as long as they don't insta kill, only deal damage

(1 edit) (+1)

How did that bug sneak past anyways? Did no one ever actually test the nuke? Sounds like an interesting story at the least

Bug is still there

Yeah, thanks for the update. I've been stuck trying to solve the issue of new builds wiping old progress. Want to get that right before I update anything else. Hopefully will be fixed soon!

Will you release the game on Steam? Maybe EA for now?

(1 edit)

So I actually started a little collective of developers (Tiny Mass Games, https://tinymassgames.itch.io/) who are attempting to release a batch of games every quarter this year. This was the game for q1. My plan is, after the year, I'll see which game(s) had the most interest, and then develop that further.

This game certainly seems to have gained some traction, much more than I was expecting, so it's a good contender for a more complete development cycle. Of course if a publisher comes along and says they'd like to fund this project, I would definitely do that.

(+1)

Absolutely love it, the graphics are clean and very nice to look at, and the ambience is great :D (especially love the shotgun sfx lol, so much oomph)

It has great replayability, and the enhancements are funny while still being a goal to work towards of sorts :P

I do really enjoy the amount of strategy in this, both in picking upgrades for immediate use, and effectively investing in upgrade branches for later. The enemy buffing is also super interesting (the skull rating is so helpful) Also I like that the player is heavily encouraged to go and scavenge, it really adds to the tenseness of the gameplay! 

My only constructive criticism is that sometimes the upgrade orb things can spawn quite far from the tower, and often I don't even realise they're there as a result, even with all my 'running' around D: 

sidenote: can an eyeball even run???

Oh and the 'be not afraid' bit is honestly really cool, I really love the design of the 'unnameable beast' hehe, and the fact that you can't kill it, just evade, adds a fun and unusual challenge (usually resulting in me getting my butt kicked but hey what can you do :P)

In short: awesome game :D And thiiiiiis is a very long comment, oops :v

Thank you so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I really appreciate the thoughtful comment. Was a lovely way to start the day :)

Here's a hint, you don't dodge the beams, since they can't be damage boosted, you can always tank all the beams at full health

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