I don’t like clowns, so anything that lets me blast one in the face immediately gets my attention. Twisted Tower offers that and much more in a Bioshock-inspired hellride through the appropriately titled amusement park. All sorts of bizarre enemies await across the multiple floors, but you’re armed with equally strange weapons, such as a gumball-shooting machine gun. If that sounds like a riot to you, then you can try its new Steam demo to find out for sure.
Twisted Tower begins with the protagonist winning an invitation to the dilapidated attraction. Once there, he has to fight through waves of craven, gun-toting mascots in the FPS game, using an increasingly odd inventory of firearms. The warped labyrinth is full of disused pageantry, as if Willy Wonka and Andrew Ryan made their own Disneyland, but then abandoned it as soon as it opened.
It’s all orchestrated by Mr Twister, an entrepreneurial toymaker responsible for all the deadly characters that keep coming your way. He’s designed the whole thing as an elaborate form of entertainment, with your ascent in the horror game being broadcast to the masses on the radio. There are multiple ways up, and the challenges are increasingly madcap, to everyone’s delight except your own – until you get the right kind of firepower.
There’s a palpable delight to Twisted Tower just on a base level. Confetti pops out when you kill something in the upcoming PC game – they’re toys, after all – and animal-like voices accompany some of your adversaries, just adding to the theme park pastiche. It’s very Bioshock, but not quite so self-serious, landing closer to American McGee’s Alice in overall tone.
The action game comes from Thomas Brush, a solo dev who operates under Atmos Games. It’s his third release, after the macabre indie games Neversong and Pinstripe. This is a considerable step up in terms of scope and execution, not only moving from 2D to 3D, but also into a first-person shooter with environments that seem to be chock full of unexpected twists.
The first impression is a strong one, and you can find out for yourself if it’s got promise right now.
The demo for Twisted Tower is available from today on Steam. You can check out the Steam page here for more details. Or you can have a look through our lists of the best puzzle games and best zombie games to give you plenty of other ways to challenge your brain and your trigger finger.
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