In Twisted Tower, the player must fight their way through a nightmarish amusement park to rescue their love interest. Along the way, they will encounter murderous animatronics that will hunt them down at the behest of the tower’s master, the creepy and mysterious Mr. Twister. As shown in the Twisted Tower demo that is currently available to download on Steam, players will have access to a variety of weapons to help fend off these frightening opponents.
Right at the entrance of the titular Twisted Tower, the player is granted a toy hammer that wouldn’t look too out of place in a “test of strength” carnival game for melee attacks, and as they venture deeper into the haunted attraction, they will discover various guns with different functions. In keeping with the overall carnival theme of Twisted Tower, these guns are toys but are no less effective at tearing through packs of evil animatronics. In a recent interview with Game Rant, Twisted Tower art director and project lead Thomas Brush said that the game’s development team spent their time looking up old toy guns on Google Images for references to base main character Tiny’s different guns on
Specific elements like rubber bands, marbles, cheap wooden handles, plastic tips, painted tin, and darts were all things the team looked at to give Twisted Tower its carnival feel. However, Brush noted that this approach had the drawback of the guns not feeling as powerful as the more conventional firearms of other games. To counter this, Brush and the team at Atmos Games utilized sound design to give Twisted Tower’s combat the weight they were aiming for.
Twisted Tower’s Guns Are Based on Old School Toys
They would simply use regular FPS gun sounds when the guns were fired, with subtle toy noises at the very end or during reload animations. For example, the Miss Rubber Band pistol sounds like a normal firearm when it is fired, with a stretching rubber band being heard when the player puts in more ammo. Describing his team’s approach to the weapons, Brush said,
“The problem with this is that, at least on the surface, you’re going to have a weapon that doesn’t feel punchy or powerful because, well, it’s strapped together with tin and rubber bands. Sure, the gun might look funny and interesting, but it doesn’t feel good to shoot, and there’s no fun in that. But the sound design really solved that issue almost immediately. Instead of trying to make the gun sound “toyish,” we simply said screw it and just used actual gun sounds with subtle toy sounds at the tail end of the sounds, or during reload animations. For example, a rubber band sound during reload was all we really needed for the Miss Fire rubber band pistol.”
The result of this is an atmospheric experience that combines the gritty horror of BioShock with the whimsical visuals of Disneyland or a Tim Burton film, both of which were prime sources for Brush while making Twisted Tower. There is currently no release date for the game, but players can try out some of Twisted Tower’s deceptively toylike arsenal in the available Steam demo.
