''Tower of Heaven'' (also rendered as 天国の塔, ''Tengoku no Tō'' in Japanese) is a 2D platform video game developed by American studio Askiisoft. The game was built in

GameMaker GameMaker (originally Animo, Game Maker ''(until 2011)'' and GameMaker Studio) is a series of cross-platform game engines created by Mark Overmars in 1999 and developed by YoYo Games since 2007. The latest iteration of ''GameMaker'' released ...

, and was released for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

in 2009, with a Flash version released in 2010. The game was critically acclaimed and noted for its short length and difficulty.

Gameplay

In ''Tower of Heaven'', the player controls Eid, a silent protagonist with a large,

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...

-like head, who scales the Tower of Heaven, a mysterious monolith that promises glory to those who scale it. During the journey, a voice assumed to be God talks to Eid, getting angrier the further he climbs. He gives Eid the Book of Laws. The voice imposes more and more laws, and the player dies instantly if any of them are broken. The game also includes a speedrun mode, where you are timed, and a stage editor mode for the Flash browser version, where you can create and play your own stages.

Development

Tower of Heaven's soundtrack, composed by FlashyGoodness, and graphical style are heavily influenced by the

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same ...

, which was called "sly and deliberately deceptive" to hide the "brutal" difficulty. The game lacks a lives system, and instead uses a timer on each floor to encourage players to continue. The game was noted by Joseph Leray of video game news website

Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017, and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. History ' ...

to "expose" the "arbitrariness" of long-standing platform game design by giving the Tower an in-universe source and ultimately revealing its design as artificial and in need of destruction.

Reception

''Tower of Heaven'' received positive reception from critics. Michael Rose of

Indiegames.com ''Game Developer'', known as ''Gamasutra'' until 2021, is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine '' Game ...

called the game a "wonderful platformer" despite its difficulty. Joseph Leray of

called the game's soundtrack "absolutely killer". Fraser McMillan of Gamasutra called the game "almost more liberating" than open world AAA games, due to the fact that it makes quitting the game and the player's quest a perfectly valid option. ''Tower of Heaven'' received a tribute in the form of a playable stage in the 2011 platform fighter ''

Super Smash Land ''Super Smash Land'' is a fan-made demake of ''Super Smash Bros.'' released on September 14, 2011, by Dan Fornace. The game features six playable characters and 11 stages. The game's visual design resembles the graphics for the Game Boy and was de ...

'' and its 2017 spiritual successor, ''

Rivals of Aether ''Rivals of Aether'' is an indie platform fighter video game created by Dan Fornace, and released for Microsoft Windows in March 2017, for Xbox One in August 2017, and for Nintendo Switch on September 24, 2020. It received positive reception fro ...

''. The stages feature a similar "law" mechanic to ''Tower of Heaven'', where players who do not obey a law while it is active will take damage.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{Cite web , first=Joseph, last=Leray , url=https://www.destructoid.com/go-down-moses-for-the-love-of-god-play-tower-of-heaven-144216.phtml , archive-date=August 17, 2009 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090817033548/https://www.destructoid.com/go-down-moses-for-the-love-of-god-play-tower-of-heaven-144216.phtml , url-status=dead, title=Go down, Moses: for the love of God, play Tower of Heaven, website=Destructoid, date=14 August 2009, language=en, access-date=2024-01-08

External links

''Tower of Heaven''
at Askiisoft
''Tower of Heaven''
at MobyGames 2009 video games Browser games Indie games Flash games Monochrome video games Retro-style video games Windows games Platformers GameMaker Studio games Video games developed in the United States

Gameplay

Development

Reception

See also

References

External links