Witch cards will drop: Tower of Guns

Roguelites, which is a pretty vague half-genre description, spread to many different full genres and do many different things to those games. To my surprise, one of the genres that seems most easily adapted to roguelite behaviors is shooters the list of ones recommended to try is pretty short. I mean you have this one, Tower of Guns, and then you have that other one Ziggurat. Then I don't think much of any have come up as worthwhile.

You'd really think roguelites would prosper with FPS gameplay, given most if not all of the core elements are so easily transitioned over. Random drops, leveling, random events, levels assembled by quasi-procedural nonsense, FPSes can do all of this and maybe actually do it in fun ways. I don't know, maybe there's a literal ton of them, but I can think of like two indie FPS roguelites that don't fall on the list.

It's a little bit annoying that I keep running into roguelite games while doing this streak of reviews, but Tower of Guns I simply had installed from weeks or months ago and had forgotten about it. Recently, I picked up a used geforce 960 GTX, so I was looking at shooters I'd forgotten about and realized I actually had more than a few currently installed. Which is, you know, kind of silly. So I loaded this up and gave it a whirl.

Actually, though I guess I'll find a copy of Ziggurat eventually, maybe the reality is the problems with Tower of Guns highlight why FPS into roguelite is a bit difficult. Guess we'll see whenever that shows up in a bundle or whatever.


So, Tower of Guns is a firstperson shooter at its core. You play a ... Actually your character is randomly generated as well, but you play a shootmans who starts with 1 gun and 1 perk. You can not run out of ammo, but you have two bars: Life and weapon level. Both of which decrease when you get hit, although to be honest, weapon level dropping rarely matters when rapidly taking hits means you're, you know, non-living. You do not have regenerating health, and there are four kinds of pick ups: Life, weapon XP, item slot energy and money.

ToG is, as you can guess from the no-regenerating health, more in line with Doom or early FPS games than anything else. On the other hand, enemies in this game teleport in, but most of them are actually immobile or barely what I'd call mobile. See, the game has a light seasoning of steampunk, and most of your foes are turrets. You enter a room, the enemy appear and start blasting. None of the enemies have hitscan weapons, everything is meant to be dodged, but the game pushes the limits of my situational awareness and I think a lot of the skill is in picking places where you can dodge from, not just trying to dodge.

In terms of visuals the game is actually pleasant looking. It has a bit of a retro style, but with simple smooth textures that are easy on the eyes. Like I said, it's seasoned with steampunk, so you get some whirring gears and the like. The game's lighting engine is really lacking, though, and it's a bit disappointing how flat everything ends up looking. The game could use a bit more ambience, I guess is what I'm saying. The engine ran fine for me, but it doesn't look especially amazing so that's not overly much of a surprise.

On the other hand I really like the music, it's nothing super complex but it's some charming beats that sound good as the level starts up and happily thump away as you tear through the terrors of the turret world. The audio direction is, on the other hand, a little weak and I find it difficult to sort through enemies being behind me. Stuff could use a little more in audio cues, basically, or just audio in general.

FPS games kinda float or sink based around two primary sets of assets. If you look at military shooters, well, they do one really well: The guns are really satisfying to shoot. The guns in Tower of Guns, in spite of its gun gun gun name, just aren't really that exciting. Even the rocket launcher just feels kinda 'eh', although it does splatter enemies quite nicely. But that leads to the other problem, the other asset: Enemy design. Like I said, enemies in ToG are turrets or turret related. They're all mechano, floaty, not all that real feeling stuff. The game has a style, and the style is good, but it just drops the ball on variety. The turrets are fine, but there's just not enough. Everything feels like you're being fired at by those bullet bill launchers in SMB. If that's all the game is, well, it just doesn't gel.

I think the game's design is meant to inspire that 'shmup' feeling of dodging bullets, and it does sometimes get there - especially when you have triple jump - but there's often too much to hold in your thoughts and you end up running backwards into a spiked ball or something that spoils it.

The game doesn't have much a story - it picks a random back story as you start the game, and you get a little dialogue regarding that. The dialogue is good, and it did make me laugh. In terms of being charming, ToG manages that. In terms of being 'long term play' satisfying, ToG doesn't quite fit the bill. I had a good hour and a half with it, and I do appreciate that it has unlocks but the lack of weapon variety is a bit frustrating. It supposedly has special 'weapon mods' you can see drops of, but all I've seen is +bullet size and +stun, and I didn't really notice those doing anything exciting.

Anyway, in conclusion, is ToG bad? No, but there's not enough here to truly recommend. It's another one of those titles where I feel like it just went 80% of the way to being great, but you really feel that gap. It's not a "regret owning" sort of game, it's quite solid, but nothing special.