OS X, Linux; 2 August 2016; Xbox One; 15 September 2017; Nintendo Switch; 11 October 2018. Genre(s) Puzzle. Mode(s), Single-player, multiplayer. Tricky Towers is a physics based tower building game puzzle video game that uses a form of.

There are countless puzzlers on the market and a great many Tetris games too, but Tricky Towers brings something genuinely novel to fans of both. Featuring all the classic Tetris shapes you’re no doubt familiar with, from the versatile L piece to the frustratingly rare line block, this new Switch game adds realistic physics to the age-old formula of neatly stacking Tetris blocks.

It’s a solid idea, executed very well for the most part I was delighted to find. There are three main game modes, survival, puzzle and race, but all are built around the same core gameplay. Blocks slowly descend from the top of the screen, giving you time to horizontally position and rotate them to be strategically stacked on top of each other. The twist is that they behave realistically under gravity, toppling over and sliding along each other if not placed with care. There’s plenty of room for out-of-the-box thinking, and I won’t spoil any of the creative ways to solve problems as these eureka moments are truly satisfying. The game is challenging and will demand you figure out how to take full advantage of any block in any situation. Physics is an inherently intuitive mechanic, but still, you will spend early sessions exploring what works and what doesn’t, pushing your luck and inevitably watching many Jenga moments unfold as your once-sturdy towers come crashing down.

The three game types can be played in local or online multiplayer with two to four players. They’re also present in single player which features an endless run mode – highly replayable for chasing top scores – and a trials mode which has fifty levels to complete, each being one of the three types. Puzzle type is the most methodical, asking you to fit a fixed selection of blocks into a small area without dropping any. There’s no randomness involved, only skill, and while these can be very difficult at times, they’re the fairest and most satisfying to complete. However, race and survival game types produce blocks in random order so it’s tempting to blame luck, not yourself, when attempts go badly. Race asks you to stack blocks higher and higher until your tower reaches a target altitude within the given time limit. On the other hand, survival asks you to stack a set number of blocks without dropping more than two in the process. Both are generally fun and addictive, but they also add challenge by periodically plaguing your innocent building ambitions with ‘dark magic’. This comes in many forms, such as locking blocks in one position, preventing rotations, or speeding up fall speed to a stressful degree. These, and many other potential curses, are enough to make one-try completions of many levels near impossible. Luckily, the pause menu offers a retry option, a simple but crucial feature.

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Unfortunately, while they don’t completely ruin this great game, the dark magic attributes can be very frustrating at times. Locking blocks into place is a great added challenge, keeping the gameplay focus on puzzle solving but with a twist. Increasing the fall speed of blocks, on the other hand, is frustrating and shifts the game’s focus from its main strength – puzzle solving – to a reaction-speed test. Another example of dark magic is a fog that appears over your tower, making it very difficult to strategically place new blocks on top; this one simply isn’t fun at all. Because of this, the race and survival game types can feel difficult for the sake of being difficult rather than being an entertaining, fair challenge.

Finally, the game is incredibly fun to play multiplayer and anyone can easily jump in for local competitive action. Players who don’t own the game are unlikely to struggle too much against those who do. The familiarity of the Tetris blocks combined with the natural intuitiveness of physics-based gameplay makes catching up relatively easy. Players can also cast dark magic on each other during matches, adding more randomness and chaos, evening out any remaining skill gap between players, making each match anyone’s game. The same applies in online multiplayer which is addictive and even awards experience points after matches, giving some reason to stay invested in playing for longer. The only glaring flaw here is that I couldn’t find any way to play with people on my friends list – it seems that only random matchmaking is supported, unfortunately.

Overall Tricky Towers is an excellent idea, generally well executed, with a few areas that could use improvement. Ultimately though, it’s fun to play alone, with friends, or with strangers, and puzzle game fans will no doubt find many hours of enjoyment.

Tricky Towers is a physics based tower building game puzzle video game that uses a form of block-stacking problem as the central game mechanic.^[2] It was released on digital distribution service Steam for Windows, OS X, and Linux, and for the PlayStation Plus service in August 2016, before being released on PlayStation 4 a month later. It was released on Xbox One on September 18, 2017, and on the Nintendo Switch on October 11, 2018.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}

The game runs on the Unity engine and was created by independent studio WeirdBeard. The game received favourable reviews.^[8][9][10]

Gameplay[edit]

Tricky Towers uses physics based tower building game mechanics. Although there is some visual similarity to Tetris, the gameplay is entirely different. It features falling blocks but the goal is to stack blocks onto a tower rather than clear rows. Random blocks drop from the top of the screen and rows do not disappear, but blocks may fall off the tower. During the game, events may cause changes to the block physics, such as doubling in size, becoming slippery, or dropping at faster rates. The player takes control of one of the available wizard avatars and must, depending on the game mode, compete against other wizards in building his wizard tower to be as tall and stable as possible, and as quickly as possible. The games are short and fast-paced and are easy to pick up and play. Pieces move in half-square increments.^[11]

Players can use magic spells to assist themselves or to hinder opponents. During a match, there are 17 spells which can become available to the player. Spells are divided into Light and Dark magic categories - Light magic focuses on augmenting your tower while Dark Magic revolves around interfering with your opponents, such as damaging or weakening their towers, or meddling with their engineering efforts in other devious ways.

The game has 3 distinct multiplayer game modes: Race, Survival and Puzzle. In the Race game mode, players must compete to be the first to build a tower tall enough to pass the finish line. Efficiency and construction speed are key to this game mode and it makes for a fast-paced and frantic game experience. In Survival, the player must try and place a certain number of bricks on their tower without dropping too many and losing their health. They must focus on careful construction and smart application of spells to triumph. The Puzzle game mode is more slow-paced compared to the other two. Players need to try and place as many bricks on their tower as possible below a certain cut-off point. This requires a more creative style of play, as the player has to try and overcome the physics and come up with various engineering solutions.

There are also a number of single-player challenges available, where the player has to try and achieve a certain set of conditions depending on the challenge to succeed. There are also single-player versions of the Survival and Puzzle game modes where players compete for a high score, and the Xbox version of the game introduced a single-player version of the Race game mode, which was later added to other platforms.

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Development[edit]

Development started on Tricky Towers after WeirdBeardGames’ previous title 99 Bricks Wizard Academy was released in 2014. It is a continuation of a concept they've been developing and improving upon since 2009, starting with 99 Bricks Classic, which was released on the online game platform Kongregate.

After release new languages and block skins were added to the game.^[12][13] A larger Indie Friends DLC adding a set of new wizard characters using characters from other Indie games was released on July 19, 2017.^[14]

Reception[edit]

Tricky Towers on PC and Nintendo Switch received 'generally favorable' reviews from critics according to review aggregation website Metacritic, while the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions received 'mixed or average' reviews.^[8] A PS Nation review thought the game was fun but not easy.^[11] The Nintendo Life review of the Switch version summarized with: 'Although the single player offerings are a bit on the slim side, we enjoyed our time with Tricky Towers and would highly recommend it for anybody looking for a good couch multiplayer or puzzle game.'^[17]

References[edit]

1. ^'Tricky Towers - Made with Unity'. Made with Unity. Archived from the original on 22 June 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
2. ^'Tricky Towers'. www.trickytowers.com. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
3. ^'Save 50% on Tricky Towers on Steam'. store.steampowered.com. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
4. ^'Tricky Towers and Rebel Galaxy are coming to PlayStation Plus in August (update)'. 26 July 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
5. ^'Fan Persistence Pays Off As Block-Stacking Puzzler Tricky Towers Arrives On Switch'. nintendolife.com. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
6. ^'Tricky Towers announced for Switch, out next month'. nintendoeverything.com. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
7. ^'Tricky Towers coming to Switch on October 11'. gematsu.com. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
8. ^ ^abc'Tricky Towers'. Metacritic. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
9. ^ ^ab'Tricky Towers'. Metacritic. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
10. ^'Tricky Towers Xbox One Release Announcement'. news.xbox.com. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
11. ^ ^abc'Review: Tricky Towers (PS4)'. PS Nation. 29 July 2016. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
12. ^'Chinese language added to Tricky Towers'. steamcommunity.com. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
13. ^'Holographic Bricks Released'. steamcommunity.com. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
14. ^'Tricky Towers – Indie Friends DLC released today!'. 3rd-strike.com. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
15. ^'Tricky Towers'. Metacritic. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
16. ^'Tricky Towers'. Metacritic. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
17. ^ ^ab'Tricky Towers Review'. nintendolife.com. Retrieved 22 October 2018.

External links[edit]

• 99 Bricks at Kongregate