Published by 3D Realms, known for classics such as the Duke Nukem and more recent hits like Ion Fury, Twisted Tower continues the bold legacy of narrative shooter games. The game is the brainchild of indie developer, Thomas Brush, who spent five years working on the game as a mostly solo endeavor. The game has changed quite a bit in those five years: it originally started out as a game called Father, went through some art style changes, and had a slightly different premise when the name was first changed to Twisted Tower, but now, Brush’s dark carnival world is finally out for us to enjoy.
“One-hundred percent, yes!”
Twisted Tower wastes no time throwing the player into the action, all of the weapons are punchy and feel great to use, and the movement options unlocked throughout the game are useful in and out of combat. I played the game twice during the course of this review. The first time I played deliberately, taking in the environment, story and interacting with everything I could, and another where I tried to blaze through the game as fast as possible. Both of these playthroughs were just as fun as the other and I can see myself revisiting the game consistently in the future.
The game has an excellent atmosphere, there’s a loneliness that’s ever-present and a creeping sense of dread that allowed a few enemy ambushes to actually give me a good jump. There are audio tapes and letters scattered throughout the game that give insight on the main character, Vincent, and his life before the events of the game, these showcase an earnest romance between him and his fiancée, Charlotte. Over time, we see them grow closer and change each other’s lives for the better, which serves as the best part of the story by far.
“Happily never after.”
My biggest gripe with the game is that I wish that it would be just a little more serious. The game has neon signs and posters that add this sort of background humor, which is a great way to still have a laugh while not undermining the tone set by the rest of the environment. What does undermine the tension for me are things like Piper constantly dancing, Vincent’s one-liners or the large quantity of throwable poop in second level, Mermaid Palace. Additionally, the ending feels very abrupt, there was a lot of care taken to establish Vincent, Charlotte, and their relationship. Unfortunately, it does not pay off in a satisfying way to say the least.
Another thing that players may encounter is that the game actually isn’t too hard until the second to last full stage, Lightspeed Land. I’m by no means an expert gamer but around the midpoint of the game I actually turned the difficulty up from the game’s normal difficulty to hard. There is a difficulty spike in the aforementioned Lightspeed Land, it turned the game from a BioShock-esque experience to the sort of “if you stop moving, you die” kind of gameplay that you’d expect from DOOM: Eternal. I actually found this quite fun but it may catch some players off guard.
Conclusion
Twisted Tower is a horror game in the same way the Nightmare on Elm Street films are horror movies, and if crude B-movie cheese is your thing, you’ll undoubtedly have a great time. If that’s not your cup of tea though, don’t let it turn you away from this great experience. While the humor does give the game some tone issues, the music, atmosphere, and certain story elements do a great deal of heavy lifting to keep the game dark and mysterious. The game is ridiculously fun and equally as replayable, and it has a deserved place right beside some of the best narrative shooters of the seventh generation of consoles. Above all else, the game makes me very curious as to what a hypothetical Twisted Tower II could be.
