January 11th, 2013 | By Alex Wilkinson
Tagged in: Breaking The Tower | browser game | coffee break | free to play | Ludum Dare | Markus Persson | Mojang | notch
There are a lot of different reasons to fall in love with a strategy game. The fantastic balance between sides, the rich depth of the gameplay, or the expansive nature of the game. Of course this is not an exhaustive list but all of these factors are covered in the rather simple but deeply involving Breaking The Tower.
Breaking The Tower is a Ludum Dare game, but before you moan it is not from the latest LD, not even the one before that. In fact it’s from a good few years ago now (Ld12), and was created by the one and only Notch (Markus Persson), one of the founders of Mojang (but I don’t have to tell you that).
The whole idea of the game is to build up your population to take down the monolithic tower that resides on this island. I’m not sure on its purpose or even how it was built on such a tiny island, this is irrelivant however as your task is to destroy it, and pick by pick you will chip it down one stone at a time.
Breaking The Tower although a very small game and in essence a very simple one the gameplay is actually much more complex then you first may expect when you just start the game. This is no done by having elaborate crafting systems like in Settlers, far from it. The complexity is largely in-part due to you not having direct control over your population and although frustrating at times it does make for a rather interesting game mechanic.
You are more like a hands off style God (not quite the wrathful type of old) and must guide your peons to their task… subtly. This is where a lot of the challenge lies as if you could just select a group of warriors to kill off the enemy soldiers and then send in some miners you would be set in minutes. Breaking The Tower really does make you work for your victory and it does so in such a great sense of fairness in may ways it feels unjust.
Average play time – Less than an hour
Breaking The Tower really does strip strategy right back to the basics and allows for you to tailor your moves the way you want, even if they rarely play out quite as simply as you may expect. Although the pace is rather slow you will quickly be engrossed into the game and will not be content until you destroy the oppressors ivory tower!
It’s free and it is indeed great fun to let the people of the land rise up. Breaking The Tower can be played here, for more information about Mojang be sure to visit the official site as they have some rather awesome games that you may have heard of…
If you are a developer with A fun indie game that can be played over a coffee break, we want to hear from you! Private message us on twitter @IndieGameMag or shoot us an email at editors@indiegamemag.com with the subject “Indie Intermission” and you could be our indie intermission pick of the day!
Alex Wilkinson (539 posts)
Full time gamer part time writer and a Graduate of King College London I have been playing computer games ever since the days of the much loved Amiga. Playing a broad spectrum of games over as many platforms as possible with a distinct obsession with RTS games even though lacking in much of the micro ability. Tweet me @alexwilkinson