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Best of the Rest: Jessica's picks of 2014
ATTENTION: The year 2014 has concluded its temporal self-destruct sequence. If you are among the escapees, please join us in salvaging and preserving the best games from the irradiated chrono-debris. Threes Threes is ingenious. Its simplistic presentation belies beautiful, thoughtful design and butter-smooth mechanics. Threes isn't a matter of "less is more," it's fully encapsulated and pushed to the limits of what it intends to do, providing hours upon hours of repeated gameplay on that four-by-four tiled screen. On top of the brain-teasing numbers game, writer Asher Vollmer, illustrator Greg Wohlwend and composer Jimmy Hinson infuse Threes with personality, giving the numbers voices and faces, and tipping Threes from "Fun" to "Absolutely adorable. And, of course, fun."
Towerfall lets arrows sail on Mac, Linux
The mechanically simplistic, extraordinarily competitive Towerfall: Ascension has coated Linux and Mac devices with bramble arrows. Whether you're on PC, Mac or Linux, you can celebrate the spread of Towerfall's frenzied, archery-driven deathmatches by buying a Steam key directly from Matt Makes Games for $9.99, 33 percent lower than the normal $15 asking price. You'll need to decide sooner rather than later though - at the time of this writing, there's about 20 hours left to get in on the sale. If you need to be swayed, Senior Reporter Jess Conditt's review describes Towerfall as a "whole-brain game with minimal controls," and she adds that it's "the most fun I've had with a bow and arrow since The Year Of The Bow – or even the 1980s." [Image: Matt Makes Games]
Humble Flash Sale discounts Towerfall: Ascension for the next 4 hours
Alert! A sweet deal is approaching fast! The Humble Store is currently offering the PC version of Matt Makes Games' multiplayer arrow-'em-up Towerfall: Ascension at a 33 percent discount, making it the cheapest it's been since launch. The catch? The deal is only valid for the next four hours. Hours of fun await, but the satisfaction of picking up one of this year's best competitive multiplayer experiences for cheap is reserved for those who act fast. [Thanks, Joe!] [Image: Matt Makes Games]
Joystiq Streams: TowerFall creator Matt Thorson teaches Joystiq how to arch [UPDATE: Relive the stream!]
From afar we watched Ouya owners, rapt with pleasure as they bounced around the beautiful pixel caverns of TowerFall, hitting each other in the face with arrows over and over again. We, too, wanted to fall through the floor only to re-emerge from the ceiling, poised to strike down our foes with the vicious efficiency of a peregrine falcon. Ouya owners' grip on Matt Thorson's game has loosened, though! Now we're rocking that business on PC and PlayStation 4 on the regular. That's precisely what we'll be doing on Joystiq Streams today, with Mr. Thorson himself on hand to walk us through the ins and outs of his game. Come 4PM EST on Thursday, March 13, Joystiq's own Jess Conditt (@JessConditt) will be streaming TowerFall: Ascension on the Joystiq Twitch channel. Creator Matt Thorson (@MattThorson) will join us to talk about the game. Anthony John Agnello (@ajohnagnello) will, as always, be hanging in the chat, referring your questions straight to the people. Join us for all the succulent archery. Joystiq Streams broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4PM EST. [Images: Matt Makes Games, Inc.]
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'Stiq Tips: A TowerFall Guide
TowerFall might be a fast-paced arena game with dash-jumping and high speed arrows, but it's also a tactical affair. Yeah, alongside of all that arrow slinging you'll actually need to think from time to time, and there are a few secrets you can use to become the pride of your local group of friends. First things first, master the dash, as it's core to your success as an archer. Start off in a "break the target" level in solo play to really get a feel for movement, as you're going to need a bit of practice. Each level will teach you something new about the game, both in terms of core concepts and power-up use, so think of them as a tutorial. While you're breaking targets, note that dashing while aiming towards the ground will result in a slide, allowing you to slip underneath low ceilings. You can also jump on targets to break them and save an arrow.
TowerFall: Ascension review: Exploding corpses
TowerFall: Ascension is deceiving. It appears to be cute, pixelated and friendly, and it looks like something you would have played between rounds of Contra and Super Mario Bros on the NES as a kid. In reality, TowerFall is a brutal bow-and-arrow brawler with vicious enemies that materialize from the ether in droves, heedless of whether you have backup or the skills to defeat them. You have a set number of lives, limited ammo, power-ups that disappear the moment you're hit, and hordes of enemies that demonstrate increasingly complex powers as the levels progress. It's also local co-op only. So, yeah – it's basically the reincarnated amalgamation of classic NES shoot-em-ups and platformers, bred for a more technologically powerful world.
PlayStation Blog details Towerfall: Ascension's Quest, Trials modes
Towerfall: Ascension is picking up Quest and Trials modes along with its subtitle in its upgrade for PC and PS4. While one of the modes was announced in Ascension's previous reveal trailer, a recent PlayStation Blog post offers details on actual gameplay elements from each style of play. In Quest mode, players can team up or fight on their own against varied waves of monsters, which the PS Blog notes range from "scythe-wielding warriors to leaping globs of slime." Some enemies will also have unique abilities, like the rival archers that can send arrows shot at them right back toward their origin. Trials mode is a solo affair, pitting players against dummy targets and a timer. The faster players kill off their inanimate opponents, the more prestigious their rewarding medal will be. The PS Blog describes Trials stages as "addictive as they are difficult," but adds that restarting a challenge takes less than a second, which should keep the frustration focused on the game instead of loading screens. Ascension will take its shot at PS4 and PC this week and has come a long way from its vanilla verison's Ouya-exclusive debut last year. [Image: Matt Thorson]
Catch arrows in Towerfall Ascension on PlayStation 4 this March
Those without an Ouya will be happy to hear that Towerfall, one of the nascent console's best games, is headed to the PlayStation 4 in the enhanced form of Towerfall Ascension on March 11. The original version of Towerfall mates the pixel-heavy aesthetic so popular with indie game developers with frantic, four-player multiplayer combat. In lieu of guns and a series of corridors, players are each given archery equipment, then dropped into a 2D stage rife with platforms and pitfalls. Think of it as a cross between the frantic combat of the Super Smash Bros. games, and the exacting, retro platforming and chunky aesthetic of Spelunky. Towerfall Ascension improves upon this basic template by adding 50 new Versus arenas, "a bunch of new variants" for the game's stages and a few new power-ups. Additionally, Ascension brings with it a new Quest Mode that allows two players to cooperatively battle waves of monsters spawned from portals. The gameplay here is similar to that seen in the game's core multiplayer modes, but as designer Matt Thorson notes, Quest Mode fleshes out Towerfall as a whole by adding "a bunch of new content to explore even when you don't have three friends around." As of now there is no price point attached to Towerfall Ascension. That March 11 release date only applies to the United States, but Thorson claims that a European release "shouldn't be far behind." [Image: Matt Makes Games]
Towerfall: Ascension coming to PC, online play not planned for launch
Towerfall: Ascension was announced for the PlayStation 4 during Spike's event for the console's launch, but we weren't sure if that was the same version as the one that was planned for PC earlier this year. Now that Matt Thorson, the sole designer of Towerfall, posted the above trailer on his YouTube channel this week, that seems to be the case. While it's mostly identical to the one shown just before the PS4's launch, the intro and outro graphics note both the PS4 and PC as planned platforms instead of just the PS4. Ascension's revealing trailer notes a co-op quest mode, new powerups and 50 new multiplayer maps. Although the game's focus lies in multiplayer, Thorson responded to a fan on Twitter to clarify that there "won't be any online at launch, sorry. It's really meant to be played together with friends." The vanilla version of Towerfall was launched as an Ouya exclusive back in July.
TowerFall Ascension coming to PS4
TowerFall Ascension, a significant update to Ouya's Towerfall, will be "exclusive" to PS4 and launch in early 2014. Towerfall is also scheduled for PC, but we're going to need to get some clarification if that version is a port of the Ouya game or of this Ascension version planned for PS4. "Brand new levels, we got 50 new levels coming. All kinds of new modes," said SCE America VP of Publisher & Developer Relations Adam Boyes on tonight's Spike PS4 launch special. Developer Matt Thorson writes on the PlayStation Blog, "50 new versus levels, 4 more playable archers, an all-new, twelve-player cooperative Quest mode, 6 additional power-ups, and more. We've even gone back and refined everything in the original release. It feels like a whole new game." Update: Incorporated info from PlayStation Blog post.
