I've lost the count a long time ago. The addicting game made by our friends from DNA-Studios is the perfect example of a great party game. We've asked the developers to tell us more about the game.
A long time ago, all people spoke the same language. These people then decided to build a tower that would touch the sky, to make a name for themselves. They had to work together to approach their goal. However, they were so arrogant that their God decided to confound their speech, so that they would not understand each other anymore. They were spread all around the world and stopped building the tower.
We wanted to create a game that had a common goal but no cooperation. People try to build the same tower, but they don’t understand each other and make life difficult for the others. You must avoid making the tower fall and in the meantime make your friend crash the tower. You must place your blocks perfectly to have solid foundations, but prevent the others in doing the same.
As it was a long time ago, the confusion is at the centre of the game. Everybody wants to build the tower, but want to save their asses even more!
The game is simple. When you start a tower, there is only one button to drop your block. It gets tricky when somebody place a block perfectly on top of the previous one. When this happens, this player receives a power up which means bad news for the others.
The power-up then appears in the smartphone and the player can now decide to trick his opponents. Be careful because it can be lethal. Your kids or your wife may never want to play with you again once you pressed this button. So be wise and, fire!
The power-ups are: wind, a bomb, transform a block into a totem or swap it with yours.
When a player fails to land his block correctly the tower crashes and that player loses. His score also decreases by 1 point. The player who was most accurate and scored most points wins the round. And because those little builder are never tired, they start a new tower from scratch on round 2.
These little guys, you know those arrogant little builders who live in the tower you build. Well, they are really arrogant. They think they can touch the sky with their tower!
We wanted them to be an important part of the game. So we created a few animations. I must admit this was fun, and there will be more in the updates.
When developing the game we had a few challenges. The first was to use the power of AirConsole at its best. We loved the idea of having a gamepad with a screen and we wanted to use this technology.
We decided to hide the power-up so that nobody can see what the other players are going to send them. Only the player that has the power-up can see on his gamepad what it’s gonna be and make his sneaky plan. (Evil laughter)
The other challenge was to keep the game simple and interesting without making a simple tower builder. We wanted a game that doesn’t need any tutorial to be played and enjoyed. Because AirConsole is awesome for parties, people won’t necessarily know the game before they play it. But they will want to enjoy it immediately.
Having just one button helped, but it can be boring as well. We spiced it up with power-ups. The same action, different game mechanics. And the best part: Power-ups can be combined. If two players combine their power-ups, it gets really funny. I mean, unless it’s your turn to play.
In the end, we were sure about one thing. People genuinely enjoy crashing towers. I think 99% of the children on earth had crashed a tower before they even walked. And 100% of them enjoyed it so much. Why would it be different now that we are older?
So go on AirConsole, grab your friends, your kids, your parents or whoever is around you and start crashing towers!
Play Tower of Babel now!
