[Q&A] Questions about Gameplay

[BlackjackGT]

I wasn't a KS backer (heard about Tower 57 too late to help), but have been following this as a fan of all sorts of twin-stick overhead/isometric shooters. And also starved for some online co-op twin-stick options beyond Helldivers and Alien Swarm.

Had a few questions. Maybe these were answered somewhere before.

• Does the game have friendly fire? I'm fine if it does (it's a huge part of Helldivers, Alien Swarm, Magicka, etc.), just curious about that.
  
  
• Does it have "screen lock" to encourage a group to work together? I'm fine either way, but certainly lot of folks prefer, say, Alien Swarm not having screenlock, than Helldivers or Frozenbyte's upcoming Nine Parchments having screenlock.
  
  
• If you "die" in Tower 57, what happens? Just respawn? Does another player need to revive you? Some limited number of lives or respawns?

[Rufus Blackwood]

Hi there,

these are some good questions! Let's see...

1) There is very little friendly fire in Tower 57. Setting things on fire is not safe, as you may imagine, neither is shooting Black Hole Gun near your friends. ;) But there is no direct friendly fire.
2) Yup, there is screenlock when you play co-op locally and online. This just made sense for our game - we want you to stay together and...well, die together. :D
3) At the beginning of the game each player chooses 3 characters. Each of them acts as one "life". When a character dies - you play as the next one. You can revive them with a special item but only by interacting with special NPC. When all characters die - it's game over and you have to restart from a checkpoint.

I hope that answers your questions! Also, be sure to watch our latest feature trailer to learn more details about the game: https://youtu.be/Kj0vAWactj4

[BlackjackGT]

Great, thanks Rufus! I look forward to release day.

[BlackjackGT]

Originally posted by Rufus Blackwood:

Hi there,
3) At the beginning of the game each player chooses 3 characters. Each of them acts as one "life". When a character dies - you play as the next one. You can revive them with a special item but only by interacting with special NPC. When all characters die - it's game over and you have to restart from a checkpoint.

On 2nd reading, one question there:

*What happens if you're in an online co-op duo, and one player "runs out of lives," i.e. uses up those three characters.

Does the remaining online co-op player just continue without the 'dead' player? Or does the online co-op duo pull from a total, combined 'pool' of 'character lives' until the duo as a whole runs out?

[Rufus Blackwood]

Originally posted by BlackjackGT:

Originally posted by Rufus Blackwood:

Hi there,
3) At the beginning of the game each player chooses 3 characters. Each of them acts as one "life". When a character dies - you play as the next one. You can revive them with a special item but only by interacting with special NPC. When all characters die - it's game over and you have to restart from a checkpoint.

On 2nd reading, one question there:

*What happens if you're in an online co-op team of 4 players, and one player "runs out of lives," i.e. uses up those three characters.

Do the remaining online co-op players just continue without the 'dead' player? Or does the online co-op group pull from a total, combined 'pool' of 'character lives' until the group as a whole runs out?

We went for the simplest and quite retro solution here. When one player is ouf of characters (all 3 are dead) - it's 'mission failed' for the team and you have to start from checkpoint. So the overall 'pool' of characters is not shared.

And btw. co-op is up to 2 players in Tower 57. :)

[Willie D. Longpong]

How integral is co-op to the intended experience?

[BlackjackGT]

Originally posted by Willy D. Longpong:

How integral is co-op to the intended experience?

It's a 1-2 player game, so my understanding is you can just play it solo if the co-op doesn't interest you.

I'm just starved for online co-op twin-stick shooters on Steam because outside of Helldivers and Alien Swarm -- and maybe to some limited extent Alien Breed games but nobody really plays those online now; or the abandoned Meltdown, which got caught up in a publisher's bankruptcy proceedings -- we have very few options.

SORRY, I keep thinking it's a 1-4 player game, I fixed the mistaken '4' :)

[Rufus Blackwood]

Originally posted by BlackjackGT:

Originally posted by Willy D. Longpong:

How integral is co-op to the intended experience?

It's a 1-4 player game,.

Again, it's not. It's a solo experience or 2-players co-op experience.

Originally posted by Willy D. Longpong:

How integral is co-op to the intended experience?

You can play it both solo and in co-op mode - both are great. It very much depends on what kind of player are you. I will give you my personal take on this: I really like co-op games. I always look for cool co-op titles to play with my friends. So for me - Tower 57 will be mostly co-op experience. But if you prefer solo playthroughs - no worries - it's perfectly playable in single player as well. :)

Cheers!

[Willie D. Longpong]

Originally posted by BlackjackGT:

I'm just starved for online co-op twin-stick shooters on Steam because outside of Helldivers and Alien Swarm -- and maybe to some limited extent Alien Breed games but nobody really plays those online now; or the abandoned Meltdown, which got caught up in a publisher's bankruptcy proceedings -- we have very few options.

Assault Android Cactus? It is split screen/local. I was sure it had online co-op.

Originally posted by Rufus Blackwood:

You can play it both solo and in co-op mode - both are great. It very much depends on what kind of player are you. I will give you my personal take on this: I really like co-op games. I always look for cool co-op titles to play with my friends. So for me - Tower 57 will be mostly co-op experience. But if you prefer solo playthroughs - no worries - it's perfectly playable in single player as well. :)

Cheers!

Thanks. I like playing sports/fps/competitive games in "co-op" but Tower 57 is the kind of thing I prefer to play solo. It's more a case of my incompatibility with co-op in certain flavours of game than having any sort of issue with co-op.

[Wesoły Kupiec]

Game Kickstarter page does mentions backer exclusive characters and other content. Are they still exclusive now? Are they going to be added later into the game for free or as paid DLC?

[Harest]

Originally posted by Rufus Blackwood:

We went for the simplest and quite retro solution here. When one player is ouf of characters (all 3 are dead) - it's 'mission failed' for the team and you have to start from checkpoint. So the overall 'pool' of characters is not shared.

And btw. co-op is up to 2 players in Tower 57. :)

And what would happen if one of the player is in a really bad situation at the last checkpoint, like without arm for primary weapon ?
Just saw this situation happen in a stream, seems like a not well managed case.
Also, is there no way to gain additional lives again to finish the game ?

[BlackjackGT]

I don't know; it didn't sound to me like you can gain additional lives. And I think having a "pool" of lives between two co-op players would be more fair.

I mean, for instance, say you have all 3 lives, and because your buddy is a klutz and runs out (or vice-versa), your co-op session's then over? That aspect doesn't really make co-op sound appealing to me. I think I'd have preferred either a pool of shared co-op lives, or some limited ability to "revive" a fallen co-op partner. i.e., let me 'sacrifice' one of my remaining extra lives such that we can keep playing.

This had been a must-buy for me but the morre I read in detail some early impressions/reviews, about spaced out checkpoint saves; or losing limbs in a way that you're then "stuck" in the game, etc., the more I think I'll want to wait and see how early adapters feel about it when it releases.

[Harest]

I don't know how long is the game but at some point when i saw that, i thought the game was maybe supposed to be a rogue-like. Except there's nothing pointing out such thing, so it just seemed as a forgotten case and you're just "stuck" like you said because you only have a kick left and a secondary weapon with limited ammos (afaik).

[TildenJack]

Originally posted by Harest:

And what would happen if one of the player is in a really bad situation at the last checkpoint, like without arm for primary weapon ?
Just saw this situation happen in a stream, seems like a not well managed case.
Also, is there no way to gain additional lives again to finish the game ?

How could someone run out of ammo if one of the weapons has infinite ammo? Doesn't seem any different in co-op according to the videos I just looked at. And at least in singleplayer I never had much of a problem finding more ammo. And there is a way to revive dead characters: by using amber balls found throughout the game. There are only a certain number available, though.

[Harest]

@TildenJack : You missed the point "no arm".
If wanted, here is the VOD where this happened (french) : Dead and respawned with a character without right arm[www.twitch.tv] (~1h23m37s). From there he couldn't play properly, didn't find any way to get his arm back.
It's also very possible they were blind and missed something.

[TildenJack]

Oh yeah, I missed that. But he could have gotten his arm back only minutes later by visiting the upgrade shop. Going into the next dungeon without doing that was a bad idea. Not sure if he could easily have gotten another weapon though, except for reviving one of his other characters if they had an amber ball. Only happened to me in the first area, where the chance of losing a body part seems to be the highest.
I would assume he would at least have gotten his infinite ammo weapon back.