Tower Unite: Your First Visit

Looking for help getting started in Tower Unite? This guide should help you figure out all the basics to PixelTail's debute game.

Introduction

The information in this guide is current to version 0.14.1.0. The screenshots were taken in version 0.7.0.0. Information and pictures in this guide may be inaccurate for alternate versions (however, most of it should be accurate regardless of the version). You can check which version you have in the upper right corner of the main menu.

So you bought this unique game called Tower Unite. What is it? What do you do? Why are there walking milk cartons? Is that a cat or a ball? Some of these questions and more will be answered in this guide.

A nice view of the main plaza.

First, however, let me give a brief introduction to Tower Unite itself. Tower Unite is a multiplayer interactive social experience (more commonly known as a game) where you stay at a fictional resort and do various activities to acquire money you'll later waste on frivolous items. PixelTail are responsible for making this game, and you might recognize them as the creators of GMod Tower (which this game is a spiritual successor to!). Whether you're grinding for an achievement, roleplaying with strangers, or blasting the face off of your infected friend, Tower Unite will be sure to have something for everyone.

The Tower, center of the island.

Biased opinions aside, Tower Unite is quite an elaborate game. Once you get in, there will be so much to do it can be hard to figure out what anything is or how anything works. As such, this guide will help you get acquainted with the basic ins and outs of the game.

So, why is Tower Unite in Early Access? Well, to put it simply, the devs aren't done with the game. Progress has been steady, but the devs aren't ready to call this a finished product yet. You can expect more features to be added and others to be polished until the fabled 1.0 release.

Coming Soon!

You will notice that there are many things around the plaza that aren’t ready to use. Since the game is in its beta stage, the devs aren’t satisfied with calling this a final product. There are features yet to come! What’s on the agenda, then? You may notice some “Coming Soon” signs scattered around the plaza. Hit your use key on them to bring up a trello board to see what’s in store!

This board will tell you everything you want to know about what’s coming to its location!

Quick Start

The rest of this guide goes into detail about everything available in Tower Unite. If you want to hop right in, this section will have only the most basic basics.

The first thing you will want to do (after fiddling with the settings) is head to the appearance menu to customize your character. The Workshop has hundreds of playermodels to try on, and you can further customize with accessories later once you have enough money. After getting your character set up, you will more than likely want to get some cash on hand. This is the beginning of the basic gameplay loop:

Play Games --> Get Units (the currency) --> Buy Stuff --> Repeat!

There's plenty of games to play, the big ones being in the gameworld building. The gameworld building is straight ahead you exit the train station. Playing games will earn you Units, which you can use to purchase items from store clerks. Stores are to the left and right of the tower lobby as well as some scattered around the plaza. Items and Units are saved to your Steam account, so you don't need to worry about losing them.

Chances are, you will also want to check out your condo. To obtain a condo, enter the left-hand elevators in the tower lobby and talk to the condo lady. As you decorate, your condo is saved. All arrangements made will be there when you return.

Aside from that, there are a couple of buttons you will need to know how to use. TAB will bring up the player list. You can use this to find where people are as well as see a selection of options if you click on their bar. Holding Q will bring up your inventory, which is how you can pick up, place, and store items when editing your condo as well as equip usable items. Pressing C will let you choose an emote to perform or let you quickly change your playermodel via Steam Workshop. If you're in a condo, C will also let you manage condo options. This should be all you need to get a quick start in Tower Unite; continue reading for more in-depth information.

The Menu

The main menu is pretty self-explanatory. From here, you can see some basic stats and plenty of options.

The play menu will let you get right into the game. From here you can host or join any server you want. A plaza server is the standard server; you can get to your condo or try out some minigames there. If you just want to chill in your condo or get right to one of the games, those options are also available. If you click Join Matchmaking, you'll be taken to the gameworlds ports server to queue up with others. Chat with others while you're still figuring out what you want to do in the lower left corner. Some helpful links are under the Community/News tab; get caught up with the latest news, join the official forums, take a look at and make your own community suggestions, submit bug reports, and take a look at planned features at the press of a button. The sidebar at the right also displays any friends online as well as your current Unit count.

The appearance menu lets you customize your character. Clicking on the icons lets you change how you look. Changes can be as large as going from human to milk or as small as changing the color of your eyes. The Accessories tab will let you add more decorations to your character. These must be purchased, though, but this can be done by clicking on any silhouetted item and purchasing it (provided you have enough Units to spend).

Click on an item to purchase it! Items you already own won't appear black.

The inventory menu displays all the items you own. Those sorting tabs come in handy as you accumulate more belongings.







The Collection Book lets you take a look at anything stats related. Check which achievements you need to hunt, see which milestone items to target, and peruse completely useless statistics!






The help menu links you to the official guide as well as some handy videos. If you don't like slogging through walls of text to find things out, they're a great way to learn.






This menu has multitudes of settings. Set your graphics to stunning (if your computer can handle it) or make it look like classic Doom (if you run off of a potato). Adjust the volume and check out the talented devs. Check out the controls and rebind them to your liking. You can also disable chat, remove the HUD (for beautiful screenshots), or put up a basic swear filter. You can also view the IndieGoGo supporters, if you want to see who helped bring this to life.

Your First Steps

Tower Unite is, for the most part, controlled like any FPS (if you want to look at or rebind the controls, just head to the options menu). However, there are a few things to note.

Hold TAB to bring up a list of players on the server. From there, you can click on them to see some fancy options.

After the TAB menu is the inventory screen. Holding down Q will open this up. Equippable items you have will appear in the backpack tab, while the closet tab holds all your condo items. Equipping usable items in the hotbar at the top will let you select them with the corresponding number keys. If you need more space for cosmetics, click on the hat tab for additional cosmetic slots.


Holding C will let you perform an emote or easily swap to another Steam Workshop playermodel. Emotes with an infinity symbol at the end are perpetual, and will continue to play until interrupted.






Hitting Escape or P will bring up a side bar menu. Almost everything you can do from the main menu can be done with this menu.







You can scroll to alter your Third Person camera distance or zoom all the way in to go to First Person view. If you hold down Right Click in third person, then you will be able to move the mouse and examine yourself.

Scroll out, hold Right Click, and take a look at your beautiful self.

Lastly is the HUD, and you can probably guess what most of that is. The lower left corner displays your current amount of Units and your location in the Tower while the right-hand side will display notifications.

The Map

Now that the basic controls are over, we can get into the meat of Tower Unite. There's quite a lot of locales, and therefore quite a lot to do.

An overview of the island.

Each section in the rest of this guide will cover the locales:

• Plaza
  
• Condos
  
• Gameworlds
  
• Stores
  
• Theatre
  
• Arcade
  
• Casino
  
• Nightclub

Plaza

The central meeting grounds of the island.

The main plaza is where you will be when you first load into a lobby. You will spawn at the transit station and walk out into the central plaza. You can get to any of the other areas from here. This is a great place to group up with friends, hang out with others, and enjoy the scenery as you pass through. Sometimes events such as balloon shooting will occur; just head over to the event area on the other side of the tower and you'll automatically be set up to participate.

Apparently you arrived to the island via train. Just how long is that tunnel?

If you look around the plaza, there's plenty more minigames to try. There's Typing Derby with which to test your keyboarding skills or the Bowling alley to work on your mouse dexterity. Maybe you'd like to take a ride on the rollercoaster (or get risky and balance on top of it). There's even Lazer Tag for some solid shooting action.

Once you've had some rigorous fun, you can head down to some calmer areas to unwind and enjoy the ocean breeze. Hop on the Ferris wheel with a friend and gaze out to the ocean. Grab some bait and a rod, then head out fishing. Grab a pool tube and float in the lazy river. There are many chill places in the plaza to hang out.

Lastly, keep an eye on the seasons! Holiday events crop up around major holidays, so you could see a full plaza redecoration and some themed plaza events to partake in. You'll often find some items can only be obtained during these special events.

Condos

If you don't plan on going anywhere for a while, you can chill out in your condo. Your condo is hosted by you, not the server, so there’s no limit to how many condos can be open at any time. Simply speak with (press your use key on) the condo lady at the desk to get yours ready.

The condo lobby, constantly on 24 hour service. || My condo, ready for visitors.

Once you’re in your condo, you can rearrange the furniture however you want. Your condo will be saved, so whenever you rent a condo it will always appear as you last left it.

Decorating your condo is very simple. Just hold Q, find the item you want to use in your inventory, and then click and drag it onto a surface. Use the scroll wheel to change its angle; hold your walk key while scrolling for finer angle adjustment. Items will be highlighted green if they can be set down and red if they cannot. Items can be placed on other items to create cool decorations. Once placed, clicking on an item while holding Q will open the gizmo. You can click on the colored arrows and such to move, spin, and scale the item with finer precision than normal placing allows; just select the proper tab in the menu that appears. You can also enter values directly into the menu for maximum precision.

Right clicking on an item (while using Q) will give you a set of options. For many objects, you can color them. Simply adjust the color using the wheel and hue slider or expand the menu and adjust the RGB values manually. You can even right click on condo surfaces to change how they look!

By Holding C and clicking on "Condo Settings" you can pull up some management options. The Permissions option lets you choose who's allowed in your condo. Make it a public forum, a friends-only party, or decorate alone. The Environment option lets you set the lighting as well as change up the weather. Make it night, keep it day, and even toggle if time cycles. Maybe you feel like making it a snow day, a dark and stormy night, or even both at the same time; all the options are there for you. The Item Finder lets you hunt down any items that may have gotten lost. If it turns out to be half a million miles away, you can choose to stash it right from the menu! And if you ever tire of your condo layout? Give it a save, then reset everything and decorate anew!

While the default condo is quite a nice place to stay, there's many other locales to decorate! Simply head over to Horizon Condos and grab a deed to your next abode.

Gameworlds

The Gameworlds building, host of many entertaining games.

If you skipped the Quick Start, then you probably still don't know how to get Units, the currency of the island. It's not too hard; all you have to do is play games! While many games are available right in the plaza, the big ones (called gameworlds) are accessible through the Games center. Each gameworld is on a separate server, and each gameworld instance will support one group of players at a time. Multiple instances of a game can run at a time, provided there are enough people in queue to begin the game. To join a gameworld queue, simply run up to the queue box and smack that use key of yours. You should see your username appear highlighted in its spot in queue. Before the gameworld begins, the players vote on the map to play. You will then automatically get connected to the gameworld server from the gameworld lobby.

There are many unique gameworlds to play. They are, alphabetically...

Accelerate is for all the racing fans. It's a kart racer, with all the classic trappings. You'll drift around corners and hit boosts. Grab items, attack opponents, and try not to get hit yourself! What's more, you can replace the standard kart with a workshop model to really show your style. Keep up the pace, and you might just get first place!

Ball Race is a gameworld that plays like Super Monkey Ball. You control your character trapped in a sphere. Get to the end of the level and collect as many watermelon slices as you can! Beware of obstacles, though. Moving platforms, invisible walls, and magnetic polls will make completing some levels quite the challenge!



Little Crusaders is a frantic one versus all battle. When you spawn in, you'll either be a "brave" knight or a fearsome dragon. The knights are all trying to work together to stop the dragon by pressing the button on its back, but this task isn't easy when the dragon is trying to kill all the knights with its various attacks! The dragon fears only one creature: the elusive Birb. Nail a couple hits with Birb, and the dragon will perish without needing to press the button.

Minigolf is just as it sounds. Play eighteen holes on one of the courses provided. Get in the hole with as few strokes as possible and try to get the lowest score! What’s more, you can also adorn your golf ball with any of your hats and color it however you want.




Planet Panic is set in a world where dogs and cats are interlocked in a galactic rivalry. Join a side, get dispatched to a planet, and prepare for battle. Your goal is to grab as many resources as you can and get them back to base before time runs out. Shoot down any enemies in your way. Watch your resource stash, though, as the enemy might try to sneak in and steal them from you!


Virus is a fast-paced FPS game of tag. Tensions build at the beginning of the round, as people set up and try to guess who will be infected first. Once they have been chosen, all hell breaks loose. The infected must try and spread the virus by swiping, but the remaining survivors have an arsenal of weapons to protect themselves. Be careful, as the infected can respawn. Survive long enough, and the survivors will win. If everyone is infected, though, the infected win.

Zombie Massacre is a top-down cooperative shoot 'em up. Grab some friends, pick a class, then mow through hoards of the undead! Don't forget to pick up stray weapons to add to the slaughter, and be sure to fire off your handy abilities. If you can survive to the end of the week, you may find that the zombies are the least of your worries...



...and more to come!

Stores

Once you have your hard-earned Units, you can spend them in the stores for various items. Each store holds its own selection of things, and most are self-explanatory. On top of visiting their physical locations, most storefronts also sell their stock via Tower Express[express.towerunite.com]; if you need a convenient way to buy from home and sell in bulk, Tower Express is here for you!

Who better to supply fishing gear than fish themselves? You'll find their wares as enticing as the bait they sell!

Why take a strike for your terrible bowling sense and feel down in the gutters about it? Spare yourself the humiliation and get yourself a sleek, new bowling ball at the Bowling Pro Shop!

Holiday decorations and fireworks galore! If you want to get festive and have some fun, then the wares of Celebrations are made for you! You'll also find a few holiday friends hanging around if you've got some leftover holiday coins to trade.

Central Circuit has all the electrical things your condo could need. From TVs to Radios, this store has anything running on volts.

Where other stores sell completed products, DIY sells you tools and materials. Head here if you're looking for basic building blocks or canvas items to make sure your condo build is absolutely perfect.

You don't need to beg for scraps with this pup around! Franky can cook up all manner of quick and delicious meals.

Need a little snack, or are you preparing a feast? Whatever you’re craving, the Fresh Food and Smoothies store has the ingredients you need.

Whether looking for a cozy condo or a builder's paradise, Horizon Condos has just the place for you. Come on down and buy the deeds to your next home away from home!

If surf, sand, and sun are your top three must-haves, then you'd best take a gander at Oasis. This shop's got all manner of beachfront items for maximum coastal comfort.

There are some items that are a bit too odd to fit into conventional stores. Rob’s Imports has you covered; anything categorized as miscellaneous has a special place here.

What's a home without a bit of greenery? Spruce up your land with some all-natural scenery, available year-round from Seasons!

We all love music, right? If it plays a note, you can probably find it here. From pianos to drum sets, this store is in tune to any musical needs.

Every condo needs furniture, and no place carries a wider variety of quality decorations. Whether you need a table, a bed, or a few couches, Sweet Suite has it all.

If you're watching movies, you're going to want some snacks! Tower Theatre is equipped with only the best bland popcorn and overpriced beverages money can buy.

Everyone needs a little something for their inner kid. This store has all manner of knicknacks and pets, so you too can get a plush fox to sleep with or adopt a pet watermelon.

Note: The various Upgrades stores are located right in the gameworld hub. I still need to update these screenshots to be not ancient.
You might not need a fancy orb to decimate at Ball Race, but where's the fun in stale old vanilla spheres? Upgrades has you covered for any of your gameworld needs.

This machine won't steal your Units. If you’ve got some spare change, these machines have some tasty beverages.

While most items can be found at your local stores, there are a few items that aren’t so easy to come by. Take a good, hard look around; you might find a store hidden in plain sight.

Theatre

The theatre building, awaiting your choice of movie.

The theatre is basically a public TV set. Gather your friends, enter one of the two viewing rooms, and watch some YouTube together. Queue up some videos, and watch in sync with the rest of the audience.

Requesting and viewing media is a simple process.

Adding media to the theatre (and certain other items) is simple; look at the screen and hold Q. On the left-hand side will be a menu. Click the "Add Media" button to get started. A small window will pop up. Enter the video URL into it to request your video. You will need to use an external source to browse for video URLs (such as the in-game Steam overlay browser).

Arcade

The arcade building, filled with midway classics and a retro atmosphere.

If you're looking for classic arcade antics, the Arcade has everything you need. Trade in your units for arcade tokens, which can then be spent on the various arcade machines. Give skeeball a roll, see if you can't find a plush friend in the claw machine, or look around for all manner of token stealing time wasters! As you play, you'll gather up tickets. Feed them to a ticket machine to bank them, then take those hard earned tickets to the prize counter to get unique goodies of dubious quality.

Fancy a test of wits? Right next to the main arcade building is Trivia! Test your wits against questions made by the players themselves. Think you've got a good one? All the questions come from here[opentdb.com], so you can contribute to the fun as well!

Casino

The casino, a place to get rich quick or go bankrupt trying. || Get ready to kiss your Units goodbye.

The casino is a gambler's dream land. Filled with all sorts of machines and card games, you'll either fill your coffers full or lose everything to the addicting games. Think you can push your luck just enough? Double or Nothing will let you double your earnings at the press of a button (or lose all of it in one fell swoop). Looking for fabulous prizes? Spin to Win is just loaded with grand goodies (and plenty of hula dolls). With three different slots, Texas Hold 'Em, and video card games, there's certainly a jackpot waiting for you.

Nightclub

Queue up some tunes and get ready to dance!

Volt Nightclub is the prime place to show off your music tastes and lay down some sick moves. Inside, you'll find a huge dance pad where you can queue up songs from Soundcloud and YouTube. If you're feeling a bit nervous about busting a move, you can find all manner of liquid courage served at the bar. Wait, have I seen that bartender elsewhere...?

If you're looking for a more private session to embarrass yourself in front of your friends, you can hang a left when entering to find the karaoke rooms! Simply pay a fee to rent a room for a while. Friend can pop in, and non-friends can ask to enter by knocking. Feel free to take turns belting out off-key, barely recalled lyrics with your friends!

You can also veer off to the right to find a number of 8-ball billiards tables. Try and tackle the game alone, or face off against someone else! Order a round of drinks from the nearby bar in case you think the liquid courage will help you hit your shots.

One Last Note

That’s all I’ve got written down! Thanks for giving it a read; I hope you learned a thing or two from it! I’d appreciate it if you left a comment. Tell me what you liked, things I could improve, and let me know of any grammatical or factual errors you notice. If you have a question that this guide didn’t answer, feel free to ask in the comments! I should respond relatively quickly. Again, thanks for giving this guide a read.

==Changelog==
4/15/2021

• Has it really been two years since my last update? Huh, I guess it has been.
  
• Updated the Arcade and Nightclub sections to represent the fact that those activities have been out for a while now.
  
• Eviscerated the Other section. It didn't really have any important purpose.
  
• Made other small revisions and corrections across the board.
  
• No screenshots for this one, I'll need more time for that.

3/8/2019

• The big Lobby 3 update just came out!
  
• New screenshots, revised info, all that jazz.
  
• Moved the Boardwalk info into the Plaza section and completely destroyed the Boardwalk section.

9/29/2018

• The Workshop Update is out!
  
• Added some new, relevant info.
  
• New screenshots! :D

7/13/2018

• We've got Zombie Massacre now!
  
• New screenshots and some minor revisions as usual.

3/16/2018

• Once again updated the guide information.
  
• Many revisions across the board.
  
• Screenshots have been updated, with a couple new ones added to the mix.

5/4/2017

• Finally updated the info on this guide. Wow, I've been procrastinating...
  
• Added a section for Little Crusaders.
  
• Made some minor revisions all around.
  
• Updated all the screenshots.

1/16/2017

• Updated screenshots to 0.1.9.0.
  
• Made a couple of minor revisions.

12/4/2016

• Updated information to 0.1.6.0.
  
• Added a couple of screenshots for new features.

10/4/2016

• Updated all the screenshots to 0.1.2.4.
  
• Made minor revisions to some sections.

9/16/2016
CASINO UPDATE!

• Updated the Casino section to showcase all new gambling activities.
  
• Updated the Arcade section to showcase Trivia.
  
• Updated the Boardwalk section to showcase Typing Derpy.
  
• Updated the Menu section with the new options.
  
• Made minor revisions across the board.

7/16/2016

• Updated all screenshots to 0.1.1.6.
  
• Changed some minor information to be more correct.

4/10/2016

• Changed the map screenshot.
  
• Changed current version info and split it into information and screenshots. This way I can keep information current without having to update all 60+ screenshots for every patch.

4/8/2016

• Updated guide to Early Access version 0.1.0.0!
  
• Some information has been updated.
  
• All screenshots but two have been updated.

4/7/2016

• Published the guide!

[gamer girl headquarters]

as someone who has only strarted playing a year and a half ago, god damn this game used to look crazy different. honestly thank you for keeping these old screenshots up, its super interesting to see. theres not a lot of coverage on the early revisions of tower!

[Arkive]

You can find the minimum and recommended specs on the store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/394690/Tower_Unite/ . To copy a couple components from there, your computer needs to be 64-bit as opposed to 32-bit, and you'll want a 2.4 GHz Dual-Core 64-bit CPU, a dedicated graphics card with at least 1 GB of VRAM (though integrated graphics cards can theoretically still work), and 4 GBs RAM to meet the minimum specs. With all that said, your crashing issue could be unrelated to specs.

[bigboinick907]

what is the minimum specs to run the game?

[Arkive]

If you're getting crashes, you'll want to report them. It looks like the forums have changed a little (there used to be a dedicated crash report section), so you'll likely want to post your issue here: https://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report/18 . Otherwise, make sure that your computer's specs meet the game's minimum requirements and make sure that you're connected to the internet.

[bigboinick907]

I click play on steam and then my game get's the load screen and crashes the game and put's me back in steam. What do I do?

[Arkive]

The general building blocks are located at Sweet Suite, but I believe Rob's Imports has the canvas item if you're looking for custom walls/floors/etc.

[󠀡󠀡]

where can i buy building stuff for making houses

[Arkive]

Plaza servers should always be online, unless they are temporarily down for maintenance or such (though it's highly unlikely for all servers to be down at once). Check your antivirus; Norton likes to block TU's internet privileges when new updates get pushed out, so I need to give it permissions manually. If that's not the problem, head to the forums ( http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/support ) and hopefully people can help sort out the problem.

[Blaze]

why are there no plaza servers?

[Arkive]

The Reset Condo option should do this, though I don't think there is a way to reset the condo textures without also resetting items as well.