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Sacred Reviews: Timothy and the Tower of Mu
thesacredlobo- 12/10/2019 11:58 PM
- 342 views
Introduction
"Timothy and the Tower of Mu" is one of the more fascinating games to come out of the 2018 Indie Game Maker contest in my opinion. This is because the game not only tries to capture the look of old game boy platformers, but also tries to recreate their maddening levels of difficulty as well. In other words, this game feels like a throw back to gaming's past and tries to garner attention from those looking for a genuine retro experience in this day and age.
On the other hand, this game will probably frustrate people that come into this game thinking it will be a simple cake walk. After all, it does get rather tiring to be constantly falling to your doom or getting shot to death by angry statues.
Story
The plot of "Timothy and the Tower of Mu" is rather paper thin. So much so, I'd say the entire game is built around a rather basic framing device that merely exists to justify the need for Timothy to go out and climb the deadliest tower known to man. And while I'd normally criticize this lack of character development and plot depth as a rather annoying. It's hard to deny that this style of story telling really falls in line with how old games worked on this front. As such, the choice to trim the game's plot down to a meager framing device feels like a stylistic choice rather than the result of a lack of ability. After all, developers in the old days had to try and fit a lot of stuff in a small amount of space on a floppy disc or game boy cartridge. So it made more sense to focus on the gameplay then get overly tied up in telling complex or deep narratives.
Gameplay
Sadly where "Timothy and the Tower of Mu" absolutely falls apart is on the gameplay side of things. This isn't to say I hate the game because it's hard, because this game is definitely meant to recapture the unrelenting and brutal nature of some rather old-school platformers. As such, I can't hate the game for including difficult jumps, layers of instant death spikes, large numbers of bullets, and enemies that exist to only make you rush through areas in order to get through them. On the other hand, I can definitely hate on this game for it's questionable button layout as well as unresponsive controls.
As far as the button layout goes I question why the main button is dedicated to the attack command. In the early levels you don't see that many enemies and killing them tends to be rather pointless in my opinion. After all, the enemies do respawn on a rather brief timer. So killing enemies isn't all that useful. If anything it just gives you a little extra time to maneuver through an area while also putting you at risk of getting instantly killed if an enemy respawns on top of you. And yes, I've actually had that happen to me when playing this game.
And while I imagine some people wouldn't appreciate me mandating the developers swap the controls around to merely match up with my own preferences. I think it would be nice if they a found a way to allow the player to control what the various keys did. Though, I'm not sure if it's possible to do that in a project like this.
And while I could go into detail about the numerous times I died due to the game failing to properly recognize button presses. Especially those centered around pressing the x key in order to jump. I also imagine I really don't need to go into exhausting detail about how annoying that is. Though a lot of my issues tend to prop up around jumping at the very edge of platforms or while moving and hitting the button just before I fell off the edge of a platform. So the game's ability to properly register when your character is falling or not might be slightly off.
Graphics
And while the gameplay might suffer from a bunch of niggling and frustrating issues. The overall look of the game is simply marvelous if your into that old 8 and 16 bit look for your games. Especially if you like the monochrome look of old game boy color games.
Conclusion
"Timothy and the Tower of Mu" is a splendid experience on the graphical side of things. So much so I wish I could recommend this game, but the game's control issues are so bad I really wouldn't want to subject anyone to them. As it stands, I'd say this title is an easy pass. At the same time this isn't a completed project. So, I'll hold off on giving this game a numerical rating.
"Timothy and the Tower of Mu" is one of the more fascinating games to come out of the 2018 Indie Game Maker contest in my opinion. This is because the game not only tries to capture the look of old game boy platformers, but also tries to recreate their maddening levels of difficulty as well. In other words, this game feels like a throw back to gaming's past and tries to garner attention from those looking for a genuine retro experience in this day and age.
On the other hand, this game will probably frustrate people that come into this game thinking it will be a simple cake walk. After all, it does get rather tiring to be constantly falling to your doom or getting shot to death by angry statues.
Story
The plot of "Timothy and the Tower of Mu" is rather paper thin. So much so, I'd say the entire game is built around a rather basic framing device that merely exists to justify the need for Timothy to go out and climb the deadliest tower known to man. And while I'd normally criticize this lack of character development and plot depth as a rather annoying. It's hard to deny that this style of story telling really falls in line with how old games worked on this front. As such, the choice to trim the game's plot down to a meager framing device feels like a stylistic choice rather than the result of a lack of ability. After all, developers in the old days had to try and fit a lot of stuff in a small amount of space on a floppy disc or game boy cartridge. So it made more sense to focus on the gameplay then get overly tied up in telling complex or deep narratives.
Gameplay
Sadly where "Timothy and the Tower of Mu" absolutely falls apart is on the gameplay side of things. This isn't to say I hate the game because it's hard, because this game is definitely meant to recapture the unrelenting and brutal nature of some rather old-school platformers. As such, I can't hate the game for including difficult jumps, layers of instant death spikes, large numbers of bullets, and enemies that exist to only make you rush through areas in order to get through them. On the other hand, I can definitely hate on this game for it's questionable button layout as well as unresponsive controls.
As far as the button layout goes I question why the main button is dedicated to the attack command. In the early levels you don't see that many enemies and killing them tends to be rather pointless in my opinion. After all, the enemies do respawn on a rather brief timer. So killing enemies isn't all that useful. If anything it just gives you a little extra time to maneuver through an area while also putting you at risk of getting instantly killed if an enemy respawns on top of you. And yes, I've actually had that happen to me when playing this game.
And while I imagine some people wouldn't appreciate me mandating the developers swap the controls around to merely match up with my own preferences. I think it would be nice if they a found a way to allow the player to control what the various keys did. Though, I'm not sure if it's possible to do that in a project like this.
And while I could go into detail about the numerous times I died due to the game failing to properly recognize button presses. Especially those centered around pressing the x key in order to jump. I also imagine I really don't need to go into exhausting detail about how annoying that is. Though a lot of my issues tend to prop up around jumping at the very edge of platforms or while moving and hitting the button just before I fell off the edge of a platform. So the game's ability to properly register when your character is falling or not might be slightly off.
Graphics
And while the gameplay might suffer from a bunch of niggling and frustrating issues. The overall look of the game is simply marvelous if your into that old 8 and 16 bit look for your games. Especially if you like the monochrome look of old game boy color games.
Conclusion
"Timothy and the Tower of Mu" is a splendid experience on the graphical side of things. So much so I wish I could recommend this game, but the game's control issues are so bad I really wouldn't want to subject anyone to them. As it stands, I'd say this title is an easy pass. At the same time this isn't a completed project. So, I'll hold off on giving this game a numerical rating.
