Tower of Shades

About

Tower of Shades is a single player role playing game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Lame Jam and was released on January 15, 2020. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Tower of Shades is a short game in which you start at the end of the protagonist's journey, right at the final boss fight.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

76%

Audience ScoreBased on 34 reviews

emotional4 positive mentions

gameplay3 negative mentions

The game delivers a nice, inspirational message about believing in oneself and embracing failure on the road to achieving dreams.
It's a short and enjoyable experience, akin to an interactive motivational speech, making it accessible and easy to digest.
The combat puzzles are engaging enough to provide a fun challenge, and the game is well worth the time spent playing.

The gameplay is shallow and lacks depth, with some players feeling it is more of a playable pamphlet than a true game.
The message can come off as heavy-handed and overly simplistic, potentially alienating those looking for a more nuanced experience.
The game locks players out of replaying after completion, which limits its replay value and overall engagement.

story
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
42%
29%
The game's story is described as largely linear and reliant on an experimental structure rather than a conventional plot, which some players found refreshing compared to other titles. However, critiques highlight a lack of depth and coherence, with the narrative sometimes feeling cheesy or contradictory. Overall, while it offers a wholesome experience, its appeal may diminish after the initial playthrough.
- “A good wholesome story.”
- “This is a fun little game that manages to deliver a nice little story with nothing but a few pictures; the narration is almost entirely separate from the story.”
- “The story is largely linear, and once you've been through it once, I'm unsure how much appeal it will have outside perhaps re-experiencing it or perhaps sharing it with others.”
- “The reason for that being that either I don't get being meta-ironically cheesy (the devs calling themselves 'lame jam' and all, and I googled for an event called lame jam; nothing came up) or the story (not the message, see next paragraph) has no depth and contradicts itself by basically saying 'if you try hard enough, a miracle will be cast by god (the in-game dev in this case) so that all your dreams will come true.'”
- “Also, the main character's dream being $cash money$ is understandable given the poor farmer background, but it's probably just because of my tastes that the message is also not told well by the story.”
- “The story is largely linear and once you've been through it once, I'm unsure how much appeal it will have outside perhaps re-experiencing it or perhaps sharing it with others.”
gameplay
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
50%
30%
The gameplay is characterized by a limited set of combat puzzles that strike a balance between challenge and simplicity, but overall feels shallow, with the main boss fight taking less than 20 minutes to complete. While the game attempts to convey a deeper experience through interactivity, it often resembles a movie rental rather than a fully developed game, and the mechanic of deaths as progression remains underexplored. Players may find the extended narrative elements after the gameplay to be overly drawn out and less engaging.
- “The actual gameplay is a set of combat puzzles that are not too difficult, but not trivial either.”
- “In terms of actual gameplay, it took me less than 20 minutes to beat the actual boss fight, which is rather shallow, but the game went on for a bit more.”
- “I think a lot can be done with the idea that deaths are progression, but that mechanic was underdeveloped.”
- “In terms of actual gameplay, it took me less than 20 minutes to beat the actual boss fight, which is rather shallow, but the game went on for a bit more and it seemed to be the developer moralizing at you for longer than I was willing to wait around for.”
- “"Experience" is probably a better word than "game"; there's not so much gameplay as an element of interactivity as a means of communicating the theme... it's otherwise probably better contemplated as something akin to a movie rental.”
emotional
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is characterized by its wholesome narrative, which resonates positively with players. However, some reviewers note that the simplicity of the message can lead to dismissive attitudes, highlighting a divide in emotional reception. Overall, the story is appreciated for its heartwarming qualities.
- “A good wholesome story.”