TowerFall for PC is a 'massive update' over Ouya version

Before bringing his game to PC, Matt Thorson discusses TowerFall's origins, potential new features, and Ouya success.

Ozzie Mejia

July 29, 2013 12:00 PM

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TowerFall is easily the most-talked-about game for Ouya. Demand has been so high that creator Matt Thorson announced a PC version of the game. Shacknews reached out to Thorson to learn some more about TowerFall.

"TowerFall began at a 48-hour game jam," Thorson told Shacknews. "I was working with Alec Holowka, my roommate, who ended up doing the music for the final game. It started as a single player survival game about an archer climbing a tower and changed a lot over a year of development."

It's hard to describe what makes the four-player archery platformer so appealing, though Thorson tries to sum it up succinctly. "It's a local multiplayer versus game about destroying your friends," he explained. "It's super pick-up-and-playable, but has a ton of hidden depth if you stick with it. The game is fast and intense with one-hit kills and a lot of variety, with 70 versus arenas and more on the way."

Declaring sales of the Ouya version better-than-expected, Thorson explained why he decided to debut his game on the fledgling platform. "The Ouya version is a great way to get the game out to a smaller audience of hardcore players, make balance changes, and get some early attention," he answered. "I think TowerFall has proven itself, a lot of people are asking for a PC version and I'm really excited to expand the community."

Thorson adds that TowerFall's PC version won't simply be a port of the existing game. He's promising a substantial amount of new features. "I'm already testing a bunch of new content for the Versus mode," he said. "There's two new towers, some new powerups, archers, and variants, and a bunch of balance changes. I'm also planning a fully fleshed-out single player mode for players who don't have friends to play versus mode with. It's going to be a massive update. I can't wait to see how people react."

Seeing people's reactions to TowerFall has indeed been a fun process for Thorson, especially at major events. "Showing TowerFall has been so rewarding, there's been a lot of great moments," he explained. "At Evo seeing a few guys return to the game several times over the weekend, and seeing total strangers laughing and trash talking while they play, that was amazing. It's always great to see the moment when players realize that they can catch arrows, and the gameplay implications of that. At the Ouya booth at E3 I saw a little girl get super excited about the game and drag her mom over to show her, that was almost too much for me."

TowerFall's PC version has the potential to create similar memories, but Thorson isn't ready to commit to a release date just yet. Though he estimates a couple of months, he says that it's too early to make any sort of commitment, given how high he's raising the quality bar for himself. Once it's finished, however, he plans to keep expanding TowerFall's reach.

"I really want to do Mac and Linux," he concluded, "and tech-wise they look possible."

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?