There’s no story, and your goal in this game is to rebuild the tower by completing missions. The tower is rebuilt floor by floor, and the requirements for each new floor are clearly stated, so there’s no need for guesswork. However, the main gameplay revolves around standard mechanics you’ll find in any decent “survivors” game.
There is only one stage, in which you must survive for 20 minutes while trying to complete the tower objective and the occasional bonus objective. All completed objectives remain completed even if you fail the run, which still counts as progress since you’ll improve and unlock more options for future runs. Although surviving the required time isn’t particularly difficult because your character is quite nimble, you may struggle to dodge the boss that appears toward the end. On the other hand, you only need to survive and the boss does not need to be defeated.
Gameplay is simple and familiar to fans of the genre. You move your character around the area while auto-attacks target the nearest enemies. Your weapon needs to reload after a few shots, but the reload time is short. Additionally, if you press the button when the arrow lands on the green zone, you reload faster and fire an extra projectile.
Enemies drop gems that increase your experience and eventually lead to a level-up. At that point, you can choose one upgrade from a random selection of four options. These upgrades are new weapons that fire at intervals and make handling the increasingly large enemy swarms much easier, since your main weapon isn’t very strong on its own.
The selection of upgrades is quite extensive, offering a wide variety of weapons. For example, there’s a totem that poisons enemies, a giant fist that drops from the sky, a black hole that deals area damage, and a berserker aura that activates when your health is low. Each weapon or upgrade also comes with four unique enhancements.
Instead of repeatedly picking the same upgrade to increase its efficiency, as in most survivors games, you choose specific upgrades tied to each weapon. These upgrades only appear once you’ve already acquired the corresponding weapon, so you won’t be offered anything unusable. With some luck, you can unlock all upgrades after just a few level-ups. Weapons also have elemental descriptors, such as fire or physical, but these don’t play a big role.
Unlike similar games, there are no weapon slot limitations, allowing you to collect as many weapons as you want. That said, it’s usually better to invest in upgrades for a few weapons rather than spreading yourself too thin with a full arsenal that deals low damage. Another important feature is weapon synergy, which unlocks a special upgrade when you have the right combination of weapons. These synergies are hidden, so you’ll only discover them once you meet the requirements.
The gameplay arena includes several interactive elements, such as statues that increase speed, boost damage, or heal you, though each can only be used once. After a few minutes, a special statue may spawn at a random location; standing near it for a short time fills it up and unlocks a magnet that pulls all experience gems toward you.
Another reward comes in the form of chests dropped by elite enemies. These chests allow you to choose one of two random relics, which can sometimes be very powerful. Examples include a potion that causes enemies to drop experience gems or a belt that doubles the number of projectiles.
Aside from difficulty settings, which must be unlocked sequentially by beating the currently available difficulty, the only variation within a stage comes from modifiers earned after either successful or failed runs. Although difficulty settings alter enemy patterns, bosses, and occasionally the environment, the overall impact is minor. Larger changes come from unlocking new tower floors, which introduce features that many similar games provide from the start.
The first floor unlocks new weapons, the second introduces new characters, the third grants access to permanent upgrades, and the final floor provides bonus rewards. There’s also an NPC who offers quests that unlock additional relics for future runs. The entire tower can be completed after just a few runs. Overall, the tower offers a solid amount of content, including eight weapons and seven characters. However, unlocking a floor alone isn’t enough; you still need to purchase new things using the game’s two currencies, which are earned by completing runs.
Characters require the much rarer red gems, but most cost the same to unlock, meaning there’s no single “ultimate” character. You’ll likely choose one and stick with it for most runs. All characters have similar health and movement speed, with their perks being the main differentiator. For example, the Pyromancer always has at least one fire-related upgrade available during level-ups.
Weapons are more engaging and are purchased using the more common blue gems. Each weapon has three tiers, with two perks per tier, though you can only activate one perk per tier. Since perk unlock requirements are tied to weapon usage—such as killing a certain number of enemies or beating a specific difficulty—you’ll naturally unlock everything by consistently using a weapon. One especially important perk available to all weapons is auto-reload, which greatly improves gameplay, particularly when it’s difficult to time reloads correctly while surrounded by enemies.
The third floor unlocks a circular skill tree, where progression starts at the center and expands outward toward larger nodes. Smaller nodes provide modest percentage-based stat increases, such as bonus damage or experience gain, and are repeated throughout the tree. These cost blue gems, while larger nodes require both blue and red gems and are significantly more expensive.
The larger nodes offer more impactful bonuses, including larger experience gems, increased damage when on low health, or additional elemental attacks for your main weapon. Unfortunately, the cost of upgrades increases as you progress through the skill tree. As a result, playing on higher difficulty settings becomes necessary, as they reward slightly more gems.
Overall, it’s a solid survivors-style game that doesn’t require hours of grinding to complete a run. Most of its content is revealed within a few hours, with additional playtime mainly appealing to achievement hunters.
