Tic-Toc-Tower Reviews

Tic-Toc-Tower is yet another of literally thousands of 2D retro pixel platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. The gimmick here is that each single screen level must be completed within 10 seconds, that's all there is to it. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The controls and game handling are notably very clunky and imprecise, I think this is caused by some fairly bad input lag when jumping. It's janky and unsatisfying to play... and any experienced gamer will tell you, the handling, responsiveness and general gameplay feel of the control scheme must be well polished for this kind of game to succeed. Unfortunately, this is something the developer seems to have phoned in, with little to no apparent gameplay testing or polish done. Input lag is bad on any game, but for a precision platformer like this, it's a deal breaker. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts. While this is on PC, it has all the hallmarks and deficiencies of a console game, from the clunkier than needed control scheme to the less than cutting edge graphics. There's 10's of thousands of PC games on Steam, and PC gamers deserve only the best. This might not appeal to many gamers due to the lack of PC-centric design. It's unclear why this game was never accepted on the video game console appliances it seems to have been designed for. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Tic-Toc-Tower didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for dying, trivial to get, you will probably die before the tutorial is finished, but less than 13 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game. Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a very healthy spike in player counts for the game. But this isn't consistent with the achievement stats, that show less than 13 percent of players bothered playing the game for any reasonable amount of time. How is it possible for this game to have so many concurrent players who weren't even playing the game? Trading cards. Players will use card idling software to collect the cards and sell them, but this won't trigger any achievements in-game. That tells us people only really bought this game for trading cards, and that's a damning indictment of the woeful quality. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards. Tic-Toc-Tower is relatively cheap at $3 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.

Tic-Toc-Tower is a hectic platformer with tight controls and a fast working game design team. I have been following this game since before greenlight and it has grown into a cool little time waster. The subtle extra challange of getting the clock (and coins) on the easier levels to help on the harder levels keeps the easy levels challenging even for veteran players. And the multiplayer is just mayhem.

Movement feels awful and levels are very repetitive and boring.

Tic-Toc-Tower is hilariousely hectic. Watching people play is equally entertaining as playing for yourself. I have invented some new cursewords in the hours that I have played, and I am sure more will follow since I will keep coming back to this game for sure. GG!

Taking a look at Sneaky Mammoth's 10 second platformer. There publisher Sodesco and I had a disagreement in another of there early access games which they slapped me with a copyright strike so I'd thought I'd investigate the rest of there games. I have to say I rather liked this game thus far. Honest review of the gameplay video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmmZGam7cY0 The basis for the game is pretty simple. 10 seconds to get to the end of each level, get the doorway before the time runs out. Pretty simple, right? Well, luckily there is a pause button so you can plan your steps because with some wonky jumping physics, level perils and some randomly generated levels you really have to plan it out. Pixelated graphics are not too bad. The jumping seems to not be 100 percent responsive though that might be part of the fun. Pretty simple concept for a game, nicely executed, something you can pick up for short doses. I'd give it a 7/10 as it could use a few touches but will update as development progresses.

Although time based games and platform games are normally not my forte, I really like this game. It is easy to play, quickly addictive and has some nice original twists to it. Also love the look 'n feel. Keep up the good work!

Surprising game that is quick to pick up and start playing, and hard to put aside. I really like how you get to go through all these different kinds of levels, especially when you play hard core mode - some levels are really crazy! Solid plus: - Very challenging through time limit and difference in level-types. I love the mirrors. - Funny and cute characters. - Nice art. - Cool music. - Easy peasy to learn, but some levels will give you a challenge (so rewarding to finally get a 1-block jump right though!) Room for improvement: - It sometimes feels hard to anticipate how far you can jump - especially on the 1 blocks (or maybe I'm just a tad bad at it and will get better :P ) I can't wait to give the multiplayer mode a spin with friends. I feel that this game will really shine in multiplayer on game nights. Excellent party potential right here.

The premise of this game sounded interesting to me and it was 75% off in the store at the time, so I figured why not give it a try? I have to say I'm terribly disappointed in the game. The levels are very simple and extremely repetative. Within minutes I felt like I had already experienced everything the game had to offer. Winning a level doesn't feel rewarding, and losing doesn't really carry any consequence. There are a few unlockables you can work towards to extend the life of the game, but honestly there isn't very much to see here. I've played free flash games that were far more entertaining than this, as well as ones that held my attention for far longer. If you're on the fence about this game, do yourself a favor and spend the money on something else.

Cool platforming concept but the controls feel too imprecise to deal properly with the goal of beating each stage in 10 seconds so it's more annoying than difficult.

I'm very disappointed with this game. I came across it several days ago and put it in my wishlist, thinking that it looked a little like a perfection-style (high energy and timed) steampunk/mechanical platformer. This seemed like something that was right up my alley, so when I saw that it was on a 50% sale today, I grabbed it up at $2.49. When I sat down to game this evening, it was the first game I loaded up, and I was very excited to give it a try. Right away, though, I found my enthusiasm dwindling as my aggravation and disappointment levels climbed. Firstly, the controls were not what I would consider smooth or responsive. I experienced a delay at times between button presses and action on the screen, and I also got the impression that little thought had been given to jump height and distance. It was impossible to properly judge distance for jumps consistently, and if your character isn't in motion, it won't make the majority of the jumps. I understand that this is meant to be a fast-paced game, so the jumps were likely designed for a character in motion, but they're missing the mark here for the game as a whole by programming from such a narrow perspective. Another issue was the texturing of the surfaces, which more often than not created a character sliding on ice effect, whether it was meant to or not. These factors coupled together create an experience that's a lot like a blind speedrun, and that inconsistency only served to cause confusion and frustration for me. Also along the line of game mechanics was that some of the additions to the game don't seem to have a purpose. The most noticeable of these is the time clock that generally shows up in one corner or another during the arcade levels. I got the impression that going in the opposite direction of the exit to get one of these would result in bonus time to complete the level, but that's not what I experienced at all. Once I figured out that the only thing that really mattered was getting to the exit in time, it became important to bypass what little content there was in the form of coins, obstacles, and these time clocks. There was absolutely no enjoyment for me at this point, so that's when I threw in the proverbial towel. Another negative is that the randomized levels really aren't so random. In obtaining the achievement for completing 100 rooms, I found myself cycling through a relatively few number of levels with a high percentage of consecutive repeats of the same level. This was made worse with poor level design. There just really wasn't much to these levels, even on hardcore, so I found myself wondering what the point of the game was, and I couldn't come up with a good answer. I was also very disappointed with the graphics, which were pixel-style but severely lacking in detail and contrast. The overall effect was blurring with an inability to distinguish between the character, platforms, and obstacles. When you aren't certain where you're going, and can't get there reliably and consistently, it pretty much becomes "game over." In regard to the soundtrack, there wasn't much to it, and the buzzing/ticking sound effects during gameplay became annoying enough for me to mute the sound on my laptop. In short, I simply cannot recommend the game in its current state, and the fact that I was looking forward to this game, makes that an even more disappointing conclusion. My recommendation is to either pass this one up altogether or wait until it's on a major sale or included in a bundle. I'm regretting the $2.49 I spent on it, and that was at a 50% discount. Onto the next one.