Tower Song update for 12 February 2024

Greetings Tower runners; welcome to the first Early Access content patch for Tower Song! This update includes our first new player character, Porphry the Fury! Plus, better controller support, totally revamped accessories and loot, and much, much more! Read on for details - and don't forget to leave us a review with your honest opinion! It means the world to us!

As always, a big thank you to our fans and players for your diligence in finding and reporting these problems to our development team! Props to the following bug hunters this go round:

• Tortalius
• Vorticia

Want to leave us feedback for this patch or the game in general? Head on over to feedback or find us on our Discord!

If you don't want to miss future Tower Song updates, just joining our mailing list: https://oigames.substack.com

Major Changes

New Player Character: Porphry the Fury

Players can now complete the campaign as the Fury, Porphry.
Porphry is a true terror on the battlefield, and her campaign release comes with a completely reworked skillset from the original preview dungeon. Porphry engages in battle with her Battle Trance, a gauge that measures her dedication to the task at hand. Build her Trance to unlock truly devastating skills, but beware! If Porphry's Trance ever hits the threshold, she will temporarily loose control and go into a Berserker Rage, attacking a random target for many turns until the target - or Porphry - falls!

New Exploration Abilities

Each player character can access new areas with unique abilities.
Squeeze into caves with Jiji, smash through barriers with Porphry, or talk down Song-addled victims with Neat! Players can access unique, secret areas with their player character and find loot - and fight bosses! - not reachable with other characters.

Loot Revamp

Many more treasures to find, and many equipments overhauled.
We all love loot! Players can now find many more items and brand-new armors and accessories scattered throughout the world, and the content of many existing treasures has been upgraded. There are many, many new accessories that should help players craft just the right build for their team.

Expanded Prologue Tutorial

The Prologue is further developed with more graceful tutorials.
Solace's Tower heist section was a little under-developed, so we've expanded her adventure - along with the loot she can find. Additionally, we've taken a closer look at tutorials in the Prologue and re-worked the UI to more intuitively explain features that previously required heavy-handed tutorialization. A few tutorials will still appear so players understand the key features of Tower Song; the rest can still be found in the Guidebook in-game.

PlayStation Controller Support & More

Official support for DualShock, DualSense and Nintendo-layout controllers.
We've put in a lot of work to try and make the controller experience better, since we feel Tower Song is best enjoyed with a controller. Players now see button shortcuts on-screen (disabled in Options if desired) to help them key-in to functionality. Additionally, we have added additional button shortcuts for Equipment and Mod menus (for keyboard players too!), and players now have more options to select their controller button layout (great for controllers like 8BitDo) and shoulder buttons. Let us know if you have a controller option that we didn't account for!

More Art!

Many new art assets in-game, including cavern battlegrounds, Fire Tower environments, animations for Kiran and Akeno, and much more.
We're always seeking to improve, so we've added a lot more art to the game! We hope you enjoy!

Complete Patch Notes

Read on for a full list of changes made in this patch, both big and small!

New Features

New Player Character: Porphry the Fury

• Play through the game as the Fury, Porphry
• Players can now choose to save their game before choosing their hero, allowing them to skip the Prologue on multiple playthroughs (or just change their mind)
• Players must now confirm their hero if choosing the random hero option

Exploration Abilities

• Jiji can squeeze into hard to reach places to find new treasure.
• Neat can talk down Song-addled victims to access forbidden areas.
• Porphry can break through weak obstacles to access secret areas

Loot Revamp

• There are a ton of new accessories and armors to find throughout the world.
• The content of many existing chests have been upgraded; players with existing save files can backtrack to get them.
• Many new chests have also been placed in the world with new items.
• Players can now craft 5 full tiers of helmets and shields.

Updated Prologue & Tutorials

• Solace's portion of the Tower Heist is now more involved and includes more loot to find.
• Tutorials are now less intrusive and more intuitive

New Art

• Additional environment art for the Fire Tower.
• New battle background art in forest and desert caves
• Improved animations for Kiran and Akeno's skills
• And much more...

Improved Controller Support

• Players can now open Equipment menu with a single button; Main Menu has been rebound to Start button
• Players can now open Mod menu with a single button; Dash has been rebound to trigger/L2/R2 buttons
• Button shortcuts are now persistently displayed on-screen. This can be disabled in Options.
• Options: Players can now choose their button layout (great for 8Bit Do players!)
• Now officially compatible with DualShock and DualSense over USB and Bluetooth. Note that Steam DS players should re-enable Steam Input to benefit from this.
• Mouse cursor now disappears when not in use

Characters

Akeno

Akeno's default armor upgraded to Soul Plate

Ezoan

• Knit Flesh: Description clarifies it removes Wounds.

Fred

• Removed low value skills to make character easier to get into: Slow, Forge Legend, Redagon's Vision

Hudson

• Live Loadout: Now a free action to change weapons but does not reload
• Reload => Reload-out: Refills ammo for all 3 weapons
• Removed low value skills to make character easier to get into: Quick Draw and No One of Consequence

Kiran

• Kiran's default armor upgraded to Refined Plate
• Bastion: Now a Tier 3 skill
• Charm Attack => Muddling Strike: Now deals physical damage; no longer inflicts Cursed Armor
• Eldritch Blast: No longer benefits from MAG
• Foothold: Now a Tier 2 mod
• Heal Wounds: Splash heal increased from 25% to 33%; MP cost reduced from 35 to 20
• Honored Sacrifice: Now a free action that bypasses barriers but has a higher HP cost; moved to a Tier 4 skill
• Mana Hurricane => Steel Hurricane: Now a Physical attack; now a Tier 3 mod
• Mana Storm: Now a single target spell that scales with enemy count; MP cost reduced from 45 to 20
• Martyr: Now a Tier 4 Mod

Solace

• Now starts with an Assault Rifle rather than a Sniper Rifle
• Anti-Personnel Rounds: Damage increased; description clarifies minimum of 1 cartridge cost
• Disarming Shot: No longer replaces Flashbang but is a net new ability; damage increased
• First Aid: Now heals 100% HP and can revive unconscious allies. Limited to once per battle.
• Hexed Shot: No longer replaces Aimed Shot but is a net new ability; moved to a Tier 1 mod
• Overwatch: Now a Tier 2 mod

Tali

• Empowered Hex => Maleficium: Renamed to avoid confusion with Hex spell
• Deceptive Hex => Body Bind Curse: Renamed to avoid confusion with Hex spell
• Hex: Now inflicts a random curse without dealing damage; MP cost reduced from 35 to 0

Combat

General

• Healing area of effects play a new animation
• Many enemy spells, especially bonus spells, now animate much more quickly
• New icons for enemy affliction intents to avoid confusion with actual states
• Descriptions for Blessing and Curses states updated for clarity.
• Descriptions for enemy class traits updated for clarity.

Prologue

• Boss: HP reduced by 200; now summons allies over the course of the boss fight
• Animated Ephemera: Initiative reduced
• Gargoyles, Stoneskin: Barrier now blocks wound; less HP in Act 3 version

Soul Tower

• Bogatyr: Much less likely to use Impale on Turn 1
• Wild Infection, Burst: Now affects all units on the battlefield (except other infections)

Fire Tower

• Ond Glottis: Damage greatly reduced

Equipment

• Crafting Materials: Players can now craft higher tier materials using lower tier materials.
• Knight's Panoply: Item reworked and can now be obtained through exploration. Kiran no longer starts with it.
• Kiran's Backup Equipment: Now easier to obtain
• Knight's Brooch can now be equipped by everyone and is no longer considered legendary
• Legionnaire equipment is now contributed to the party inventory after they leave
• Ring of Freedom: No longer protects against Cursed Initiative.

Exploration

• More objects block enemy lines of sight for better stealth opportunities
• Camp dialogue is no longer delivered via a submenu, but it is contextual based on the main quest
• Camp areas now have their own save image
• A smith has come to the Qadam Markets
• A message now plays if you attempt to open the foreman's chest
• Kido Overworld: Players can now bypass completed areas on the overworld
• Vistham homes now come with windows for natural lighting. Citizens rejoice.
• The Port is no longer accessible; Ezoan now relaxes in the tavern!

Quest

• Dialogue and scenes revised throughout for clarity, quality
• Foreman Yusef is no longer quite so short in cut-scenes
• The Void Tower is now known as the Death Tower.
• Aomr is now known simply as the Guardian
• Kiran no longer discovers an under-developed secret in the Fire Tower; those who know, know; but it's not important for this game. Maybe in the sequel!

Bug Fixes

Characters

• Akeno, Draw Elements: Now restores HP properly
• Jiji, Soul Strike: Now correctly describes that it inflicts Cursed Resistance
• Solace, Overwatch: No longer consumed by allies with free actions, such as Tali

Combat

• Bomb: Now properly detonates even if the caster is dead
• Headshot: Now correctly applies a Wound
• Lichsoul: Icon no longer has a black line through it
• Ond Glottis: Harmonize no longer removes debuffs early
• Shelter Stance: Now properly reduces damage when expected
• Stun: Animation no longer plays if victim resists the stun
• Stun: Targets immune to Stun no longer lose their Preparation and Echo states if hit with a resisted Stun

Exploration

• More chests and campfires should now have interaction icon
• NPCs dialogues show appropriate graphics
• General: Players can no longer get stuck by walking diagonally up/down wide stairs
• Disposal Ephemera: Pots now properly trigger the battle.
• Pod Storage Ephemera: Pots now properly trigger the battle.
• Creche Heist: Floating rocks in the Prologue no longer block passage
• Creche Heist: You can no longer sneak by lava to get an (unusable in early game) crafting material in the Prologue
• Turbine Gargoyles: The gargoyle in the Turbine stage now properly uses Stoneskin when the fight begins
• Emerald River: The game will no longer occasionally freeze after defeating the Emerald River miniboss
• Emerald River: The karpi now animates correctly when leaping out of the water, no matter which direction you approach from
• The interaction icon now disappears after looting Uyeno's Note
• A boulder no longer blocks the player during the Cedarspur cut-scene
• Mine Entrance: Bridge is now totally passable
• Soul Tower: Interactable corpses now properly show a twinkle
• Soul Tower: Doors no longer play duplicate animations and sounds
• Soul Tower: Boss death animation plays properly
• Mountain Pass: Characters no longer clip through the railing
• Mist Legionnaire soldiers have proper walking animations
• Fire Tower: You can no longer interact with the turbine after the prologue
• Fire Tower: Hudson no longer remains on-screen after dialogue in final level
• Fire Tower: You can no longer swap back to the Legionnaires after completing their quest
• Final Dungeon: Kiran's final puzzle state now starts in the correct state
• Post-Credits: No longer shows "Return to Map" in normal game
• Post-Credits: (Demo Only) Option sends players back to Guhar to keep exploring

Quest

• When choosing a random hero, the right portrait now accompanies the description
• The Prologue Quest, "Mana Knight", is now properly completed when you finish the chapter.
• The "Explore the Fire Tower" objective is now properly removed before facing the final boss

UI

• Battle Camera Movement: Disabled, as it had no effect. We will properly implement it in future updates.
• Many word wrapping errors resolved