There are robots marching towards your base in Tower Lab, and your job is to use gravity to eliminate them. The physics-based tower defense roguelite from developers Devon Powell and Xueer Zhu, launches into Early Access today. Instead of destroying enemies by reducing their health, you’ll build towers that push, pull, bounce, shrink, and launch them straight off the map.
Tower Lab originally started as a game jam prototype two years ago, but the idea has grown considerably since then. The Early Access version includes a roguelite campaign, 20 different towers, five playable machines, meta progression, several additional game modes, and a level editor with Steam Workshop support.
If It Falls Off the Map, It’s Dead
There are no enemy health bars to worry about in Tower Lab. The robots are physical objects, and getting rid of them means finding some way to remove them from the battlefield. That could be as simple as building something that pushes them over an edge, but the physics system lets you get considerably more creative.
Towers can interact with each other and their projectiles. You can bounce mines off deflector panels, use fans to redirect bombs, or shrink enemies so they weigh less and become easier to send flying. You can also make them bigger.
It isn’t quite as ridiculous a decision as it sounds. Knocking heavier enemies from the map earns you greater rewards, giving you the option to increase their mass and potentially walk away with a better payout. The obvious problem is that you’ve now got a much heavier robot heading towards your base.
Twenty Towers, Five Machines, Plenty to Mess Around With
There will be 20 towers available when Early Access begins, each with its own tech tree and a different role to play in your defenses. You’ll build your options during runs through cards, with seven physics-effect cards, eight utility cards, seven traps, 26 player cores, and 14 Hazard Cores included at launch.
There are also five playable machines to choose from. Each begins with different items and has its own real-time abilities, giving you another way to change how you approach a run. The main campaign currently takes place across three regions, with Hazard modifiers available to make things more difficult. Meta progression also means each failed attempt can gradually open up more possibilities for the next one.
Considering this all started with a game jam, the lab has gotten pretty crowded.
You Can Always Build Your Own Problems
Once you’ve had enough of the campaign, there are four other modes waiting. Arcade offers a more traditional tower defense experience, while Endless takes place on a procedurally expanding map and keeps going for as long as you can hold everything together. Puzzle mode gives you specific problems to solve using the game’s physics systems.
Then there’s the sandbox level editor. Steam Workshop support means players can create their own levels and share them with the community, which should give people plenty of opportunities to come up with situations the developers never intended anyone to solve.
Early Access is expected to last around six to 12 months. During that time, the developers plan to add more towers, regions, enemies, machines, traps, cards, and features for the level editor, alongside balance changes based on player feedback.