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Twisted Tower
Bioshock Meets Willy Wonka - Twisted Tower Interview
We caught up with Atmos Games' Thomas Brush to learn all about the upcoming Bioshock-esque action title.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome to Gamescom 2023. Here we are with Thomas, one of the main directors of the game that we're going to check out today, which is Twisted Tower. A horror title based on, well he described it, just such as Bioshock meets Willy Wonka. So it's going to be super cool and weird experience and we want to dive a little bit about it so that's why we're talking to him."
"Thank you for joining us and to talking with us a little bit. Thank you so much. First of all, I want to ask you about the overall idea of the game. Well, how could you describe it for just people let to know a little bit the game? Sure. Do you want me to hold the mic? Whatever you want.
Okay. So basically, yeah, it's Twisted Tower. It's Willy Wonka meets Bioshock. So obviously, Bioshock is a classic game, early 2000s style games. That's my sort of runs in my blood. That's what I played growing up. So Half-Life, Bioshock, all those kinds of games, just classic shooters."
"So I'm also inspired by Willy Wonka, Disney Parks. I love Disney World. So I figured what if I made Willy Wonka and kind of Disney World? What if I made that a creepy horror type game? So that was the goal. Willy Wonka meets Bioshock. And this is the result of that mix then. And what can you tell us about the gameplay? How is this going to be? Because the game's called Twisted Tower."
"It's all based in the tower, as you told me before. But how is our path going to be? How are we going to delve into this tower? How are these floor leveling mechanic that you told me? Can you explain that a little bit? Yes. I'll be honest. I don't really like games where the path is always different. So like, you know, roguelike games, not really my thing. I think they're great games. They're just not for me. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to make a game where the pathing was very different, but you could memorize the pathing if you wanted to. And so in this game, as you go up this creepy tower and every floor is themed kind of like a Willy Wonka theme or like a Disney World theme, right? You've got haunted, like Mickey's haunted mansion, but it's a floor, right? It's got a casino level. You've got a water park level, right? So really that spooky sort of Disney feel, right? But on every single floor, at the very beginning of the level, you can choose a path. And once you've chosen that path, you're locked in, right? So if you want a completely different experience than, say, a streamer, you can watch the streamer play the game, but then download the game and then choose your own path. But again, there's only so many paths, right? So you can memorize the whole tower if you want to. Yeah. And what about, what can you tell us next about, because you told me that this is your, not your very first game, because you've worked on any other games, but this is like your biggest game in terms of integrals, in terms of people working on it. So how's the experience? How do you feel about showing the game finally? How can you tell us about this first experience? Sure, sure. So yeah, this is my, I would say my biggest game. I've done two other games before this. One of them's called Pinstripe. The other one's called Neversong. My goal has always been to be like the Tim Burton or like the Del Toro of game development. Like, that's kind of my goal. I want to make spooky, creepy games that hearken to classic, you know, 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s."
"I love those old school storytelling tactics, and that, like, when I hear old music playing down a hallway, I love that, like in The Shining. So I've always wanted to make games like that.
I have a bigger team now, so I've got two full-timers who are incredible. Felipe, who's the artist, and then AJ, who's a developer. Incredible, brilliant team. However, you got to be careful, because you don't want the game to become something other than what your previous two games were. So we're trying to stay on brand. We're trying to stay on brand. And so Twisted Tower, one of the reasons why it's taking us a while to create, is we're trying to keep cutting away the fat of the game and bring it back to that original feeling that all my other games have, which is basically just Tim Burton, Del Toro, classic storytelling, spooky storytelling. So it's been difficult to keep everything, you know, small and keep it focused on that spooky, creepy vibe. I think that Bioshock accomplishes so well."
"That sounds amazing and really inspiring for all the tiny developers. And finally, what we all want to know is, when are we going to be able to try out this amazing game? Do we have a release date? Are you thinking about on which platforms are we going to play it? Can you tell us something?
Do we want to say, George, the release date? No, no, we can't say it right now. I think next year, 2024, is the planned release date."
"We're planning on launching on Steam and PC, but we're still trying to figure out exactly how we want to launch. It will be a surprise. Thank you so much for joining us and I wish you all the best luck and that's it."
Gamescom
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