Announcing Towers II Enhanced Stargazer Edition

[Songbird]

If you're going in cold, and not using any hint guides, I would expect lots of hours. Easily 20+ when I played through it and I tried to explore nearly everything. If you skip past some portions or you already know some of the first objectives to accomplish, it would be shorter but I would still think 15+ hours.

 

[leech]

24 minutes ago, Songbird said:

If you're going in cold, and not using any hint guides, I would expect lots of hours. Easily 20+ when I played through it and I tried to explore nearly everything. If you skip past some portions or you already know some of the first objectives to accomplish, it would be shorter but I would still think 15+ hours.

 

My brother always looks at 'how many hours', and I never quite understood it, as it seems to me it is rarely accurate for any playstyle I do.  Granted I tend to play a game up to a certain point, find way too many things to do, give up on that and just finish the game and move onto another.  I think Mad Max was the closest I got to getting 100% everything on.  That game was awesome.

[+madman]

3 hours ago, Songbird said:

We just broke 100 sales in the first 12 hours. That's significantly better than any Songbird release of the past few years. Typically even for a "strong seller" I would expect at best 50-60 sales in the first 2-3 days. Thank you so much to Jag fans everywhere! It's because of your long-standing support that we can do cool releases like this. And I think you will really enjoy this remastered edition; I know I did while I played it all the way through to the end. 

I think part of the appeal here is this is a Jag game from "back in the day" remastered by the original programmers. That's not to take anything away from modern homebrew, but this is pretty unique. Also the fact it's cheaper than the OG release will help sell it to people newer to the Jag who don't want to drop $150+ or whatever on the Telegames release. Thanks for sharing the sales figures, it's interesting to know how well these titles move. 

 

Now if we could get the Ruiner Pinball guy to remaster that game with improved physics that'd be another hot seller!

[Songbird]

Totally agree about the appeal! It's professionally developed, published back in the 1990s, and getting remastered by the original developers 25 years later. Pretty cool to see it all come together.

[+Biff Burgertime]

Every so often I'll notice the II part of Towers II and wonder what it's a sequel of, but not enough to bother Googling. This was finally the straw that broke the camel's back.

Quote

Towers: Lord Baniff's Deceit is a first-person role-playing video game originally developed and published by JV Enterprises for the Atari ST in 1993. It is the first entry in the Towers series. In the game, players assume the role of adventurers tasked with finding Lord Baniff in his Tower, who has not been heard from by the people of Lamini. The title was later ported to both MS-DOS and Game Boy Color, each featuring various differences compared to the original release.

Links:

• [Wikipedia] Towers: Lord Baniff's Deceit
• [YouTube] Gameplay (Atari ST)
• [YouTube] Gameplay (DOS)

 

There's surprisingly few videos of the game in action on YouTube. Looks like the sequel got a lot more attention, which makes sense as it appears to be a big upgrade - and this new version a bigger upgrade still!

[Fadest]

For European people interested in the game, we made an agreement with Carl to have the game available in EU, so no extra VAT, and lower postage fees.

 

You can preorder the game here :

Towers 2 Enhanced Stargazer Edition (yastuna-games.com)

[CD-i]

Great news for European gamers! But no jaguar logo on the box like with Carl's release? Would be a bummer

[Fadest]

I took the pictures from Songbird site, and I do not manage production, I am just acting like a reseller here.

[leech]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:30 PM, Biff Burgertime said:

Every so often I'll notice the II part of Towers II and wonder what it's a sequel of, but not enough to bother Googling. This was finally the straw that broke the camel's back.

Links:

• [Wikipedia] Towers: Lord Baniff's Deceit
• [YouTube] Gameplay (Atari ST)
• [YouTube] Gameplay (DOS)

 

There's surprisingly few videos of the game in action on YouTube. Looks like the sequel got a lot more attention, which makes sense as it appears to be a big upgrade - and this new version a bigger upgrade still!

It was one of only two Dungeon Master style games in which you could play two players.  Bloodwhych was one.  That is split screen.  Towers 1, yku could play over null modem.  Though if I recall, you needed 2mb of RAM to do so.  Tried it once and the 1040ST ran out of memory.

 

Seems there was a Gameboy version as well that could use the link...

[+madman]

7 hours ago, CD-i said:

Great news for European gamers! But no jaguar logo on the box like with Carl's release? Would be a bummer

Looks like the exact same photo from Songbird's site and Carl's post earlier this week. 

[Isgoed]

9 hours ago, CD-i said:

Great news for European gamers! But no jaguar logo on the box like with Carl's release? Would be a bummer

I agree, the Jaguar logo looks great.

 

If the second run will have the Jaguar logo on the box and cart, I might consider to wait for that version to buy.

 

[Bumbry88]

Just placed my order and again thanks for the making this happen Carl!!

[Songbird]

Thought people would like to know: all files have gone to print! Should have everything showing up about 3 weeks from now.

 

In the meantime, I will start building carts, but my supply is very limited until the next run of boards arrives with the bigger saved data EEPROM. Those should also show up sometime in August.

 

We're almost there! Really excited to get everyone's reactions to this first-ever remaster of a professional Jaguar release.

 

[leech]

15 hours ago, Songbird said:

Thought people would like to know: all files have gone to print! Should have everything showing up about 3 weeks from now.

 

In the meantime, I will start building carts, but my supply is very limited until the next run of boards arrives with the bigger saved data EEPROM. Those should also show up sometime in August.

 

We're almost there! Really excited to get everyone's reactions to this first-ever remaster of a professional Jaguar release.

 

I am normally annoyed by remasters, depending on how they are done, and most seem to be with just higher textures, and support for new resolutions.  In some cases the muck with the art (looking at you Diablo 2).  But this takes Towers 2 and makes everything better, and for the original system, just done with years of learning the system better.  I put it up there with the fixed / tweaked version if Doom for the 32x.

[Songbird]

Vince from JV Games was quite open to feedback during the extensive beta test we did. He put way more time into it than you would expect, because he really wanted a quality product. As you said, not only do you get some upgraded textures and a little bit better 3D renderer, but also many UI / UX improvements, a whole bunch of new NPC audio that was never in the Jaguar version, and even some gameplay adjustments to tweak enemy behaviors or weapon/spell stats.

 

I had so much fun playing Towers II Enhanced from start to finish with almost no spoilers. And for what it's worth, I bought Towers II back in the day at retail and never finished it because I got frustrated around level 3 or 4 when monsters could one-hit kill me plus they would respawn on subsequent game loads. This was a much different experience.

[Songbird]

Got our first Signature Edition carts built over the weekend! More coming soon. Signature Edition should ship by end of August.

 

[leech]

On 7/28/2023 at 10:56 AM, Songbird said:

Vince from JV Games was quite open to feedback during the extensive beta test we did. He put way more time into it than you would expect, because he really wanted a quality product. As you said, not only do you get some upgraded textures and a little bit better 3D renderer, but also many UI / UX improvements, a whole bunch of new NPC audio that was never in the Jaguar version, and even some gameplay adjustments to tweak enemy behaviors or weapon/spell stats.

 

I had so much fun playing Towers II Enhanced from start to finish with almost no spoilers. And for what it's worth, I bought Towers II back in the day at retail and never finished it because I got frustrated around level 3 or 4 when monsters could one-hit kill me plus they would respawn on subsequent game loads. This was a much different experience.

Now the question is... is Vince willing to make a port of Towers 1 to the Jag, or maybe we can hope for a Towers 3? 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

9 hours ago, Songbird said:

Got our first Signature Edition carts built over the weekend! More coming soon. Signature Edition should ship by end of August.

 

I'm kicking myself for not placing my pre-order for this one the day it was announced. But still can't wait for the regular edition to come along

(As a note to what you mentioned above Carl, I had finished the original game BITD but level 4 almost made me quit the game too)

[Songbird]

The next piece arrives! The boxes should be here later this week.

 

 

Also did you know each game will include a flexible plastic controller overlay?

 

[jerseystyle]

On 6/26/2023 at 11:00 AM, BitJag said:

Hi everyone!

A few months ago, Carl at Songbird Productions asked me to share my reaction to the differences between both versions of Towers II.  Of course, I said yes. Below is a video where I put about an hour into both versions of the game, and give my long standing impression of the original release of Towers II, along with my initial thoughts on this new version of the game.  

 

After putting together this longer video, I decided to do a shorter video, also posted below.  I wasn't planning on doing this shorter video, but I thought it would be useful to go more in depth with this game for those who are generally unfamiliar with the game, and those who are still deciding whether or not to get a copy of the game.  I also wanted a project to do some new motion graphics for JagCorner, and this opportunity fit the bill. In this shorter video, I cover some of the history of the game, spend time showing side-by-side's for most of the changes that have been previously listed by Songbird/JV Games, and share a more concise version of my opinion regarding Towers II: Enhanced Stargazer Edition.  

 

Thank you to Songbird Productions and JV Games for allowing me to play through the Enhanced Stargazer Edition of Towers II ahead of the release.  It was great to be a part of this rerelease with producing the illustration used for the box art, and I'm grateful to be able to share my thoughts/opinions about both versions of the games with everyone else.  I'm looking forward to getting my own copy of the game soon, and reading the opinions/reviews others have about this new version of Towers II.  

 

 

 

Great video! I was pumped to hear that enemies (all? most? some?) stay dead… that’s what halted my progress back in the day. It’s awesome that this game is getting a chance at a new audience, and I’m a bit ashamed that I never knew you could talk to people in it, haha. I remember stabbing those damn janitors…

[+madman]

5 hours ago, Songbird said:

The next piece arrives! The boxes should be here later this week.

 

 

Also did you know each game will include a flexible plastic controller overlay?

 

Where did you learn how to attach images?

[Songbird]

Ugh, did it do the Google blocked image thing again? I'm just doing a simple copy / paste from Google Photos and it looks fine for me. I can repost later. Sorry!

[+madman]

26 minutes ago, Songbird said:

Ugh, did it do the Google blocked image thing again? I'm just doing a simple copy / paste from Google Photos and it looks fine for me. I can repost later. Sorry!

Yeah it just says image.png, the link is to your GMail box so that's why we can't see it. 

[Songbird]

[Major Havoc 2049]

On 8/14/2023 at 8:43 AM, leech said:

Now the question is... is Vince willing to make a port of Towers 1 to the Jag, or maybe we can hope for a Towers 3? 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Towers and Towers II pretty much the same game?  I know the movement in Towers is tile based, while Towers II is free roaming.  There is also the graphics and music upgrade as well for Towers II.  It seems like the story, characters and goal of both games is exactly the same.