Tower of Babel Forum

Artinum · Zapper Messages: 184 Location: United Kingdom

On a Biblical theme, there's a village in North Wales called Babell. And a few miles away from it is another village called Sodom! How strange. But then, Wales also boasts a village called Druid and another one called Rug!

Onto more commentary. After my dismay over the earlier ones, these towers seem to be improving a great deal.

GROUP 08
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A. Aaaargh! No More Exchangers!

This is one of those Grabber/Exchanger towers, but to my delight it is actually rather good. Not difficult - there's no impending danger and the route to take is rather obvious - but the presence of hoppers, lifts and a pusher/block obstacle adds some flavour.

B. Quick!!!!!

There's a fair amount of role-swapping in this tower. I don't want to spoil the tower by explaining the title but it's a neat little one. I'm warming to these towers again now. They aren't as complex as those of you lot, but they're nice implementations of ideas interspersed with a few duffers. Hey, I was 16...

C. Initials - A Weird Tower

Best viewed in the designer to get the idea! Otherwise fairly pointless - lots of hoppers for Zapper to demolish and a lot of walking for Grabber. Worth a look though.

D. Er... Has Anyone Got A Machine-Gun?

Mad Andrew I brings us a tower full of hoppers. Of course. Pusher's presence seems rather superfluous - that prism is totally unnecessary. Hoppers in our towers seem to have lemming-like qualities.

E. The Welcoming Committee

Mad Andrew II takes up the reins. Zapper and Grabber are in a hole. Pusher needs to get rid of the two zapper cannons awaiting their emergence (the "welcoming committee" of the title).

F. The Infested Maze

A fairly typical "maze full of hoppers" affair, but with no cameras. Lots of dead ends led me to using both Zapper and Grabber to sweep the area. There are more hoppers than you need to kill but getting them all is immensely satisfying.

G. Race Against Time

The klondike is blocked by a promixity mine and a time bomb. Grabber must get to it before the bomb goes off! This is an excellent little tower which requires a bit of thought.

H. Wait!

Oh my. Just when I thought my towers were getting better, I find this one. The title says it all - this could be the most boring tower you ever play.

I. Blocks Awaaaaaay!!!!!!

Aha, Mad Williams III appears with a Pusher-only tower (we don't get many of them). The lift down to the flag/convertor is, ahem, "blocked". How do you get to the middle of a 3x3 block of blocks? Simple...

GROUP 09
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Several of the towers in this group are by my cousin, Christopher, and friend Jamie. Expect many hidden zappers.

A. Nasty!

Christopher's first offering here features Grabber and many, many lifts. Most of these are red herrings that sometimes merely irritate but usually end in light, amplified by the stimulated emission of radiation. Brrr.

B. Dangerous

The second Christopher tower is very similar, but here the hunt is for many klondikes. Lifts generally land safely but the zappers hide around the corner... A time limit is enforced here, but 400 seconds is over six minutes. Plenty of time?

C. Nasty, Nasty!!

A third Christopher tower, again with a maze of klondikes and sneaky zappers! He rather liked creating these towers more than playing them, as I recall. This tower is technically impossible as no finishing conditions are set - presumably a work in progress (such as the downlift in front of a zapper cannon which goes nowhere and cannot be used).

D. INTRUDER ALERT

This one is a welcome return for Iceman IV (or Jamie as I know him). While Pusher is just along for the ride, you can do this with or without Zapper's help. I think Jamie just liked using all three spiders. Collect six klondikes on the top floor without getting zapped...

E. Zapper Is Coming To Town...

I have no idea why this tower is hovering in midair. The ground floor is utterly empty. It also occurs to me that there is no need to complete this tower 'properly' - you can get Zapper down on an earlier lift and stick two finger-equivalents up at the remaining top floor zappers. The proper way involves a lot of work for Pusher.

F. The Tower Of Babel

A rather pretentious title for a tower with four storeys, but it was the best the original game could manage... Grabber is imprisoned at the top and under armed guard. His fellows must climb up and let him loose. In theory you could leave Zapper behind and let Pusher do everything, but zapping is fun.

G. The Dangerous Dome Tower

Another Christopher tower - rather easier than most of his, I think. All those worms on floor 2 seem rather superfluous but are probably quite amusing to watch!

H. The Terminator

"I'll be back," growled Zapper as a waft of smoke rose from his now cooling laser cannon. The remains of several hoppers gave no response, now bereft of their earlier bounce. But the fixed pusher would have smiled if it had a mouth, for Zapper's threat was an idle one. Despite zapping all the hoppers, his tally was not complete...

I. Minas Morgul - The Tower Of Death

Mad Williams' sixth outing is a rather secretive affair. Cameras don't help you see what awaits down those lifts. The Force Down may or may not be useful, and may or may not stuff you up entirely...

GROUP 10
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What the hell, let's do three groups this time.

A. Smash & Grab

A fairly simple exercise - I was attempting to construct a bank vault. Quite why Zapper has to die, though, I don't know.

B. Wuthering Heights

This tower has absolutely nothing to do with moors, Heathcliffe, Kathy, Kate Bush or any of the Bronte sisters you care to name. I just thought it sounded good as a title for something, well, high.

This is a tower you may need more than one attempt at. Curiously, it is rotationally symmetrical.

C. Destruction of the Zapper Factory

All three spiders take their share of fixed zappers, though oddly the object of the tower is the klondike at the top. I suppose it is too easy to amass six kills without getting all the zappers, whereas this way you have to get them all.

D. Fairly Straightforward.

What an odd tower! No real challenge to it - I can only imagine I was experimenting again.

E. Zapper to King 4 - Checkmate.

That's right, it's a chessboard. The title is meaningless - it's not a clue or anything. Indeed, this is so simple that I can't help wondering if I was called away or something.

F. The Anti-Zapper Pushing Association

Okay, okay. This is just a bit of silliness! Note that with the exception of one glass block and one zapper, everyone else is a pusher, even Pusher (obviously).

G. Is Zapper Worth The Sacrifice?!?!

Well, we all love Zapper, don't we? So who cares if Pusher has to die? Watch out - you may be tricked the first time.

H. Hampton Court

Named after a famous hedge maze in England (in case our European contingent are not aware). This is NOT a plan of that maze, just A Maze. Find all the klondikes! This is a pretty dull tower - Grabber in a dull maze with nothing happening - but then Hampton Court itself isn't exactly crawling with laser cannons.

I. Schizophrenia

Zapper and Pusher swap jobs for the day. Zapper pushes stuff out of the way whilst pusher zaps enemies, both finding their way down the tower to the final Hopper. A fairly linear tower (well, a double line, anyway) experimenting with an idea.

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In all, I found many of these towers to be simplistic but experimental. I'm not clear if this is all down to the lack of development or a lack of items in the limit (it's hard to develop the "Schizophrenia" idea too far when you can only have 17 items and half of those are convertors). Some of these towers are particularly simple - "Zapper to King 4" for instance appears to not even have reached a first draft.

I hope some of these towers inspire the rest of you to develop new ones.

Dr. · Administrator Messages: 310 Location: Saarbrücken

My, I still have a bunch of notes for earlier installments of your show lying around. Must get over my laziness...

--
Das Lemsche Gesetz:
Niemand liest etwas; wenn er etwas liest, versteht er es nicht; wenn er es versteht, vergißt er es sofort.