Two Towers is a game of two towers duelling for dominance. It’s a fairly simple card duelling game, which most people can pick up in a few minutes. I’m also enough of a cynic to believe that the name shared by this game with a beloved fantasy novel is actually not a coincidence. Not that I have any particular problem with making allusions to popular literature.
Gameplay
In attempting to assert dominance there are three ways to win the game beyond the opponent surrendering; 1) collect a specified amount of resources; 2) build the tower up to a certain level; and 3) destroy the opponent’s tower. Each opponent will have a tower that will (over the course of the game) rise and sink like an elevator. It will be protected by a wall that will incur damage in favour of your tower.
To achieve one of these three you have three types of resources, called gems, manna, and troops – which are produced each turn at mines, monasteries, and barracks respectively. Part of the focus of the game is to ensure that you are generating sufficient resources to play cards each turn. In this manner, there is something of a cards arms race as you need to balance between cards that damage your enemy, bolster your defence, and augment your resources. Focus too much on attack or defence and you’ll find the opponent able to overwhelm with sheer resources.
Throughout the play you’ll have one of six cards available to you for use. They come in one of three different types of colour related to the three different types of resources. For the most part they do things like damage the opponent, which will inflict damage to the wall first and then the tower once the wall is gone. There are some that do direct damage to the tower. Each of these cards cost some of your resources to play, ranging from 0 to 25. Other cards will increase the amount of each resource you accrue each turn (or reduce your opponent’s). The game ends when one of the victory conditions is met. Each of these conditions changes as you go through a campaign within the game.
Implementation
Two Towers is a game with a simple premise. It does not have as many embellishments as some of the top end games but it works with what it has. What you can see is that some love has gone into the artwork, as each of the cards demonstrates an illustrated sketch, which requires some attention to detail. Unfortunately, the graphics of the game has to compete with other stellar implementations and it just cannot. They’re good graphics, but they’re not amazing graphics.
However, the user interface is where it really falls down. Even though all the information should be on the screen, it doesn’t really come across in an intuitive fashion. It can be very easy to lose track of what you’re trying to do and sometimes the secondary objectives will sneak up on you. What this game could really benefit from is some kind of heads up display that keeps you focused on what the goals are.
Verdict
5/10: It’s a good game and will keep you entertained for a while. I don’t know if it has the variety of gameplay to have longevity though.
Comments
The game has a very simple premise and the mechanics of the game are very simple to understand and execute (swipe a card up to play it, or down to discard it). I think the concept is fairly clever and the artwork is good enough that it doesn’t distract me from the gameplay.
There are some unfortunate grammatical/spelling errors in the instructions and the introduction that really should be fixed if this developer wants to be taken seriously. There is a multiplayer component, but I have never found anyone else online to play with. This is the sort of game that would benefit greatly from being able to invite a friend to play through game center.
If they were to implement better multiplayer and fix the grammar/spelling issues I would give this app 8/10, but as it is I give it 6/10. It’s currently on sale for $0.99 and at that price it’s definitely worth trying out.
Maybe this game is fairy simple, but it’s 100% remake of minigame called Arcomage, which was present in classic RPG Might & agic VII.
Two Towers game hasn’t got deepth, but nostalgia factor tells me to rate this at 9/10. But for everyone else I think a rate wouldn’t be that hight.
Oh, and try M&M7, if you haven’t already:)
Thanks for the review and for the comments.
But we actually have 1 complain to this review. The screenshots used in this review are actually taken from different versions of our game 1.0.x and 1.1.x. We didn’t understand why it was so mixed up by the reviewer, as “battle” scene is much more better in 1.1.x version.
That would be because I started reviewing this game when it first came out and took some screen shots then. Then I got massively busy and had to put it aside for real life commitments and only recently completed it.
I am pretty new to IOS board and card games. This game seem to be just right for me as it is very accessible from the start, but still requires some tactical and strategic thinking. Presentation is great. I have only played a good chunk of the single player so far and have yet to delve into the online multiplayer. In any case, I have gotten my dollars worth many times over and look forward to enjoying this further.
Ps: I am new to this website, but it is a tremendous resource. Thanks!