By Tina Lam

I’m not a big fan of clowns, especially not after watching movies like “It” or “Terrifier,” which always left me feeling uneasy. So when I heard Twisted Tower involved a bunch of creepy clowns and evil teddy bears, I’ll admit that I was a little hesitant to play.

But somehow, after actually checking it out, I found myself completely dumbfounded by how unserious some of these enemies were. I went into Twisted Tower expecting to be terrified, but half of the time I was either super invested in the storyline or happily mowing down whatever creature the game threw at me.

And yet, despite how silly the enemies turned out to be, the story of Twisted Tower itself starts off in a much darker way.

After pressing “Play” and getting to choose the preferred difficulty level, I got to see just how exactly our main character, Vincent, ends up in this bizarre situation surrounded by killer mascots. While watching a movie with his girlfriend, Charlotte, Vincent proposes to her. Happy ending, right? Except this is the prologue to a horror game. We all know this won’t be ending on a positive note.

Sure enough, the next scene cuts to Vincent being woken up by a mysterious phone call from a man with an oddly sinister yet playful voice. To add onto the ominous vibe, Charlotte can be heard screaming on the other end, calling out to Vincent for help. Immediately after, a ticket to Twisted Tower is slipped under Vincent’s door, and with basically no other lead to follow, he sets off on his journey to save his fiancée. 

And that’s where you officially take control of Vincent. As a first-person shooter game, Twisted Tower centers its gameplay around exploring the different areas of Mr. Twister’s abandoned theme park in search of her. The first location that the game drops you off at is a beach. This is also where you can get your first weapon, the Twisted Mallet. It’s not exactly ideal for enemies that are 10 feet away from you, but at close range? It gets the job done, which is precisely what I needed to make my way through the opening stages.

And, oh great, not long after getting that first weapon, I meet one of the many disturbing enemies in Twisted Tower. Since the game doesn’t exactly introduce this thing by name when I first encountered it, I gave it my own little nickname: Beary Scary. Get it? Bear-y scary? Okay, moving on. It wasn’t until later that I found out that this creature is apparently called a Huggee Bear. (Editor’s Note: Back in the day, Huggy Bear was also a character in a TV police drama called “Starsky & Hutch.”)

Despite its rather cute name, this killer mascot is not to be mistaken for your regular old teddy bear. As a matter of fact, this enemy was probably one of the more uncomfortable things I had to look at in the whole game. This was mostly because the Huggee Bear wears a giant teddy bear-like mask characterized by wide eyes and an unnaturally contorted smile. Its face sort of reminded me of the disturbing images I used to see when I read creepypasta stories online. 

Apart from killing enemies, I was honestly just having fun using the mallet to smash anything and everything. Just the simple act of hitting random objects like a pumpkin or even the cameras was pretty stress relieving. Sometimes, after a long day, I even found myself logging into the game just to run around and smash things. Even though I know that’s not the purpose of Twisted Tower, at some point, the game allowed me to indulge in a rage room of my own making. The first-person perspective and the WHACK sound the mallet made whenever it hit something just made it even more satisfying. 

But the mallet is only one of the many weapons you can get throughout. The list of weapons includes: a shotgun, pistol, slingshot sniper, and Tommy gun. There are more, too. While exploring, you can also pick up and collect tickets, which you can then use to upgrade your weapons at what the game calls “Real Boy Stations.” These upgrades essentially give your weapons buffs like increased ammo capacity and damage, as well as unlocking alternate attack modes. 

There’s also one character I want to mention: Piper. While making his way through the resort early on, Vincent encounters Piper, a young boy wearing a creepy mascot mask that looks strikingly similar to the masks that the Huggee Bears wear. So naturally, when I first saw Piper in the middle of the bridge on my way to the hotel, I was ready to fight him.

But then I actually stopped and took a look at him. 

Why? Oh, no reason, it was just that he was dancing. In one spot… 

Frankly, it was almost sad to look at for too long. And after hearing this little kid’s voice come out from behind such an unsettling mask, especially in a messed up place like Twisted Tower, I already felt my protective instincts kicking in. Thankfully, Piper isn’t another enemy meant to attack you. Instead, Piper becomes a recurring character and plays the important role of passing along hints to Vincent as he continues through the tower.

Meeting Piper also introduced me to a much more lighthearted side of Twisted Tower.

I didn’t really expect this much humor from a horror game, but it was much appreciated, especially for someone like me who gets creeped out pretty easily. The humorous aspects of the game never really felt forced, and instead, made me want to pause and go back and be like, “Wait, what just happened?” Yes, that was my reaction when I found a secret area and heard a Huggee Bear fart.

And once I got past the clowns and mascot creatures, the enemies started to feel more goofy than scary to me. Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely creeped out at first, especially when I got stuck in a scene and kept getting killed by this Huggee Bear and its telephone monster friends, but after that? These guys were a piece of cake to face.

Apart from the enemies that I just mentioned, the game has a whole roster of even more unconventional creatures. There’s this evil Donald Duck-looking creature carrying a shotgun, giraffes with pistols, and all sorts of eerie animatronics. I won’t sit here and start listing all of the game’s enemies one by one or else we’d be here all day. but I’m sure by now you can get the jist of the sorry types that roam around Mr. Twister’s abandoned theme park.

I honestly don’t have many bad things to say about this game. Its graphics and design choices are beautifully done, and the overall aesthetic reminded me a lot of BioShock. So, if you’re a fan of BioShock’s dark horror type elements, I think you would also love what Twisted Tower has going on. I also really liked the darker colors used throughout the game, as they complemented each other very well and added onto the unsettling atmosphere without making the game feel dull.

The soundtrack is pretty solid too. There’s not too much going on in the audio other than some eerie carnival-like melodies, which I actually preferred because it made it easier for me to focus on the gameplay and dialogue. However, I found that the gameplay could get a little repetitive at times. I spend a lot of the game following a similar structure: exploring an area, defeating the enemies inside, finding an elevator card, and then using it to unlock the next floor. But the variety of environments that the game lets you explore, from the mermaid palace to the clown casino, made up for it. 

Overall, Twisted Tower is an incredible Indie game. After spending most of my summer playing repetitive RPGs, finding Twisted Tower was like a breath of fresh air. Yes, while it has that tired cliche of the hero saving a damsel in distress. But that’s just the surface level description the game starts you off with to get you hooked in. Twisted Tower actually has a far more interesting storyline than you would think. It’s clear that Thomas Brush and his team dedicated a lot of time into making Twisted Tower feel like more than just a horror game. From the creative enemy designs to the unexpected humor scattered throughout, there was often something special that kept me interested in seeing what the game would throw at me next.

Tina Lam, one of the Circle’s newest interns, is a junior at Baruch College Campus High School.

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