How to play Tower Toppler online
- Walk around the tower: left and right arrow keys
- Enter a tunnel or ride an elevator up: up arrow
- Ride an elevator down: down arrow
- Jump: Z while walking
- Shoot a snowball: Z while standing still (and in the submarine, to shoot fish)
- Start: F3 (Reset)
- Pause: F4
- Difficulty switches: F5 and F6. The manual asks for both switches to be in the right-hand position before you play.
Both the USA (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) releases are on this page; use the switch to pick one.
Gameplay
A mad scientist on the planet Nebulus is using eight strange towers as power bases in his plan to rule the universe. You are the demolition expert sent to destroy them, wearing a frog suit and armed with a snowball gun. Each tower rises out of a toxic sea. You climb it by walking around its outside on ledges, stairs and elevators, and the tower rotates as you make your way around it. Tunnels lead into the tower. When you reach the top, the self-destruct sequence starts and you escape.
The towers have names, from the Tower of Eyes and the Realm of Robots to the Nasty One and the Edge of Doom. Flying eyeballs, robots, rolling cannonballs and indestructible mutant molecules try to knock you down the tower or into the water. Some cannonballs can only be stunned. A clock starts as soon as you leave your submarine, so you cannot take forever. You begin with three lives and lose one each time you fall into the sea. Between towers you travel in a small submarine, where you can stun and catch fish for bonus points. The game ends when you topple the last tower or lose your last life.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Destroy a bouncing cannonball | 100 |
| Destroy a flashing block | 50 |
| Catch a fish | 50 |
| Step onto certain elevators | 50 |
| Climb an angled stairway (first time only) | 40 per stair |
You earn an extra life for every 5,000 points.
Tips
- Stop before you shoot. Z only fires when you are standing still; while walking it makes you jump, which can send you off a ledge.
- Shoot the flashing blocks. Each one is worth 50 points.
- Don’t fight what you can’t kill. Mutant molecules are indestructible, so time your moves to slip past them.
- Use the submarine stage. Every fish adds 50 points toward your next extra life.
- Want to see a later tower? AtariAge and AtariProtos both mention a cheat in the 7800 version: with the left difficulty switch (F5) moved to the other position, the game cycles through the towers so you can pick one.
The story behind Tower Toppler
John M. Phillips designed Nebulus, and Hewson Consultants released it in 1987 for home computers including the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Amiga and Atari ST. It was highly praised: it won Best Original Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, and the Commodore 64 version received a Gold Medal from Zzap!64. In the USA, U.S. Gold published it as Tower Toppler, and Atari used the same name when it brought the game to the 7800. An Atari XE version was also made but never released. On the NES the game appeared as Castelian.
