Meaningful Play: Once Upon A Tower
Often, I find myself drawn to my phone at any lull that may occur in my day, looking for something quick to occupy me while I wait on the next task that needs to be completed. This behaviour has only been exaggerated by the New Normal caused by the current pandemic and the many short pauses that occur because of staying at home. How is it then, that with so many opportunities, only a few apps and specifically games draw my attention just as I suspect they do with many others? The answer, Meaningful Play, is what I will be covering with this game review of Once Upon A Tower.
To understand how Once Upon A Tower facilitates Meaningful Play, let us begin by covering the premise and mechanics of this fast-paced low polygon mobile game. The game starts with the familiar story of a knight in shining armour climbing to save the princess stuck in a tower guarded by a dragon. However, our supposed hero meets his demise when he is spotted by the dragon who is apparently a light sleeper. As a result of this mishap, the princess finds herself with the knight’s hammer falling onto her lap and must use it to make her escape herself.
Here the player is met with deceivingly simple controls; Swipe in any four directions to move the princess or to swing her hammer at whatever is blocking her path in said direction. The game begins when the princess makes her first move downwards to escape the tower by smashing through the first block of wood. As the game continues a few more mechanics are made apparent. Stone cannot be smashed, there are enemies that are guarding the tower, and the dragon is out to get the princess if she is too slow. As the princess is making her way down the player finds that on top of escaping, they are trying to collect fireflies to score more points and to unlock more looks for the princess. As I was exploring these mechanics, I began to notice I had started utilizing certain dynamics and strategies. This is where Meaningful Play began to take effect.
If the game is looked at through the lens of the descriptive definition of Meaningful Play, it is immediately evident that it successfully fulfills it. All actions by the player have an outcome determined by the game’s system. As the hammer is swung, wood blocks are broken, the hammer bounces off stone with a ting sound, enemies are defeated, and the princess falls further down to freedom. Enemies can be seen reacting when the princess enters their line of sight and some blocks that are visually weaker break when they are just stood on. The player may also swing to deflect fireballs or to collect fireflies. Alongside visual cues, many sounds are played to showcase the outcomes of each action by the player. Therefore, the first definition is met by the core mechanics of Bash enemies, Swing to break blocks, and Fall.
When moving onto the more complex evaluative definition, I had a bit of trouble spotting meaning at first. I was also having trouble making my way down before I would meet my end at the hands of the many hazards. It was at this point I started to explore different strategies and new dynamics began to present themselves. It was also at this point that I saw hints of the evaluative definition of Meaningful play peaking out. The game begins to help the player find more dynamics utilizing the mechanics by giving them objectives such as deflecting 5 fireballs instead of dodging them or to jump on 5 enemies’ heads instead of swinging at them. Although at first these still seemed to support the descriptive definition, they opened the way to more discernable outcomes. I started to make choices to drop between enemies and fireflies and swing as I was falling, combining two mechanics to create my own strategy. There were also opportunities to break blocks to drop enemies onto others and I noticed some would fight each other. Through these choices I began to see immediate effect as I started to move through the levels faster and more efficiently while collecting more points. As a result, I was also able to choose if I wanted to purchase new items between levels or if I wanted to save for a better one at the risk of dying before getting to the next level. This is when the integrated meaning began to show itself.
Due to one of the mechanics being that the game starts over again once the player is defeated, losing all items and companions, I noticed no integrated outcome that carried over. However, within each run I noticed many choices that came back to affect me further down the tower. The most evident example was the choice of purchasing items such as a fire upgrade for the hammer which enabled the princess to reach two blocks away instead of one. With this simple addition, the player is suddenly able to safely fall onto a row of spikes in later levels by destroying both the box they are on and the spike right under. They can deal with new enemy types, such as spiders, in a different manner since they do not need to wait for the right timing while being chased and can access items further away without physically moving there. Choices of purchasing an item had a significant effect on speed and strategy I utilized as I explored further down. This also made me realize, my choices of speeding past fireflies vs thoroughly collecting them also determined at a later time if I could purchase out of the randomly generated selection of items between each level. As a result, I felt I had finally seen the integration of meaning behind my choices in the game.
As I continued playing and finding new meaning behind my actions and decisions, I began to realize it did not matter that the game mechanics offered were simple. As I kept on exploring this games version of Meaningful Play, I truly understood what I am studying; A game’s ability to keep a player’s attention is not just by means of aesthetics, but starts with what choices it offers. Once Upon A Tower begins simple and slowly presents new playstyles, leaving the player to find new ways to make it further down the increasingly difficult tower. Choices must be made to risk death by collecting points or ignoring them only to find difficulty in purchasing items and fighting later. In doing so, it succeeded in keeping my attention during lulls in my tasks by offering much needed Meaningful Play.
