Tower of Heaven: His way or the highway
 

First things first, Tower of Heaven is a free to download game by Askiisoft (website here). It's a 2d sidescroller platformer with a pixelated graphics, a gameboy-esque color scheme, and an awesome bit tone soundtrack. The game has been getting a lot of attention recently on various sites (personally I saw it on Destructoid) due to some interesting mechanics, namely the Book of Rules, but I'll get into that later.

You play as a (I think nameless) character trying to climb to the top of the Tower of Heaven to confront "God". The reason I put God in quotes is because it's not explicitly stated that it's God, but it sure is heavily implied. However, "God" doesn't want mortals reaching the top of his tower, and so he begins to impose rules upon you to impede your progress. Rule's such as "Thou shalt not touch platforms on the side" or "Thou shalt not walk left" can make the gameplay pretty tricky. In fact I died close to 100 times during my first playthough. In total there are five rules (I believe) but I won't list them to keep them a surprise for anyone who plays the game.

Personally, I enjoyed this game very much, and despite the back-breaking difficulty (thanks to the rules combined with awesome level design) and I think anyone who likes platformers of old should give it a shot. Seriously, it's free, and takes like five seconds to download, so what have you got to lose?

Oh and come back here and share your thoughts on the game.

The soundtrack is wonderful, I'll say right now. Absolutely in love there.

The gameplay is enraging at times though... The cheap spike traps are more annoying than fun since there's no way to know where they are until you hit one, and then it's too late and you have to redo the level. It hasn't put me off entirely and I still intend to play through some more but I imagine they'll be a frequent source of ragequit. Also, the Thou shalt not touch platforms on the side law needs better detection IMO, as sometimes just the corner of my head will clip and it'll count as a death.

I can definitely see it's a well-made game despite these niggles, but I would suggest it'd appeal more to the IWBTG crowd than it would to people who are just looking for a yarn to play through.

Also, SAVE BEFORE YOU QUIT. I didn't, and now I have to start again!

But yeah. Beautiful soundtrack, worth the download for that alone, and the game itself is good but expect frustrations.

Pretty sweet, but disappointingly short.

Also, only died 37 times... most of which on the last level, and maybe 8 on the first level where "Don't walk left" is introduced.

I've died a whole bunch of times.

What an awesome game and gorgeous soundtrack.

I died 139 times, but then I'm bad at platformers. Love them, but I'm bad at them. That said, I didn't find it all THAT hard. A few jumps that needed careful timing, yes, but other than the ninja spikes I always felt it was my fault (Or "God's") when I died, rather than the game's, and I was never frustrated enough to consider giving up.

Oh, and is it just me, or was the plotline basically God is an asshole, so the main character told him to go away?

I think you're close to the mark there. My initial thought was that for some reason or another, people (or at least the main character) wanted God to leave them all alone. So after several failed attempts of people trying to ascend the tower, it's finally your turn and you manage to "shed your humanity" and reach the top. It seemed like a story of self-sacrifice to me, since the main character loses his humanity and his life (since the tower collapses). Also I found it funny that God was a butterfly, or at least represented by one at the top of the tower.

All right, since I can't figure this out at all, can one of you guys help me? I'm stuck on a level that has a patch of grass right on top of the doorway. Touching it kills me.

I mean the only clue I have so far is that touching the window above said doorway also kills me, and what the hell kind of clue is that?

-EDIT-

Nevermind, I got it.

That actually makes sense. I haven't downloaded (took a look and got a bit turned off by the colors used (they are not actual Game Boy colors and it irks me, because it looks too much like "zombie Game Boy palette" with the yellow tinge), but the symbolism of the butterfly is a pretty common one meaning purity, innocence, and is even a very old Christian symbol for resurrection, which fits the bill pretty well for what they're trying to hint at.

That's another thing that's turned me off to this is that anti-Christian vibe everyone's talking about. Usually, I'm not really offended by "God is evil" type stuff in games, but the way people say this one presents it... well, it offends me a little. I suppose I can't honestly say it's propaganda, since I haven't played it and am not one to judge before I give things a chance, but the subtlety just makes it feel backhanded from what I've read so far.

Considering this is a god who puts a giant, heaven-scraping tower up there just to say "no, fuck you and anyone else who tries to climb this tower and claim its riches," I think it's safe to say it's not quite the same God the Christians are acquainted with.

Got through with 4 deaths now. Still trying to find the second secret.

Second secret?

Dammit! Shouldn't have closed the game when the credits started!