Hey y’all, Lucy here! It’s been busy, with playtests for Clockwork Ambrosia kicking off with our first testers, and I’ve got some updates to share with you on that. We’re also celebrating Tower Song’s birthday! After turning a year old this June, I’ve asked the team that helped bring the game to life some questions about how the game came together, its life so far, and hopes looking toward the future.

Patch Notes!

Tower Song received a sizable update on 25 May 2025, coming in with a number of significant fixes as well as a host of bug fixes!

The biggest change is that players no longer see interaction icons for objects related to heroes not in their party. The objects themselves can still be examined, giving players a clue about who might be able to use them, but the play space is no longer quite so cluttered. This was a direct player suggestion, so keep the feedback coming!

Akeno’s Boon of the Phoenix and Fred’s Lichsoul will also no longer trigger at the same time, wasting the benefit of both effects, when Fred takes lethal damage while under the effect of both. Hang in there, Fred!

Finally, Qadam Park has seen some slight landscaping improvements…

For a full list, check out the announcement: Tower Song v1.1.2 - The Take Control (of the Glow) Patch

Tower Song Birthday Bash!

Tower Song turned the big one-year mark this June, and we’ve been taking a step back to appreciate where the games have come since then. Our team had plenty to say, so I won’t keep you waiting. Tower Song was a game long in the making, and nothing makes that more obvious than when asking our director, Michael, about the game.

Tower Song was inspired in setting and story by an RPG Maker 2000 game I made in 2001 starring my friends. Inspiration is a loose term; it's essentially a remake of the first 1/3 of that old game, only starring new characters. From a design perspective, it was inspired by tactical and tabletop RPGs, meshed with old school pixel JRPGs.
- Michael Betts, Game Director

In case anyone is curious, we’ve actually shown the original game that became Tower Song on stream! You can find the VOD for our Defeating Games for Charity stream here, where Michael played the old title while another team member, Ishin, tackled Tower Song on hard difficulty. The game has certainly come a long way since, with plenty of challenging fights and tricky decisions to make.

This decision to make combat the way it is now came from a lot of different factors,…one thing we really wanted to do was make a game that we - as adults who could only dedicate limited time to playing video games - could enjoy and play. The walk back to camp wasn't the fun part. Why not just let your resources recover and cut out that time walking back to camp?
- Ishin Iwasaki, Game Programmer

The synergies we enjoyed finding playing card games - we were way into the World of Warcraft TCG for years! Also finding ways to have the character's abilities reflect their personalities. They don't just have skills, but expressions of who they are.
- Nate Montgomery, Game Designer

From the outset, Tower Song was designed to be a fair but challenging game. Anyone who has taken on the game’s hard difficulty can certainly tell you that, and even normal can present some tense fights! What may surprise you is that this made the game easier to balance, creating a situation where you could use all your possible tools for every encounter instead of best rewarding resource hoarding. I certainly have no place to talk when it comes to notoriously saving all my best potions until the credits are already rolling.

We wanted combat to be a robust experience. As big fans of turn-based JRPGs, it's something we've always wanted in that space. We want players to be able to use their strategic thinking like in card games.
- Nate Montgomery, Game Designer

There was also a more practical reason for it, which is that it greatly cut the time needed to balance the overall feel of the game. If we can isolate each combat and set a tight scope for the parameters for each combat, knowing what players can reasonably have access to at that point in the game, knowing that players will be starting the fight with all their health and skills available to them, that makes balancing each encounter a lot easier for our small team.
- Ishin Iwasaki, Game Programmer

When we’ve seen players get their hands on Tower Song, one of the first things that comes up is how much people have enjoyed the soundtrack. From the eerie interlude of the opening menu to the thumping, intense bass alongside challenging bosses, it’s rare to not find something that induces involuntary head bops. Turns out Will Aleshire had the right songs and the right ideas to bring it all together.

I started with the theme for the game. The small eerie call and response melody line. I went from there to try and capture the feel of the game as a whole.
- Will Aleshire, Composer

Naturally, since Tower Song’s cast is so varied and uniquely talented from class to class, I had to take this opportunity to ask the team who their favorite Mana Knights were. Our experience with players suggests most of you pick Tali on your first playthrough, and we really can’t blame you.

I am legally, ethically, romantically, wisely, and happily obligated to choose Tali and Jiji (inspired by my wife and our cat son).
- Michael Betts, Game Director

There’s plenty of love to go around for the rest of the cast though! Whether it’s Will’s appreciation for Ezoan’s wild and blasty spell slinging or Ishin surprising himself with his enjoyment of Porphry’s berserker rage above all others. Nate’s pick may be a bit more surprising - at least until you hear him talk about it.

I like so many characters for so many reasons, but Hudson has a special place in my heart. His gunslinger design is heavily inspired by a gunslinger I played for 6 years in a Pathfinder campaign run by Michael.
- Nate Montgomery, Game Designer

The team’s been kicking around a lot of tweaks and improvements to Tower Song, but some ideas are destined for a potential sequel. Some of these are little and flavorful things, such as Nate wanting to lean further into Kiran’s “narcissistic personality” by giving him a “Voluntold” ability to command allies, but others align with some big dreams for a Tower Song 2.

Tower Song 2 would have to cover the remaining chapters from the RPG Maker 2000 game - so we'd travel to lands mentioned in Tower Song, like Neat's hometown of Naudil and Tali's homeland of Hyrotia. I think a larger scope game would also let us have more of a traditional ‘everyone's always there' party experience rather than the ‘choose your character model’ - thank God! (Writing the game four times was so hard).
- Michael Betts, Game Director

More important than all of this is our entire team’s appreciation for all the players who have been playing and enjoying Tower Song! Each of us has learned so much from our experience with making a Tower Song, and to see it shared, played, and loved by so many players has been an incredible experience. No one puts it better than Nate.

I just have so much gratitude and I am so proud of the fact that we have a small team that came together to make this game together. We didn't let that dream die; we shipped the game! We were so blessed to be able to experience that monumental achievement. I'm appreciative of all the lessons we learned, because we are going to keep making better and better games. And Tower Song is what has allowed all of that growth to take place.
- Nate Montgomery, Game Designer

Clockwork Ambrosia Playtest!

Clockwork Ambrosia’s playtest invitational has begun! We’ve already had two rounds of playtests, and already players have been giving us fantastic feedback. The playtest features the first four (of eight) main chapters, as well as two more weapons than are available in the demo with all the weapon mod fun-times that entails.

The team is back to work on putting together a new set of features for players before we unlock the doors for more playtests - but you can still sign up on our Discord to either volunteer for early testing or stay in touch for future updates!

And don't forget to wishlist Clockwork Ambrosia on Steam!

Wrap it Up!

Thanks for celebrating Tower Song’s birthday with us! Back to Clockwork Ambrosia, we’re still adding people in waves to our playtests and working away on the game. Join our Discord to keep up with the playtests and updates.

‘Til next time!

Lucy