Tower Toppler woes

[+jgkspsx]

I have been a fan of Tower Toppler since I first played the Commodore 64 version.

 

Spoiler

(On the Nintendo Wii in 2008, but who’s counting.)

 

I was super excited to find that it was available for the 7800. I never had it back in the day. I was even happier to find that it was cheap.

 

I bought a copy from a fellow AtariAger and quickly found a cheap manual and box to complete it. It arrived and… it was Dark Chambers. Somebody got a little confused. It turned out that Tower Toppler had already sold!

 

Oh well, I turned to eBay. Loose copies almost never seem to turn up. Shrinkwrapped NIB copies sell for only $30 or so, but I hate buying shrinkwrapped games and opening them because there are some people who really want collectibles, and who am I to say they’re wrong.

 

Finally I found a complete in box copy for $25. I already had a box and manual, but, eh, it can be trade fodder.
 

It took a little while to get to use my 7800s again because life has been crazy lately. Finally the big moment came… it booted up… the music is great, the graphics are great… the first level loads… the little dude gets out of the UFO…

 

and then it skipped to the next level. And then the next level. I never got to take control or play anything. I tried it on my other 7800. Same deal.

 

I get the idea to try it on my Concerto cart. I have the NTSC rom. Black screen, no boot.

 

Argh!!!! Am I doing something wrong or is actually playing this game always this much of a real PITA?

[NIKON]

the difficulty switches control that.. heres the manual  read Getting started

tower%20toppler.pdf

[Trebor]

For several games, you may want to review the Difficulty Switches Guide.

 

Other games:

Xevious - Simultaneous or independent firing. 

Ikari Warriors - Background music. 

Karateka - Difficulty.  

Super Skateboardin' - Background music.

Rikki & Vikki - TIA sound effects volume level.

Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest - Controller type and button mappings.

Froggie - Number of lives.

 

..and more. 

[+jgkspsx]

Crazy!! I knew I shoulda read the manual  

[Trebor]

32 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Crazy!! I knew I shoulda read the manual  

As annoying as it may be when not realizing it, and as much as I really like Tower Toppler, there is a snowball's chance to play through every tower on one set of lives.  The difficulty switch effect on the game is immediately impacting. 

 

So, once a tower has been successfully beaten, a player can skip to the next one/cycle through the towers, until reaching a tower that has not been conquered.  My recommendation is to play and beat them in the order presented:

 

 

Tower Of Eyes - Tower 1
Realm Of Robots - Tower 2
Trap Of Tricks - Tower 3
Slippery Slide - Tower 4
Broken Path - Tower 5
Swimmers Delight - Tower 6
Nasty One - Tower 7
Edge Of Doom - Tower 8

 

The difficulty ramps up respectively, and the 'congratulations completed mission' message appears after defeating the last tower.

 

If assistance is needed, a walkthrough/video playthrough is available here:

 

 

Clicking 'SHOW MORE' on its YouTube page provides hyperlinks-chapters for the entire video, listing every tower and bonus round encountered.

[Trebor]

2 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

I get the idea to try it on my Concerto cart. I have the NTSC rom. Black screen, no boot.

The Concerto cart currently has an outstanding issue with bank-switching for some 64K ROMs (65K with header).  Future firmware(s) should hopefully have this issue fixed.

 

See this post for 'fixed' ROMs that pad the ones affected to 128K, allowing the games to run properly on the Concerto, including Tower Toppler.

 

 

 

[+jgkspsx]

Got it working! Cleared the first tower. Lots of fun. Bit shrill, though… ?

 

[roadrunner]

This topic pops up every now and then here at AA


 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by roadrunner

[NIKON]

Unlimited lives - Using the LEFT DIFFICULTY switch, move to the tower which is right before the tower you want to start playing, and then move the switch to the right.  Kill off all your lives. As soon as you’ve lost your last life, but before the "Game Over" sign displays, move the switch to the left (you have to be fast and time it just right).  You will cycle to the next highest tower and will be granted an infinite number of lives.  Move the switch to the right and begin playing.

[Glorkbot]

On 11/6/2021 at 10:00 AM, NIKON said:

the difficulty switches control that.. heres the manual  read Getting started

tower%20toppler.pdf 366.27 kB · 41 downloads

The manual isn't very clear, lol. When it says "make sure that both difficulty switches are in the right position"  does it mean "the correct position" or both switched towards the right? And if the latter, does it mean right as you face the front of the Atari, or right as you view it from behind where the switches are? (I'm actually not sure where the switches are on a real 7800, but the Atari 2600+ plays 7800 games. Like...should they be set to A or B or what?)

Edited January 5 by Glorkbot

[Trebor]

3 hours ago, Glorkbot said:

The manual isn't very clear, lol. When it says "make sure that both difficulty switches are in the right position"  does it mean "the correct position" or both switched towards the right? And if the latter, does it mean right as you face the front of the Atari, or right as you view it from behind where the switches are? (I'm actually not sure where the switches are on a real 7800, but the Atari 2600+ plays 7800 games. Like...should they be set to A or B or what?)

Yes - towards the right, as you face the front of the Atari 7800.

 

 

[+jgkspsx]

4 hours ago, Glorkbot said:

The manual isn't very clear, lol. When it says "make sure that both difficulty switches are in the right position"  does it mean "the correct position" or both switched towards the right? And if the latter, does it mean right as you face the front of the Atari, or right as you view it from behind where the switches are? (I'm actually not sure where the switches are on a real 7800, but the Atari 2600+ plays 7800 games. Like...should they be set to A or B or what?)

For the 2600+ they are reversed for 2600 games unless you upgraded the firmware... but I don't know how they are for the 7800.

[Giles N]

On 11/6/2021 at 3:59 PM, Trebor said:

As annoying as it may be when not realizing it, and as much as I really like Tower Toppler, there is a snowball's chance to play through every tower on one set of lives. 

Should a hack be made (by someone qualified) to make a version where you can select number of lives of infinite lives prior to a game-run?

 

Anyone around who’re still into doing hacks to improve/change these old games, classics or obscure ones?

 

It’s so annoying seeing that games could easily increase significantly in quality with just a few insertions or removals… (and even more annoying when feeling I know exactly whats wrong and cannot hack nor code 😖+😂=😵‍💫)

Edited January 10 by Giles N