Tower of Myths: Project Overview
Inspiration
Tower of Myths was inspired by a medieval fantasy game we developed a couple of years ago for a User-Generated Content (UGC) platform. After pivoting to developing games for Reddit over the past few months, we wanted to create a title that seamlessly blended idle game mechanics with a community-driven marketplace, fostering an ecosystem where veterans and newcomers rely on each other to progress.
What it does
The game functions as an idle experience where players manage towers to accumulate resources. The core loop involves automated progression that generates rewards even when the player is offline. The game’s unique hook is its marketplace, which turns the community into a functional bazaar; veteran players can list their excess equipment, allowing new players to acquire gear and accelerate their progression through the game world.
How we built it
We utilized Phaser as our primary game engine. Having previously used Unity, we found it to be too heavy for the web-based, social nature of our Reddit projects. Phaser provided the lightweight footprint and performance efficiency necessary for smooth integration within a browser environment, allowing us to focus on the game’s logic and economy without performance overhead.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge was transforming the Reddit community into an effective, balanced marketplace. Ensuring that the economy remained fair while scaling with the number of active users required careful management of item inflation. We had to account for the total volume of items listed, the number of active traders, and the time elapsed between server resets to keep the bazaar healthy and functional.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are particularly proud of successfully transitioning from Unity to Phaser to better suit our platform-specific requirements. Additionally, creating a self-sustaining social economy where veteran players actively assist newcomers through the marketplace has been a major milestone in driving community engagement.
What we learned
We learned the critical importance of balancing game engine selection with the target deployment environment. Moving to a lighter engine like Phaser significantly improved our development workflow. Furthermore, we gained deep insights into designing idle mechanics that provide a rewarding "surprise factor" upon login, which has proven essential for maintaining player retention.
What's next for Tower of Myths
Our next steps involve refining the marketplace algorithms to further stabilize the in-game economy as our player base grows. We are also planning to introduce new types of tower upgrades and social events that will encourage more frequent interaction between long-time players and those just starting their journey in the Tower of Myths.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.