Couch-competitive multiplayer game
TowerFall Ascension has found success on the PlayStation 4 and PC, after launching on Steam, to gross $500,000. Developer Matt Thorson
revealed this figure in a new interview with Eurogamer.
The game was an IGF nominee. Its earlier incarnation,
TowerFall -- released alongside the Ouya -- was routinely pointed out by the startup's CEO Julie Uhrman as the best game on the platform. It sold approximately 7,000 units on that platform, Thorson has revealed. Those sales would have grossed roughly $105,000 for Thorson at $15 a copy, netting roughly $73,500 for after Ouya's 30 percent cut is deducted.
The game is doing best on the PlayStation 4, which Thorson puts down to player patterns. The game is a two-to-four player fighting game that has only local co-op play. Its single player mode is also de-emphasized in favor of a robust competitive mode.
"I think it's just a console game, ya know? ... I think a lot of people still sit down with their friends when they play their consoles, whereas they don't do that on PC," Thorson told Eurogamer.
The key to its success may be encapsulated here: "For me, it should be really easy to pick up and play with very little prior knowledge. People should be able to encounter it for the first time at a party and have a blast playing it immediately. But even more importantly, there has to be enough depth to make players want to show up for another session," Thorson
told Gamasutra when interviewed as part of the Road to the IGF series earlier this year.
