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Tower of Shadows
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About the game
A deep shadow has covered the land, and its source is found at the top of the ever-looming Tower of Shadows. Many have tried to climb the spire to end the curse and none have succeeded. You are the next one to try.
Tower of Shadows is a tiny roguelike, made in a week for the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge 2025 by snailpass, who wanted to learn a new engine. Every floor of the tower is a new set of rooms that you only see as you walk through them, because the dark hides everything beyond your sight. You move with the arrow keys and fight by walking into enemies. A panel on the right shows your floor, your life, your attack and your armour, and a log lists what happened each turn.
Treasure scores points, and scrolls give you one-use spells: teleport, earthquake, heal, flames around you, a dash, a flash of clarity that reveals the floor and a whirl that scatters every creature around. You decide when to burn them. It is simple by design, but the choices on every floor are real, and the dog that digs through the walls is quite a surprise.
A run is short, a few minutes to a quarter of an hour, and when you die the game shows how deep you got, how much treasure you took and how many enemies you beat.
Playing it here
Tower of Shadows was made for TIC-80, a fantasy console: an imaginary 1980s-style computer with a 240 by 136 screen and 16 colours, for which independent developers write new games. It runs here in the official TIC-80 web player. Click Play, and press Z on the title screen to start.
There is no save: the game is made for short runs. Esc opens the TIC-80 menu. A gamepad works directly, and on touch screens an on-screen D-pad and buttons appear.
Controls
| Key | Gamepad | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Arrow keys | D-pad | move; attack by walking into an enemy |
| Z | A | first spell scroll; start; restart |
| X | B | second spell scroll |
| A | X | third spell scroll |
| S | Y | fourth spell scroll |
| Esc | — | TIC-80 menu |
A few things worth knowing
Spells are single-use. A scroll disappears when you read it, so keep the heal for when the floor has beaten you up, not the first time you are scratched.
You cannot see far. You only see what is near you, so go one step at a time when a new room opens up.
Walls are not always walls. Some creatures dig through them, so a corridor that seemed safe can end quickly.
Frequently asked questions
Is my progress saved? No. The game has no save, and each run is short.
Does it work on a phone? The on-screen buttons appear on touch screens, but the game uses four buttons for spells, so a keyboard is more comfortable.
Is it free? Yes. The code is free software under the GNU GPL version 3.
Credits and licence
Tower of Shadows was made by snailpass for the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge 2025, as a first game in a new engine, and no other authors are credited. The code is under the GNU General Public License, version 3, stated in the header of the cartridge, which holds the game's complete, readable JavaScript source, so the file served here is also its source code. It runs here in the TIC-80 web player (MIT licence). The licence texts are linked from this page.