Ascend a deadly tower with the power of maths! (Towers of Scale)

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Okay, folks. We're going to play Towers of Scale. Now, this is a Magic Tower game that came out very recently. Uh, in fact, it came out on 17th of April and it's available on Windows and Linux. Uh, welcome to the Towers of Scale. This game is in early access, etc., etc. I did do a little bit of the training tower earlier and I've played one other Magic Tower game before and it was a Chronal Dungeon, which was a Confounding Calendar game, uh, which is very cool.

[00:00:23]And actually, I think that's probably a good way to learn about like Magic Tower games, but maybe this one is as well.

[00:00:29]So, training tower begin stage.

[00:00:33]Welcome to the training tower. A place where you can learn the basics of this game. The lock doors can be opened with keys, etc. Light keys open light doors.

[00:00:40]Dark keys open dark doors. If you make a mistake, you can zoom as much as you like. And so, this is the level we've got at the moment. Where this little character down here. So, these games are like I guess they have like kind of the format of like an RPG, but where it's all about like the stats and the numbers. It becomes like a maths game. So, we're going to pick up a key.

[00:01:03]We've got one key up here, like a dungeon crawler RPG type thing. And then we're going to pick up a dark key, which going to open this dark door. And then we've got two keys here that we can pick up. This might also like remind people of um what's it called? I want a lockpick.

[00:01:18]which has a similar kind of mechanic of picking up keys and opening doors. Pick up all these keys and then we can get through here. Wait, there's a stairs down. Oh, I did not notice that when I came into this before. Gems are required for these. Interesting. And there's a dark key here. And then some more stairs.

[00:01:37]Okay, fun. All right, let's go upstairs first. There are two types of enemies, positive and negative ones. To defeat them, you need to have more power than the enemy you're walking into. Uh, so we have power five and so these are like 222 and then 55. But there are light enemies and dark enemies. Light enemies give you power. So if I kill this two enemy, it's going to go up to seven and then nine, then 11. But this dark enemy will take me back down to six and then it's set me back up to 11.

[00:02:04]So then your goal is to try and progress through this dungeon, climbing up these stairs and potentially doing something at the bottom. I'm not sure how that works, but got to figure out how to get past them. So, we've got an enemy here, which is 100. So, we're going to have to at least get to there if we want to get to the stairs. Some keys. Got these bats. I did find it a little bit difficult to tell which one's like a light bat and which one's a dark bat.

[00:02:25]But, I've realized that looking at the center of the bat is the easiest way to do it. Like, it's the the very middle bit of the bat is the easiest way to tell. This is light. This is dark. Um, so we could just collect all this right now. Don't think there's any reason not to. Oh, except the fact that I can't kill them yet. That's pretty important.

[00:02:44]Okay, so I think we take this here. We take five from there. Grab these couple of keys. Um, go through this door.

[00:02:50]Collect a bunch of health from here or power, sorry. Um, then we've got these that are going to give me a lot more.

[00:02:58]Um, one, two, one. We do still have some more keys. Are you a light enemy? Can I get 100 from you? I could. Is there any reason there's like these one there's these 1k scorpions in here that like I don't think it's possible to get to a K in this room. I don't see how it would happen. So, I'm going to ignore those.

[00:03:18]But I could use I don't have any more keys, but I could get keys from here.

[00:03:23]Those did take away health, but I can get you and I can do this. I still got 100 for you. Oh, but I don't have a key left. Okay, so we need to save a key.

[00:03:32]Maybe I just go through like this.

[00:03:35]So, I guess there's an element of having to decide like what you're willing to leave behind. I guess maybe you want to optimize for the next room, but then maybe in some cases you wouldn't want to optimize for the next room if you want to leave something behind to collect later. So, here we learn about these dividers. So, we've got half here. So, going through this is going to half my power. So, you could argue that maybe it would have been more sensible to not collect so much in the previous room.

[00:03:59]Come in here, half a smaller amount. Maybe we do that.

[00:04:03]Let's do it. So, uh why don't we like do this now?

[00:04:09]I mean, even that is like Okay, even that is Well, these are Okay, we could do this. I mean, you're always going to give me 100. Oh, but why don't we do Does that make it That doesn't make any better. That's exactly the same. Um, of course it is. It's commutative. Uh, but we could like lose.

[00:04:32]Listen to lose. This is it. This is a gain. But we could not gain that. We could lose this. But did we gain that before? I can't remember. Let's go up.

[00:04:41]Do this. Come back down. Get this key.

[00:04:44]Do this. Maybe.

[00:04:47]So, these are all positive. So, I'll half now.

[00:04:51]And maybe I'll just like do a lot of halfing immediately. I don't think I'll ever kill these 1ks. At least not right now. So, do this. Do this. Do this. I still need to be able to kill something though. So, let's maybe go in here and kill these or kill one of them. Open this.

[00:05:13]Kill another one. Half again. Is this the Is this good kind of strategies?

[00:05:18]Like, I'm such a noob at these games that I don't know whether the the kind of stuff I'm doing right now is is good.

[00:05:24]It's probably like okay, but there's like much better things I could be doing.

[00:05:31]Uh, I guess in theory I could be killing you and getting all these keys. Would that be useful? Um, now let's see what I can recover. I do have some keys up here I could collect.

[00:05:43]I don't have to get these. If I can open these locks, so that's fine. Got a dark key as well. I don't know why I'm using that.

[00:05:52]Um, I've still got four keys, which is a lot. I could now go in here and get a No, we have a problem there. We could go in here. Get more of this.

[00:06:05]Do this.

[00:06:08]Generally got the right idea about hovering gates. Good. I could go in here. Get even more keys. Do I need them?

[00:06:15]I will do in a second. I guess.

[00:06:20]Oh, but now there's this half gate here.

[00:06:23]So, I've just gained all this stuff. So, hold on. Actually, let's go back down.

[00:06:27]Oh, but I'm going to gain loads of stuff from here anyway.

[00:06:31]So, it's like I needed to have used that on something else.

[00:06:35]No, I'm panicking about my waste of power.

[00:06:40]But maybe we just waste it. Like, we'll still be able to kill you. It's fine.

[00:06:49]I didn't get to a thousand. I probably could have done in this room, but whatever. Alexexas double your power, giving you up to a billion power. Get them while your power is high. So, these So, times two. Got it. It's the opposite of one of those half doors.

[00:07:06]These these rooms terrifying. It's a key here for free.

[00:07:11]Where am I trying to get to? Stairs are here. It's the only set of stairs. Well, except the ones that came up. There is a 500 in front of it.

[00:07:21]Um, where would be a good place to go? We do have a dark key as well. We get a couple of 200s in here. Like we could do something very simple, right? Like just this and then ah Oh, that's a cool effect. And then like this and you're dead. And we go through here. We're at 2,864.

[00:07:40]But there's clearly like so much more I could do in here. There's like a 3k.

[00:07:45]So you can see how this becomes like a kind of math optimization puzzle, which is interesting.

[00:07:55]Uh, I would not be able to get through here. I need way more keys. But I do have you. Let's Let's try and get more.

[00:08:02]But we do have a half here. Maybe I should have done something about you.

[00:08:05]But it's just 100 in there. Who cares about you? There's a 5k back here.

[00:08:10]But it's a negative 5k. But maybe I want that for some reason. I don't know. I can go through these and get to Ooh.

[00:08:17]Okay. It's a 5k, but there is another time two in here. Wait, there's a 10k.

[00:08:24]Is that a potion or is that another enemy? This doesn't look like an enemy.

[00:08:28]It looks like a potion, but maybe it's an enemy, I guess. What's the difference? They're all just numbers.

[00:08:32]Um, I got so many keys right now. So, I could go in here and then do this and do this. Uh, no, I can't do that cuz I need 10k.

[00:08:43]Got 5k. So, I could do this. Wait. Oh, that was negative. That was negative.

[00:08:51]Okay. So, that's just going to cancel.

[00:08:52]So, I need 10k to do this. Anyway, I see.

[00:08:56]Uh, I'm not sure I'm getting through here.

[00:09:01]At least not in this attempt.

[00:09:05]Although, yeah, although what? Like, I can't double again. But I could have saved.

[00:09:10]When was the elixir that I had earlier?

[00:09:13]Did I have one? Yeah, I had one down here. Oh, this one. And this one.

[00:09:18]Can I save you for later? Get more positives.

[00:09:28]This game is hard.

[00:09:32]This is going to be Wait, how did I get to such a good number before? Have I just done things a lot worse? How did I get to the 5k? What was that from? Was it from going up here a bit? Okay, but yeah. Okay, so where are my other keys?

[00:09:45]They're here.

[00:09:47]I can also half, but then I'm going to have to make that up for that. Oh my gosh, the maths. the maths.

[00:09:53]But I don't have any keys actually. Oh, I've got these in here. Okay, I got so many keys.

[00:10:02]So, okay, so now I could do this and get this, but this is less than I had before.

[00:10:09]H I mean, I could do more before I times by two. I could get these.

[00:10:16]I would struggle to get to like there's like another dark door here though. Okay, let's not try and optimize the whole thing. Left side. That's a minus five.

[00:10:30]It's a minus five and a + five. I think I'd prefer if it just had a minus before it, but maybe there's a reason it's not like that.

[00:10:44]And obviously there's a thing here of like deciding whether the half door is worth it over the other ones.

[00:10:50]Okay. Uh 5k 7 and a halfk.

[00:11:06]Maybe we just go upstairs. There are 1ks on the Oh yes, we can head back down.

[00:11:10]Good point.

[00:11:15]That is so much to figure out. Okay, so then I'd have to like maybe go down there now, but I'd have to half. But I could half and then do these. Oh, there's these for free. Okay.

[00:11:29]Ah, but I also Okay, go back up. Can I get a little bit more?

[00:11:34]That's a 5k.

[00:11:36]Can I get a little bit more anywhere else?

[00:11:41]So, I want to be at 2k before I half.

[00:11:45]Okay, 2k before I half. Uh, go back up.

[00:11:48]Ah, I'm going down. This is down. No, this is further down. Okay, just click on the other stairs.

[00:11:55]Um, so right now, I mean, I could do it just by timing by two now and then go down do this, but I feel like that's a waste of that. Maybe not.

[00:12:08]Maybe not, cuz then I can do this. This I'm at 10k.

[00:12:15]It is a minus 10k, though.

[00:12:18]So, sure, I can get through there and get to this, but I'm like I'm just on a lower amount at that point.

[00:12:26]So, like, when would that ever be beneficial to me? I guess I would never go through there. I'd only ever go through the dark one. Let's just do that and go higher. You're You are on your own now. Reach the top and conquer the tower.

[00:12:36]Holy moly.

[00:12:38]There's a dark door here to get through here. So, I need a dock key. Where's the dock key on this thing? Here we go. Um, just to let everybody know, we do have a Magic Tower genre on the Think Games database. So, if you wanted to find more games like this, you'll see how like they all share a similar kind of aesthetic and mechanics and that kind of stuff. Do I want to take away my power for some reason?

[00:13:02]Why would I want to take away my power?

[00:13:06]and then gain it again and then do that.

[00:13:09]Do I kill everything? I don't know.

[00:13:12]Anyway, okay, we're on our own now. In which case, I'm going to say you're on your own now as well. We'll leave it there. That was, I think, uh enough of a preview of the game to understand what you're getting into. Um, there's a 3k boss here and then this.

[00:13:27]How far does it go, though? I mean, maybe maybe we could try to do another one. Got to get through this, though.

[00:13:35]Everything's terrifying. Uh, there's a key here and then a 1k gain here.

[00:13:42]And then there's a dark key here, which would get me through there, but I'd have lost all of that, which is a lot to lose.

[00:13:56]It was a lot to lose. But I could half I can't kill you then.

[00:14:03]There's this, but it would need 500.

[00:14:07]And then there's two more doors. And then all these 500s in here. I'm going to leave it here. Everybody else can figure out how to get through this room and get up here. Need one of these dot keys. Need 3,000.

[00:14:19]That's possible somehow. Oh, look at this sequence of doors as well.

[00:14:22]Actually, are these the same?

[00:14:26]Interesting. So there's a kind of like branch at the start, but you presumably could do both branches.

[00:14:34]Yeah, this is like largely symmetrical, but I guess not exactly symmetrical.

[00:14:39]First goes to floor eight. Okay, so there's three more floors above this.

[00:14:43]Um, so now folks know exactly how far this goes. But since this is just a preview of the game, uh, I think that gives you enough of a sense. So we'll stop there. Very cool game, Maki. Uh this might be a good magic tailgate to suggest to people to get into the genre that is like less overwhelming than um like tactical nexus. Um so yeah like maybe this or that a chronal dungeon although makiki said that um a kronal dungeon is is is a very difficult game.

[00:15:11]Um so maybe this is a bit easier. I guess the thing that's slightly different with a chronal dungeon is that because it's one screen, you don't have this thing of like, oh, but I don't know what I need on the next screen and there's no like going back and forth between different um different floors or anything like that. Um, so if you want to take that bit out of it just to like practice, maybe a chronal dungeon is a a good one to start with with as well. Uh, yeah. Cool. That was uh Towers of Scale.

[00:15:39]Very neat.