Clarification and Reminder on Inappropriate Workshop Content in Tower Unite

[macdguy]

@Niz

And so I did, and there it has remained happily and undisturbed for TWO. YEARS .

Oh, and just a fun side-note, this naked model of the Undertale goat that I’m, like, 90% certain was made for SFM porn, except with it’s dick smoothed off, but bare ass still fully present, was uploaded the same week and remains up, seemingly uncontested, to this day.

@Niz

so it either SOMEHOW escaped noticed, or is considered acceptable.

This is why we have clarified our rules, as we have discussed internally how best to approach removal of sexualized content that was already uploaded. So that content creators are aware what is going on.

The models you mention in your post will be discussed internally and could be taken down.

While in the past they got by (because we have been having ongoing internal discussion over how we should handle UGC), this is no longer the case and we will be removing them after discussion.

An addons popularity doesn’t give it an out from the rules.

We recommend users to report any UGC that looks to be sexualized by following our guidelines as well.

[Alexer_Zoderia]

@macdguy

While in the past they got by (because we have been having ongoing internal discussion over how we should handle UGC), this is no longer the case and we will be removing them after discussion.

An addons popularity doesn’t give it an out from the rules.

I’ll be honest, I have to agree with Mac on this one. A model’s popularity isn’t an excuse for what it is. The Billy Harrington model, as funny and laughable as it is, does still violate the rules. If I had SpongePierre remake my model to only have me wearing a lace thong, even if nothing notable was visible, and everyone loved the model, do you think my strapping good looks would stay on the workshop? No, and personally I wouldn’t want it to.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it’s a horrible model and should never have been made, but the rules are clear. It sucks, yes, but at the end of the day, we all have rules to follow, and Mac and the rest of the team have to make decisions that are the best for the overall health and direction of the game. Tower Unite’s plaza should be someplace you can go have fun in and not worry about the strange furry over in the corner with a massive bulge, or the giant robot with boobs over by the pier.

And before you start saying that it contributes to the “Style” of the game or something along those lines, lemme stop you right there because Tower Unite isn’t a Porn game. It’s a social game. If you want your risque models, you can go to VRchat.

[FrasierFan666]

@Alexer_Zoderia

I’ll be honest, I have to agree with Mac on this one. A model’s popularity isn’t an excuse for what it is. The Billy Harrington model, as funny and laughable as it is, does still violate the rules.

I don’t think Niz’s point is that at all. I think that the point here is operating under the assumption that the content in question is offensive to the community, which its popularity and commendations disprove not only immediately but by a wide margin when compared to other content in the workshop. Moreover, the workshop ratings posted overwhelmingly show that only 1% of users that engaged with the content found it distasteful (if you want to expend the effort into reading into three thumbs down button presses) - so why is this being judged for being in a grey area when ostensibly it seems like the engagement metrics show that nobody cares, or that the reception is appreciative?

@Alexer_Zoderia

If I had SpongePierre remake my model to only have me wearing a lace thong, even if nothing notable was visible, and everyone loved the model, do you think my strapping good looks would stay on the workshop? No, and personally I wouldn’t want it to.

I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what this means. This is really weirdly self-indulgent to try and insert into discourse around rules that are exceedingly not clear if conversations in this topic & the discord are any indication. The hypothetical you provide for your own material implies your character doesn’t normally wear a lace thong, and doing so would be inappropriate. Billy Herrington’s normal dress for his modeling wears briefs. This is not atypical or perverse for a job like that. If your character doesn’t normally wear a lace thong, wouldn’t the intent and context behind your character’s dress change the nature of whether or not that’s appropriate garb?

When you look at the source material in particular for ultimate muscle roller, I have an extremely hard time believing anyone would look at that and perceive it as pornographic, which I guess is the issue - Are these judgements of risque nature to Herrington’s body & life coming from a place of discomfort because he happens to be a bodybuilder in ken-doll-esque garb typical for that career? Why is the nude rear of a zombie in a minigame wherein said zombies are brutally murdered acceptable yet the covered glutes of a model taken from a program meant for dancing music videos not? Is comically overindulgent alcoholism baked into the Lobby & overt violence okay but an unsexualized uncovered thigh forbidden? C’mon.

It isn’t that guidelines shouldn’t exist, I’m not trying to defend what is unequivocally outright nudity, my biggest fear is creators of content that exist in an extremely undefined grey area of what is and isn’t appropriate taking the L. I fear that ignorance and personal biases as to what is or isn’t perverse will negatively & arbitrarily impact creators & I fear this just winds up infantilizing the individual user’s ability to block content they don’t want to see by taking a huge leap of faith and making assumptions for them. Continuing the example with Billy Herrington - Steam’s already taken care of this with blurring the ultimate muscle vehicle in the workshop, why take the risk of alienating workshop contributors by depriving end users of more agency?

I find myself agreeing intensely with Lavender’s post. This is well intentioned but I think needs more time to properly mature as policy, especially without clear means for creators to appeal decisions.

@Niz

workshop vehicles are only visible in Accelerate games, which are player hosted instances, and that’s been the same logic used for leaving condos un-moderated.

Also this.

[Link]

pretty sure billy herrington was a porn actor

[ThurDoDinok]

@FrasierFan666

Moreover, the workshop ratings posted overwhelmingly show that only 1% of users that engaged with the content found it distasteful (if you want to expend the effort into reading into three thumbs down button presses) - so why is this being judged for being in a grey area when ostensibly it seems like the engagement metrics show that nobody cares, or that the reception is appreciative?

That’s the problem when trying to base over the ratings because ofc it has high reviews because its funny underware man and meme but in all honesty i wouldn’t expect people who don’t like it to go and click on it, go to its steam page, and rate it negatively. I would more expect them to just block it, report it, or go away from it.

[FrasierFan666]

@Link

pretty sure billy herrington was a porn actor

I am willing to wager that there’s far more pornography of the very character in your avatar than Billy Herrington online by a factor of 1 to 1000. This doesn’t damn the Legend of Zelda to implicit/inherent indecent sexuality, nor does Billy Herrington’s damn Gachimuchi memes. Interpreting Billy as pornographic is a misconception at best or some weird projection of lewdness on homosexuality at worst. If we ban the ultimate muscle roller from the workshop because of the source material, should we ban Kagamine Rin as well given his presence in the same video?

@ThurDoDinok

I would more expect them to just block it, report it, or go away from it.

So it sounds like when confronted with content that isn’t appealing to them, this hypothetical person exercises the tools available to them in order to control what they’re exposed to. Sounds good! Why not keep this & empower users to make their own decisions over content that can be experienced/interpreted subjectively?

[balianthemighty]

@wheezwer

Models from a sexual/pornographic source

@FrasierFan666

@Link

pretty sure billy herrington was a porn actor

I am willing to wager that there’s far more pornography of the very character in your avatar than Billy Herrington online by a factor of 1 to 1000. This doesn’t damn the Legend of Zelda to implicit/inherent indecent sexuality, nor does Billy Herrington’s damn Gachimuchi memes. Interpreting Billy as pornographic is a misconception at best or some weird projection of lewdness on homosexuality at worst. If we ban the ultimate muscle roller from the workshop because of the source material, should we ban Kagamine Rin as well given his presence in the same video?

@ThurDoDinok

I would more expect them to just block it, report it, or go away from it.

So it sounds like when confronted with content that isn’t appealing to them, this hypothetical person exercises the tools available to them in order to control what they’re exposed to. Sounds good! Why not keep this & empower users to make their own decisions over content that can be experienced/interpreted subjectively?

Ok, but just because people make porn of The Legend of Zelda, doesn’t mean The Legend of Zelda is porn. Hence, the word “source”. The source material (Zelda) is not pornographic. Billy Herrington was literally a porn actor, meaning he comes from a pornographic source.

[nat]

Clarification and Reminder on Inappropriate Workshop Content in Tower Unite...

i’m sorry when I annoy you guys again, i know this community don’t like me and i don’t wanna repeat the stuff i said here about all of this see link above, i’d like to share a few of my ideas and another note and depression here even when this is full off-topic. i don’t care, dont reply to this itll break their set laws

the grinding stuff killed opportunities. mac hires a community mananger but all he can do (i didnt pay much attention idk really) in tournaments is giving money as rewards for condo and playing games. buying stuff for your condo shouldn’t be a thing and wastes time. when mac didn’t decide the terrible nonsense trophies stuff for how long you have played (no matter you were doing good or not), nath could’ve given these “player of the month” trophies to the best player, to the cute player and who needs a hug (having a bad day) or something, same for the custom server admins to their players, other players in the same server can see them in the condo. the steam inventory is nice for things like this, not your condo inventory with thousands of items. could’ve been cooler, but wasted.

another thing i see is the community is already talking about a new main menu concept again. why change the main menu anyway? this game is a beta, there’s no reason to waste time in this cuz you’ll change it again anyway, as seen in virus. it got three HUDs (can’t look at the third one, unplayable horrible for my eyes) so far, man, game developers do this stuff at last. bug fixing is more important.

here’s my main menu concept: the hell with it. boot the game -> starts in your condo. the game asks you at opening the entrance/exit door where do you wanna go?

lobby (autoconnect favorite ones, server list) & games, either showing all games as buttons or you expand the button and then showing all games,
below the two buttons: condo server/switch condo and of course your friends list on the right to instant join them.

when this takes too long for you, hit escape and you have the button to show the where you wanna go menu.

you can change your appearence at the wardrobe or via pause/main menu & the news belongs to the usable newspaper in your condo, no extra button needed at the main menu. the actual main menu (clicking disconnect) itself is the same as where do you wanna go?, but with minimum more buttons. less is better.

the matchmaking part is terrible. this shouldn’t even be a thing with separate servers, it should be built in the pause menu. i don’t know why they build extra areas for this. if this is seriously not possible then this is the wrong engine, i mean they’re able to create a global chat, why can’t they ping themselves “hi im looking for a virus game too” via the global chat invisible for matchmaking and send a notification “you found other guys, get ready”.

i miss lobby 2. lobby 2 is more eyecandy, fresh, bright, smaller, cool looking train station, had stairs, (standing on a different height level is always cool) and could have been more. lobby 3 is soo ya, store location is better, the tower looks better and worse but i also miss the hallway to the exit in the lobby 2 train station and the rest is worse to me.since lobby 3 release nothing interesting or good came out for me, the game died for me but this announcement is very evil and i really do not tolerate this dependent stuff anymore.

so, this game is mac’s dark shadow. my friends and i hate the lack of public beta tests (cuz too dependent) & bugs and left the game, the best employers left the team, turns out lobby 2 had a chance with fixing loading time issue, tu’s 7th development year starts in a few months, the trello page still mentions so much that the development time will exceed gmt (about 9 years) and now i see this review and and feel guilty for wasting 3000 hours of his life in this game, i’m a backer, i backed this, helped this game become possible with my few bucks i believe every support counts and spent more later on, had no idea this game will turn out like this and couldn’t help this poor guy with my previous attempts. i wonder how much time he wasted for setting his condos up when he made ones for grinding… very very depressing. why do i have always bad luck with anything, why can’t this game be normal like gmod man you guys can do your own servers with workshop, rest can use non workshop models and own unit saving like i said in my steam post. simply dont register them in your master server or so, it wont hurt, its what made gmod successful. fix bugs make games do right things, polish at the end. mix it up and repeat is bad. i wish i can get most of my money back but this wont happen.

Steam Community :: Sithonious :: Review for Tower Unite

i apologize again for writing another big wall of bad english and now off topic text guys im so sick of this progress, sorry.

edit: i didn’t like lobby2s expansion with nothing too, i forgot to mention.

[Xmarksit]

@nat

i miss lobby 2. lobby 2 is more eyecandy, fresh, bright, smaller, cool looking train station, had stairs, (standing on a different height level is always cool) and could have been more. lobby 3 is soo ya, store location is better, the tower looks better and worse but i also miss the hallway to the exit in the lobby 2 train station and the rest is worse to me.since lobby 3 release nothing interesting or good came out for me, the game died for me but this announcement is very evil and i really do not tolerate this dependent stuff anymore.

I disagree with this section completely as Lobby 2’s key problem was its design. It was far too big causing players to be spaced out and never coming across each other. Sure it was pretty in a lot of areas but the design from the beginning was flawed, players would immediately fly out of the train station and you’d rarely come across other players, making the entire experience of the lobby incredibly baron and devoid of life. I’d argue against saying nothing good came out of Lobby 3 (I’d be here all day) but this isn’t the place for it. This is a section for clarifying on innapropriate workshop submissions, not dropping reviews on the game.

[FrasierFan666]

@balianthemighty

Ok, but just because people make porn of The Legend of Zelda, doesn’t mean The Legend of Zelda is porn. Hence, the word “source”. The source material (Zelda) is not pornographic. Billy Herrington was literally a porn actor, meaning he comes from a pornographic source.

Billy Herrington’s model used for Ultimate Muscle roller is sourced from MMD video asset repositories where he’s exclusively used to dance along to Idolmaster & Touhou music. The ultimate muscle roller vehicle’s visual “source” is from a video that is nonerotic & parodying an anime. Herrington isn’t popular because of pornography, he’s popular from abstract memes. If you even want to go extremely far back, you could even say that the real “Source” of the most modern and ubiquitous representation of Billy is a bunch of japanese dudes on NicoNicodouga who love Postmodernism & the kirby soundtrack. None of those things are pornographic or designed to be viewed as such. Implications otherwise sure seem like people are very willing to say a queer person who happens to have done sex work can only be seen as an avatar of such which is uh, insanely dehumanizing & homophobic lol.

Moreover, I’d like to try and distinguish between of the literal history of a cultural icon versus the reality/popular/practical reality of said cultural icon. Take for instance Pepe the Frog. Pepe the Frog’s origin from silly stoner indie comics. Pepe’s modern & culturally ubiquitous icon is one of white nationalism/hate speech/etc. Now, as far as I’m aware, any Pepe avatars on the workshop are banned for insanely obvious reasons, agnostic of the reality of his “source” and its factual legitimacy. On the inverse side of this, you have someone who you’ve labeled strictly as porn star, who has facets of his career that for obvious reasons wouldn’t be kosher for inclusion on the workshop, but who is known far and wide for particulary nonerotic, nonpornographic things & is popular because of those things - hence my point with Link. The insurmountable amount of pornography of Zelda characters does not mean Zelda is pornographic. The comparatively small amount of pornography of Billy Herrington does not mean what is ostensibly a reference to Gachimuchi, or his body, or you riding him in the racing minigame in towers is pornographic either. Something can have a problematic facet & not be strictly defined by it. Look at the intent behind the people who engage with it, that’s the only “context” that practically matters in this case.

Continuing that sentiment, if someone tries hard enough they can locate some element of something being problematic but all that would do is make them insanely pedantic & probably not very fun at parties. Does the Hong Kong/Blitzchung incident mean every Activision/Blizzard model is inherently political & shouldn’t be allowed on the workshop? Does Hollywood Hulk Hogan’s bizarre racist tirades mean his model should be taken off the workshop despite being known as widely as a wrestler? Think about the “Death of the Author”, reading a book and only interpreting meaning through how the author’s identity relates to the text is imposing an arbitrary limit on interpretation. Books, artwork, cultural iconography and memes exist agnostic of their “authors”, or “sources”, to imply otherwise is, to put it politely, lazy as hell.

[Jackpot]

My boys ‘The Column Fellows’ are out, aren’t they?

[Link]

Actual good points if you bother to read it, the source of the muscle roller is an mmd video safe enough for youtube (altough now i look at it closer it does seem quite suggestive), the character in question has his clear roots and is to my knowledge the guy from the ‘wait is this gay porn’ memes, but it would be an assumption to think the majority of people know him like this. it’s a good example as the model is (i think) meant to be a joke and from a non-pornographic source (YouTube).
Same can be said for most Legend of Zelda models, they’re often ripped from the games themselves or from websites like deviantart or other 3d model distribution site (which could mean the artist added some ‘features’, but most 3d model sharing websites are focused on sfw content).

I’ve been convinced the ‘pornographic source’ rule can be quite tricky to enforce as the source can be debatable.
And of course the ‘clear sexual intent’ is subjective, even when the vast majority agrees, you can expect controversy over that, anyone can claim a model is meant to be a ‘joke’.

[Kirby]

Yeah I really gotta agree with some of the above relating Niz.

Just because someone is in a porn shouldn’t label them forever as a pornographic icon in every situation they are used. That’s just ridiculous. As long as they are appropriately clothed and not in any form of “pornographic attire” then I fail to see the issue. This level of strict seems really excessive for a game like this.

[balianthemighty]

You guys have some good points. You’ve swayed me. I now agree that it’s not only a stupid rule but that those models should definitely stay. Now, hopefully, we can get the devs to see it that way.

[Gurmble]

I’d just like to throw in my small opinion; Suggesting that, because someone has been in/is known for pornography makes them inherently lewd or NSFW is a really shitty and kind of offensive way to look at sex workers.

That’s like saying someone’s entire existence is solely for sex, when most SWers have non-lewd lives outside of said work. If a character/person’s likeness is clothed in a way that isn’t explicit, it should be entirely fine.

[Sketchman]

I’m going to largely reference Billy Herrington in this post since it’s the model people seem to be referring to the most:

Billy Herrington is largely known for his sex work, and all of the media, memes, and in-jokes surrounding his public persona all make reference to it, pulling clips of video or direct audio from the sexual media he featured in. His public persona is very much tied to his sex work, and while there’s nothing wrong with that it is a very notable part of their public identity, what they’re known for. It is also worth noting the model in question was in their underwear also alluding to their sex work.

At the end of the day we’re trying to provide a public environment people can feel comfortable socializing, playing, and hanging with their friends (while hopefully making new ones!). Sex, and related adult subjects is an uncomfortable subject for a lot of people, and for some can even be triggering, so we don’t allow it in public facing portions of the game in order to foster this environment. When a person’s public identity coincides with these topics or their representation in-game clearly alludes to it, then our stance when reviewing the model is likely going to be to remove it from the workshop. It’s less about marking a particular person as nsfw, and more considering what the perception of the model is going to be for other players.

And to make sure it’s clear where I stand on things: Sex work is valid work, as are the people that perform it. I personally thought Herrington was a pretty cool person, and was shocked by his untimely death a couple years ago.

[FrasierFan666]

@Sketchman

Sex, and related adult subjects is an uncomfortable subject for a lot of people, and for some can even be triggering, so we don’t allow it in public facing portions of the game in order to foster this environment.

@Sketchman

It’s less about marking a particular person as nsfw, and more considering what the perception of the model is going to be for other players.

I don’t think this is unreasonable, but I just think it’s an unfair shake to give to Billy. I think with other subject matter in Towers like violence, the way it portrays alcohol & gambling, all also bear the possibility of being potentially triggering to various individuals. I’m not trying to qualify other peoples’ discomfort with scantily clad individuals regardless of the nature of their body, other than when that perception of lewdness comes from a place of subconscious bigotry. Which, to be clear, I’m not accusing you of, I’m just concerned about making concessions as to what is or isn’t appropriate for towers based on cishetero subconscious biases, or what’s considered “normal” for folks with those lived experiences.

My other thought is that this policy winds up ignoring player agency in being able to control what they are or are not exposed to. Why lose a plethora of models to a grey area of appropriateness when the game could have an option that disables what the steam workshop reads as “suggestive” by default, not unlike how some games have a chat filter on by default? That way the baseline experience of the individual user could be preserved according to the preferences of the development team, while simultaneously preserving the ability to experience content they may or may not find suggestive in the same way users have the option to go to condos labeled some variation of 24/7 ANIME SMUTHOUSE? Or in my case, vehemently avoid.

Despite my vehement disagreement with policy & implementation, I do want to say I appreciate your response in good faith & you establishing where you personally stand with some of the subject matter in question.

[Caboose700]

@nat

another thing i see is the community is already talking about a new main menu concept again. why change the main menu anyway? this game is a beta, there’s no reason to waste time in this cuz you’ll change it again anyway, as seen in virus. it got three HUDs (can’t look at the third one, unplayable horrible for my eyes) so far, man, game developers do this stuff at last. bug fixing is more important.

The main menu is an important part of the game, as it is the first thing a new user will see when they boot up the game. Over time, we’ve prototyped menus to try to make the experience as easy as possible to navigate. It’s going to be something that evolves over time.

@nat

here’s my main menu concept: the hell with it. boot the game → starts in your condo. the game asks you at opening the entrance/exit door where do you wanna go?

This has been talked about internally, but for a new user who knows nothing about the game, throwing the user into a condo without any explanation isn’t very helpful. We have tutorials planned, but again, as the game is still being developed, those are going to change over time and we’ve been waiting a bit while more systems are refined and finished.

That being said, there’s always also been the idea of a toggle allowing users to just determine where they want the game to boot, either to the Main Menu, or to a populated lobby, or their condo.

@nat

the matchmaking part is terrible. this shouldn’t even be a thing with separate servers, it should be built in the pause menu. i don’t know why they build extra areas for this. if this is seriously not possible then this is the wrong engine, i mean they’re able to create a global chat, why can’t they ping themselves “hi im looking for a virus game too” via the global chat invisible for matchmaking and send a notification “you found other guys, get ready”.

We have plans on a better matchmaking system, these things take time and aren’t as simple as making a chat system.

@nat

i miss lobby 2. lobby 2 is more eyecandy, fresh, bright, smaller, cool looking train station, had stairs, (standing on a different height level is always cool) and could have been more. lobby 3 is soo ya, store location is better, the tower looks better and worse but i also miss the hallway to the exit in the lobby 2 train station and the rest is worse to me.since lobby 3 release nothing interesting or good came out for me, the game died for me but this announcement is very evil and i really do not tolerate this dependent stuff anymore.

One of the biggest issues with Lobby 2 was that everything that was an activity was located the furthest away from the Tower, and new players were unaware of what was back there. Everyone on the team, including the main architects of Lobby 2 @Johanna and @Lifeless agree that Lobby 3 is infinitely better than Lobby 2, both in layout and performance, as they were able to integrate new techniques learned over time with the engine, and rework the layout to bring the activities to the forefront for new players to find.

@nat

so, this game is mac’s dark shadow.

I really take offense to this statement, and I wouldn’t normally comment on something like this, but it’s something I want to get off my chest.

Tower Unite was not and is not created by just one person. There’s an incredible team of people who work on this game, each with their unique skills and ideas, who come to work each day to improve it and make it the best game and experience that it can be. Every decision on where to go forward with the game, we talk about every Monday at our meetings, we make decisions collectively.

Development takes time, a bunch of time, and while some features take longer than we’d like them to, whether it’s running into engine bugs, or having to rewrite older legacy systems to make those features happen, or what have you, I have always been impressed with what this small team has been able to accomplish.

[Niz]

@Sketchman

It’s less about marking a particular person as nsfw, and more considering what the perception of the model is going to be for other players.

This is precisely one of the reasons I’m upset, at least, with my specific situation. In the player models case, if there’s a whole slew of invisible complaints about this scenario that I’m unaware of, I’m all ears, but as I mentioned before, there’s been two years to garner a consensus on how people feel about it while it sat in a very obvious spotlight, and every metric to my perspective, from the Steam stats and comments, to the TU Discord, to the MANY personal accounts with people using it in-game, have all been incredibly positive, but that point was whittled down to a misinterpretation that I think rules should be bent because it was popular.

If you guys are just banning it for underwear in the plaza, then oh well, I’ll just have to agree to disagree on the rules, but just note that I’ve been told MANY conflicting, unclear reasons, both in the past and now. Is it no shoes, no shirt, no service? Cause I am trying to find some recourse. You can see that I already did that in the past when I talked to Mac.

@Sketchman

we don’t allow it in public facing portions of the game in order to foster this environment

Based on the rhetoric about why condos aren’t moderated, I’m going to assume “public facing portions of the game” refers to instances that are officially hosted by you guys (ie: The Lobby Servers). If this is the case, I would hope that a different kind of discretion would be used for workshop items that are only possible to use in player hosted instances, ie: ALL Accelerate games and condo furniture, but that point about the vehicle was straight ignored.

I do appreciate your response, though. It’s the most clearly communicated words from your side of the table on the matter.

[macdguy]

@nat

this game is mac’s dark shadow

I’m gonna echo what Caboose said here, because I’ll be honest I am tired of seeing some people think somehow that I am developing every part of the game, which I’m not.

I’ll start by explaining how the game’s team and development dynamic works.

I am not the sole deciding factor on the decisions behind development of the game. Yes, I contribute to the game a lot, and yes I put out ideas to the team a lot, we all do. Our team relies heavily on trusting one another and debating amongst ourselves. It is not a dictatorship, I don’t make all the calls. I am the founder, sure, but I believe in trusting in our team.

Johanna and Lifeless were behind the art direction of Lobby 2. Johanna made nearly every art asset for it and Lifeless designed the layout and contributed various art assets as well. I helped program and come up with game design. Johanna and Lifeless also helped with game design.

Johanna and Lifeless were behind the art direction of Lobby 3. They were the ones who decided that Lobby 2 wasn’t good enough. Initially I was worried it would take too much time, but after they shared more of their idea for Lobby 3, I agreed with them because they were right about Lobby 2’s flaws. Maddie, who joined us a year and half ago has been contributing a lot of concept artwork (new Surf Shop, new Sea Shore Store, new Lighthouse interior) and she did all the illustrations for the Arcade cabinets. She’s been helping Johanna with Johanna’s new vision for the Plaza art style. Even then, the ENTIRE team all had to agree with these changes and new art direction and we are all very pleased by the work they’ve all been doing.

Josh contributes a lot as well by creating characters, items, and tons of various art assets. He’s often very busy working on these art assets, as they can take a lot of time. He also comes up with his own items, sets his own goals for the game, and contributes feedback and new ideas.

Caboose, Rob (sketchman), Mike, and myself are all very busy working on programming various aspects of the game such as the gameplay, backends, servers, bug fixes, and crashes. Rob is often working on behind the scenes fixes or backend. Mike is always on the look out for working on features that people want (such as the item snapping) and to improve the game. Just like Mike, Rob does the same.

Will is busy composing the music for the game and handling sound design. He also has a say in the game and will often give feedback and ways to improve things.

While everyone has their own main talents that they focus on day-to-day, everyone contributes to the game’s direction, decisions, and ultimatums. We all work together and we all plan together.

Moderation is decided not just by Caboose or myself, we ALL talk about how we want to moderate the game and we all discuss about the rules for custom content. Maddie has also taken up the role of doing a lot of PR and carefully writing up announcements, organizing team goals, and figuring how best to take what we discuss and agree on and present it to the community.

What I’m trying to stress here should be clear, we are a small team (about 10). We all tackle lots of aspects of the game and the community. We all have a voice in the team about where we want to take the game and we all trust in each other.

Developers have come and go from this project over the years. Some have left on good terms to work in another industry, some left on good terms to other games that they are more passionate about, some had a job before and were working as a contractor for us, and some have been hired by AAA companies. Our team structure has changed over the years, like many games do, but our combined passion for the game has not waivered.

We are soon entering the 5th year of working on Tower Unite. We’ve had a lot of changes throughout the years (both in the game and in the company). We’ve had the good fortune of having incredibly talented and dedicated developers be part of this project. The team we have now are the most passionate people I’ve ever worked with, and their shared passion for Tower is what keeps me on this project myself.