Tower One Rises
Elderspire is live, and it enters the world in early access. That word can mean a lot of things, so let me be precise about what it means here: the first tower is finished and fully playable, from the moment you start a run to the guardian waiting at the top. What is “early” is the spire above it — four more towers are still being built.
What is in the build today
The entire core loop is in and working. A run is a roguelike climb across a branching map, and every system that makes that climb interesting is already here:
- Recruit. Captured horrors arrive as containment dossiers. Draft them, bench them, and rebuild your roster as new threats appear.
- Evolve. Creatures hit stat milestones, learn new moves at the move tutor, and evolve into stranger forms as they survive.
- Synergies & affinities. Nine eldritch affinities, each strong and weak against others, plus team synergies that reward committing to a theme.
- Items, mutations & dread boons. Run-defining pickups and pacts that stack into builds — some of which quietly break the game in your favour.
- Omens. Branching events with real risk and reward between the fights.
- Guardian. A proper floor boss to close out the tower.
- The bestiary & The Ascended. Every creature you meet is recorded, and teams that conquer the spire are enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
There are dozens of original creatures to encounter, all of them with their own art, and the whole thing runs in your browser with sound, settings, and an optional account if you want your progress to follow you across devices. No download, no install.
Why ship one tower
I could have waited until all five towers were done and shipped in silence. I would rather build it in the open. Tower One is a complete, self-contained experience — enough to know whether the combat, the drafting and the build-crafting feel good — and shipping it now means the people who play it get to shape everything that comes after. If a synergy feels broken, a boon feels pointless, or a creature feels unfair, I want to hear it before the next four towers are set in stone.
What comes next
Four more towers, each with its own creatures, hazards and a horror at the summit. Beyond that: more starters to unlock, deeper synergies, and more reasons to come back for another run. The records you set and the bestiary you fill will carry forward as the spire grows.
Tell me what you think
If you climb the tower, I would genuinely like to know how it went — what clicked, what dragged, what you wish existed. Reach me at spireborn.elderspire33@proton.me.