EcoTower
- Joe Francia
- Mar 1
- 2 min read
A Tower-Building Post-Apocolyptic Survival Sim
Play on Android: EcoTower on the Google Play store
About
As the leader of your colony, its up to you to design and build your tower, ensuring the wellbeing, safety, and productivity of its citizens. Natural resources are scarce and the region’s climate is hostile, so you will be forced to use every eco-friendly trick in the book to survive, from vertical farms to rain collectors. The higher you build, the more colonists will flock to your tower. But be careful - you’ll also attract raiders and thieves, not to mention becoming a bigger target for natural disasters such as derechos and electrical storms. It’s up to you to balance the needs and wants with your citizens with what little resources and manpower you have available. Survive and reach the sky!
Winner of the 2020 Gameloft game pitch contest, EcoTower beat out 50+ other submissions by passing several levels of market appeal testing before it was selected for development by Gameloft's internal R&D team.
My Contributions
Designed & pitched original concept
Built paper prototype to verify core loop and key gameplay mechanics
Wrote & illustrated detailed game design documentation
Designed ads & wrote copy for market appeal testing
My Process
Starting with the contest's theme (eco / green), I used App Annie to do some genre research and settled on an idle sim / builder, which I felt both served the theme and also had a wide enough audience. Inspired by Fallout Shelter, Rimworld, and the classic SimTower, I drew up some illustrations and submitted my pitch deck.
Once the pitch passed internal review, I worked together with one of Gameloft's senior game designers as well as a concept artist to mockup screenshots and generate copy for market appeal testing. Meanwhile, focusing on the game design pillars from my pitch, I wrote up an initial ruleset and began prototyping / play testing on paper.
After the concept passed all marketing appeal tests, I finalized my design document and sent it to Gameloft's R&D team for digital prototyping. There the game evolved quickly; originally envisioned as a complex idle sim, the design was simplified in order to manage scope and focus on the core gameplay being explored. A greater emphasis was placed on failing and retrying, giving it the rogue-like feel it has today.
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