This article originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 15, May 2025

One of the Super Indie City Konsole’s most beloved platformers is Toss Up Tower, lovingly restored by Harrison Kratz. The original code, written by an unknown developer during the period before the konsole’s launch, was incomplete and lacked accompanying art assets.

Besides the code, the only portions of the package that Kratz was able to recover from SICK fan forums included concept art of a wizard, blurry scans of planning documents, some marketing materials, and the phrase “Bring crystal ball to top of castle tower.”

Some members of the community believe these documents made their way to England, where Interactive Studios would use them as inspiration for Glover. 

Because of the lack of art and sound assets, Kratz had to build those aspects from the ground up. He said that his focus was to end up with a simple game presented cohesively in one scene.

The final project bears this out, taking place in a continuously scrolling wizard’s tower populated with slimes, birds, and the player-controlled orb attempting, usually vainly, to climb toward its master.

“I took reference from more modern games that are notorious for being difficult,” Kratz said. “I personally am a fan of games where you are tasked with overcoming seemingly unfair situations.”

Kratz said he was drawn to the unfinished project because of its difficulty, which was obvious from the first time he launched it. 

“Toss Up Tower is really difficult, and that was my intent going in [to the restoration], and I don’t try to hide that,” he said.

That kind of difficulty is common in late 20^th century games and serves to pad short runtimes that result from hardware limitations and limited developer resources.

“I was in a similar situation [to those developers], since while I worked on Toss Up Tower, I have been a full-time student preparing my senior game project,” Kratz said.

He was looking for a fun project that he could complete between his other work, heard about the SICK through Indie City Games, and decided to take on the project in an effort to understand why he personally enjoys unfairly difficult games so much.

Kratz found that despite the toll that seemingly unfair games can take on players, they have the unique ability to bring people together. He recalled an instance where his colleagues huddled around a laptop playing an early build of his Toss Up Tower restoration, commiserating on their failures and celebrating their successes.

“They were taking turns making attempts, cheering when someone passed a puzzle and smack talking when they died. That is what I needed to remind me that I do have fun making games,” Kratz said.

Kratz’s recreation of Toss Up Tower can be played on itch.io: https://sonki-boy.itch.io/toss-up-tower