Teleporting Towers

What is Teleporting Towers? 🌀

Fight with towers built from stacked pieces to gain victory points as you move across a board that rearranges and decays. Upgrade or repair, attack and push each other into dead space, cast spells and steal powerful artifacts — all before the Teleporter activates. Then you must reposition, shuffle your towers, and adapt to a completely changed environment.

Players start the game with 5 stacked grey tower pieces, a crown piece that sits on top, a flag that inserts into the crown, 3 spell cards, and a number of artifacts depending on the number of players. The board is randomly arranged and all towers are inside the central Teleporter. The D8 dices are rolled amongst the players to determine who is Player 1 - they are given the Sun Token, which will move anti-clockwise during each Teleport Phase. In other words, in a 4 player game, the 1st player will become the 4th player.

Every grey tower piece represents 1 Health Point, but coloured tower pieces, which are purchased to upgrade your tower, also provide stat boosts for attack (red), defence (green), attack range (yellow), and movement (cyan). Upgraded pieces are always swapped out for grey pieces because you cannot exceed 5 total health points. 

Spell cards will help you in various ways, including swapping positions with other players, forcing towers to move, temporarily enhancing stats, and denying other spells. You can only cast 1 spell per turn, unless you pay to cast another one, and you may also only sell 1 spell per turn to gain a resource and new spell. Players should always have a total of 3 spells in their hand. 

Artifacts are distributed amongst the players at the beginning of the game. They sit on top of your tower in the crown and provide a buff as well as victory points when you enter the Teleporter. If another player attacks and you fail to defend, they can steal one from you.

There are 2 distinct phases in the game that alternate on repeat until a player wins by having 12 Victory Points. The 1st phase, called the combat phase, consists of 2 rounds in which players move their tower, collect resources, upgrade, cast and sell spells, and try to attack. The 2nd phase, called the "Teleport", is when the board tiles die, rearrange and flip. Because tiles are double-sided, their state changes when they are flipped over, revealing positive or negative effects. Once the board has transformed, player's towers are sucked into the Teleporter before being sent back out into new positions determined by an 8-sided die. Everyone is forced to reassess the board to try and adapt quickly. 

An anti-snowballing mechanic, called the "Tower Shuffle", takes place during every 2nd Teleport. Player's upgraded tower pieces are dropped into a black bag before being redrawn 1-by-1 in turn order until every player has the same number of upgraded pieces again. This moment also allows players to choose the order in which they stack their tower pieces because the arrangement matters. When a player successfully attacks you, your tower loses its top piece. When a tile dies underneath your tower or your tower is pushed into a dead zone, you lose the bottom piece to the void. As your tower shrinks, you end up having to start swapping out your upgrades for other upgrades, which makes the late-game more challenging. Normally, you must exchange your starting tower pieces with upgraded pieces because, as a reminder, your tower cannot exceed the maximum of 5 health points.

Story & Development 🏰

In December 2017, I was staying at a beach house in the small village, Potato Point, approximately 9 kilometers east of the coastal town, Bodalla, in New South Wales. It was a short but much needed holiday with a close group of friends. 

When I had enough of going to the beach for a swim, I picked up my notebook and began to right some rules for a game idea. I thought... "What if different universes were warped together by a blackhole in space and sent back out into unfamiliar places?" From memory, this is likely the question I asked myself. I had drawn inspiration from playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, Diablo II, World of Warcraft, and many other fantasy titles during my childhood. My game was also originally called "Teleporting Castles" and not "Teleporting Towers", which came about because I was studying Architecture at the time and wanted to use unique designs for the different races/characters you could play as in the game. I considered carrying this idea through into the new title but with all things considered, and how the game evolved over time, I moved away from this. 

Below is an image of a mashup of different game pieces I used to test my game out with my friends from 2017. As you can see, there are cards from CATAN, Phase 10 Master Edition, Beaver Gang (also known as Biberbande), hub tokens from Trivial Pursuit, a red D6 dice, and a drinking glass, which represented the "Teleporter". Quite the amalgamation! Over the course of the next 5 years on and off, I continued to study Architecture at the University of Canberra while trying to chip away at the concept.

Conventions 🎲

Reviews 💬

*** TBC before launch date. Future reviews may be added.

Production 🧩

Production is yet to be determined but I am currently talking with HeroTime in China. I will update this section as soon as the design and components are finalized.

*** Cost Breakdown to be added here before launch date.

Shipping 📦

Shipping is also yet to be determined but HeroTime uses PrimeShip, and I will be working with them to determine the logistics for delivering the game.

*** Details below TBC with PrimeShip before launch date.

Greater Oceania

• Australia, X-X days
• New Zealand, X-X days

Europe

• France, X-X days
• Germany, X-X days
• Greece, X-X days
• Italy, X-X days
• Netherlands, X-X days
• Norway, X-X days
• Poland, X-X days
• Portugal, X-X days
• Czech Republic, X-X days
• Croatia, X-X days
• Slovakia, X-X days
• Hungary, X-X days
• Austria, X-X days
• Belgium, X-X days
• Netherlands, X-X days
• Bulgaria, X-X days
• Ireland, X-X days
• Lithuania, X-X days
• Spain, X-X days
• Denmark, X-X days
• Sweden, X-X days

United Kingdom

• United Kingdom, X-X days

Asia-Pacific

• China, X-X days
• Hong Kong, X-X days
• Korea, X-X days
• Japan, X-X days
• Malaysia, X-X days
• Singapore, X-X days
• Thailand, X-X days
• Vietnam, X-X days
• Taiwan, X-X days
• Philippines, X-X days
• Indonesia, X-X days

Middle East

• Israel, X-X days
• UAE, X-X days
• Saudi Arabia, X-X days
• Qatar, X-X days
• Kuwait, X-X days
• Bahrain, X-X days
• India, X-X days

North America

• United States, X-X days

Canada

• Canada, X-X days

Mexico

• Mexico, X-X days

Rest of World

• Switzerland, X-X days
• Estonia, X-X days
• Romania, X-X days
• Cyprus, X-X days
• Greece, X-X days
• Norway, X-X days
• Finland, X-X days
• Iceland, X-X days
• Georgia, X-X days
• Brazil, X-X days

Socials 📢

Teleporting Towers on Instagram
Teleporting Towers on Facebook
ELLERO on Instagram