Why Early Access?

“Tower Lab is a fully physics-driven tower defense game where depth comes from how towers combine. This kind of emergent design gets dramatically better with a large community experimenting, breaking things, and telling us what feels great and what falls flat.

We are a two-person team. We've been developing this game alongside our community from the start, and the feedback we've received has already reshaped the game many times over. Early Access lets us keep that feedback loop running at a larger scale as we expand the tower roster, tune the balance, and even support community-created content alongside the people actually playing it.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We expect Early Access to last roughly 6 to 12 months. The game will leave Early Access when the planned content is in, and we'll keep players informed if that timeline shifts.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Our plans for the full version include:

- Increased tower, trap, unit, and machine roster.
- Additional cores, physics cards, utility cards, and rewards to expand build variety.
- More levels, enemies, and regions for the campaign.
- Deeper endless mode progression and expanded Steam Workshop support for
player-created levels in sandbox mode.
- Ongoing balance, performance, and polish work informed by community feedback.
- Aesthetic improvements to in-game environments, characters, towers, and UI.

As always with development, plans can evolve, and community feedback during Early
Access will help us decide what to prioritize.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The core game is fully playable from start to finish with multiple game modes and meta progression. The Early Access version currently includes:

- 25 playable towers, each interacting with the others through real physics.
- Over 30 run-modifying cores, dozens of physics-effect abilities, utility cards, multiple traps, and hundreds of tech tree upgrades that modify towers and traps.
- 4 playable machines, each defining its own run style with unique starting items and even real-time abilities.
- A campaign with two ways to play: a classic tower defense ruleset and a deckbuilder variant. And multiple regions with dozens of handcrafted levels.
- An endless mode with a procedurally expanding map.
- A physics puzzle optimization mode with different challenges.
- A sandbox level builder.
- Meta-progression and a collection screen.
- Leaderboard for multiple game modes.

Some systems, such as balance, late-game content, and workshop tooling, are still being developed and tuned with the help of community feedback.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Yes. We plan to increase the price modestly (around 25%) when the game leaves Early Access, reflecting the additional content and features added during development. Buying during Early Access is a way to get the game at its lowest price while helping shape its development.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Community feedback has shaped Tower Lab since our earliest playtests, and Early Access continues that same loop at a larger scale:

- Our Discord is the heart of development. We're active there daily, and it's where players report bugs, share contraptions, and discuss balance directly with us.
- We publish regular updates covering new content, gameplay changes, QOL improvements, and bug fixes. So players can see how their feedback turns into real improvements.
- Balance and new content are tuned against real player data and community discussion.
- We read Steam discussions and reviews, and we act on the most critical feedback
- The Steam Workshop lets players build and share their own levels, and the most creative community ideas will help inspire official content.”