Newsletter #1 – May 2025
🧠 It Wasn’t a Mandela Effect…
Some of you had already noticed it for a while, and we can finally confirm it officially:
The Tower is now Hack 'n' Stack! 🎉
This name change also marks a shift in our vision for the game.
More than just a rebrand, it’s a complete rethinking of the experience we want to deliver.
🔄 A Shift in Paradigm
The feedback we received on The Tower prototype was incredibly valuable.
It helped us identify several limitations in our original approach—especially around pacing, readability, and player freedom.
The initial concept was simple:
🧱 Build and repair a tower using eclectic blocks, while defending it from increasingly intense waves of enemies. Players could use anything they found to fight back (and yes, we kept that part!).
But despite the intensity of the combat, the gameplay felt too restricted and linear.
The action took place in tight spaces, designed to accommodate the constraints of the in-game camera.
This technical choice, while practical at first, ended up hurting the overall experience:
📉 Reduced visual clarity
🎮 Repetitive gameplay
⏱️ Slower pacing, even with fast enemy waves
This shift in paradigm also revealed how complex it is to design an effective camera system within a game engine.
Traditional solutions no longer worked—we had to experiment, iterate, and let go of some conventions.
👉 The result: a new approach that’s more open, more fluid, and much more aligned with the spirit of creative chaos we want to bring to Hack 'n' Stack.
We learned a lot from that prototype, and those lessons are now at the heart of the game’s evolution.
🧱 Embrace the Creative Chaos!
Since then, the game has evolved significantly. The central tower is gone!
We’ve reimagined the experience to be more open, more organic, while keeping the joyful messiness we love so much.
In Hack 'n' Stack, you’ll:
Gather resources
Stack improbable objects
Build wacky defenses
And most importantly, collaborate to survive the enemy waves
It’s chaotic—but it’s strategic, fun, and different every time you play.
🎯 Our Ambition
We want Hack 'n' Stack to become your go-to game for game nights with friends or family.
A game that makes you want to gather, laugh, shout, and jump right back in for another round.
📅 What’s Next?
We’re super excited to share this new chapter with you. 🙌
You can expect:
More content
More fun
And of course, plenty of surprises along the way!
Each month, we’ll send you a development update so you can follow the journey step by step… and count down the days until launch!
💌 Thank You for Being Part of the Adventure
Your support, feedback, and enthusiasm mean everything to us.
Thanks for following the evolution of Hack 'n' Stack — we can’t wait to show you more very soon!