Tower

Grey Tower (also released as The Tower) is Louise Hope's World Builder adventure, first released in 1996 as a black-and-white build and rebuilt as a color 68K version (v1.4) in 1999. Macintosh Garden tracks expansions and re-releases all the way through 2014, making it one of the longer-lived titles in the World Builder catalogue.

Setup

The author's setup, straight from the Info-Mac BinHex header: "You're no hero, so when your friend Jake asks you to join him in exploring a ruined castle several days' journey to the north, you refuse to have anything to do with the idea. Well, that was weeks ago, and you haven't heard from Jake. Much against your better judgement, you decide to go find out what became of him - and maybe pick up some treasure along the way."

Versions on Macintosh Garden

MG hosts three distinct downloads. v1.4 (color, 68K-only, 1999, 690 KB) is the color rebuild and the version most people start with. v3.0.1 (B&W World Builder, 1997, 539 KB) is the maintained black-and-white branch. v1.0 (B&W World Builder, 1996, 601 KB) is the original release. The color build runs on System 7.0 through Mac OS 8.5/8.6; the B&W builds reach back to 7.0.1.

System requirements

From the BinHex header for the color v1.4: "Mac with 256 or more colors, 12" or larger monitor, 32-bit QuickDraw. Prefers 2MB free RAM but can run on less." The black-and-white World Builder builds drop the color and QuickDraw requirements but otherwise behave the same.

Provenance

Distributed through Info-Mac as tower-1.hqx; the Subject line gives the canonical title "Grey Tower 1.4." The author originally signed uploads as Lucy24@aol.com with a homepage at members.aol.com/Lucy24/LucysWorlds.html; Macintosh Garden credits her by her later name, Louise Hope. No MobyGames entry exists.