Tower of Heaven creator releases new game Pause Ahead

You can play it for free on Adult Swim

Do you remember Tower of Heaven? If the answer is yes, skip ahead to the next paragraph. If the answer is “no” because you never played it back in 2009, then you can (and should) rectify that immediately. It’s not very long; you can play it now and then come back here when you’re finished. I’ll wait.

You’re back? Great. Tadakuni Amano, the developer behind Tower of Heaven, has released a new platformer called Pause Ahead. It’s similar to the previous work in that it’s a platformer from the Super Meat Boy school of tough-but-fair, and the two Amano titles share similar fourth-wall-breaking themes as well.

The main hook of Pause Ahead is that you can pause the game at any time, and while the buzzsaws and Thwomp-esque traps will stop moving, the protagonist will continue in a straight path with the momentum he had just prior to the pause, passing through any death-dealing elements unharmed. The catch is the protagonist cannot be directly controlled while the game is paused, and once it is unpaused he becomes just as susceptible to explosive death as before.

With only about twenty bite-sized levels to play through, the fastest times posted are in the two minute range. It took me a little over a half hour to get through entirely, and some levels are especially frustrating, but overall it is a neat experience. You can play it right now on Adult Swim.