EXECUTIVE TOWERS 🎶🎮
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
EXECUTIVE TOWERS
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Programmed and stitched together by daffodil, music and concept by JADE STATUES, architecture and environments by Kaili Terada, character art and animations by Slippery Jibberish.
Special thanks to free Unity assets
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For 2025, I've resolved to play a game available for free on itch once every weekend. I found out about Executive Towers late in 2024 through Bandcamp recommending the soundtrack to me, and after already betraying the entire premise of what I was trying to do by playing it *after* the weekend, I have a few things to say regarding it.
Executive Towers to me is quite reminiscent of the genre me and my friends have collectively decided to call Nikki-likes, after the RPG Maker indie game Yume Nikki. I'm pretty sure people generally prefer the term "walking simulator" for these types of games, and I'm pretty sure Executive Towers even momentaneously refers to itself as one, but the term Nikki-like has stuck in my vocabulary and I can't really seem to get it out anymore, so it's the one I use. I remember, although I could be misremembering, seeing the developer state that the game was inspired by LSD: Dream Simulator, and that wouldn't surprise me: it's another notable early Nikki-like and characteristics like its camera perspective and world design resemble Executive Towers more closely than other examples of the genre I could cite. Given all of the stuff I just said, I can now proceed to, uh, actually talk about the game itself in a more personal fashion.
Executive Towers does something I never really expected a Nikki-like to do; unlike the many I've played with my friends up until now, it follows a clearly delineated linear narrative progression. If you told me this before I played it, my reaction would probably be something along the lines of "Oh. That sounds pretty bad, open exploration is one of the most defining factors of Nikki-likes as a genre and achieving the dream-like or art gallery atmosphere most of these games are going for without that seems very difficult", but after playing it what I ended up thinking was that I'm pleasantly surprised by how well it works. For a game of its size and background (being a companion piece to the homonymous album by JADE STATUES), making it linear really does seem like it was the best idea; making a more traditional Nikki-like would not only take much more time and work, it would also leave the possibility open for the player to miss certain songs or listen to the album out of order, which would kind of defeat the point of making what is essentially a playable music video (a music game?) for the album. And despite having little room for active deviation from the path, the way the game flows and presents itself is better at creating that sense of dreamy disorientation than I would have expected it to be, given that it's a completely linear narrative. I've now said everything I liked about the game, and I hope this has made it clear that one of the things I liked the most was the concept! Artistically, it is a very tight experience with a somewhat lighthearted atmosphere that still manages to feel oneiric, and act as a very good support piece for the album. Now, onto my recommendations for the developer: this game is old and I have not played any newer games daffodil has published, but it did seem evident to me while playing Executive Towers that the game is pretty unpolished from a technical and visual perspective. Now, I understand: it's a small game made by an independent developer and published on itch with the option for free downloads available. It is not a bad game, however certain aspects do serve to take you a little out of the experience. Quite a few dialogue segments are broken and go over the allocated textbox space, effectively making you unable to read parts of them. There's also some rendering issues or just strange rendering in general: water interacts weirdly with the camera, the player character's hair blocks your view if you look directly up, and it also seemed a little poorly optimised in my experience? Like, I did not expect to be lagging while playing a freeware game from about a decade ago, yet it happened. The visual style is also quite inconsistent, I believe because most of the assets were openly available unity assets and not custom-made for the game? I wouldn't know, and it really isn't something I'd judge the game for either, but playing it made to me apparent the importance of a consistent visual style in Nikki-likes, at least on an area-per-area basis, to better immerse the player in the game's world. Executive Towers often shows the seams and stitches inherent to the art of making a videogame, and this does not make it stop being worthwhile, but I figured if I was already leaving a comment, I might as well mention these things so the developer can make their future games better, or perhaps even pick up the concept again and make something new out of it. The asset thing is especially hard to fix because I have to assume that if the assets look that way it's for a reason, and making original assets everywhere that needs them in something as idiosyncratic as a Nikki-like and making it look good requires a bit of technical skill in 3D modeling or spriting, and that's not really a skill every single indie developer should be expected to have. However, the thing with the dialogue boxes could likely be solved by playtesting the full game once or twice before release; if it was, it may just be being caused by my computer, and in that case I am truly sorry because I have no idea how to help with that either. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed my time with it, and when I have some more free time (and am not playing other games by other devs I haven't played anything from before) I might play more recent games by the developer; it had an air of charm I quite enjoyed.
By the way: I'm supposed to give you, daffodil, someone's regards, however I am quite bad with names and I already forgot who it was. No matter - I'm probably going to replay the game and be able to check that again soon enough, but for now this is all I got. Thank you!
Thanks for taking the time to play and especially to write out such an extensive account of your experiences and thoughts!
A lot of your criticism is super valid. You're totally right that the game is janky, poorly optimised, and visually discordant, among other things.
For some perspective on how we made the game and what resources were available to us, this was my first video game I made out of school. We had a very tight time constraint of two months (the album was already scheduled to be released and Jade Statues insisted that the game launch with the album) At the time I hadn't yet wrangled the ins and outs of Unity's rendering, animation,
and lighting systems. Some of the jank I decided to lean hard into, such as the collage like visual inconsistency of freely accessible 3D models found online, and deliberately turning down or off the LOD quality tools to make the trees and water look "good" at a distance. In the end I think we curated a kind of "vibe" that fits the aesthetic of the broader Vaporwave scene and aesthetics (which this game and especially this album was a part of at the time of release, releasing on Dream Catalogue, at the time a pretty critical locum of the scene)
The text boxes are a bit busted for sure. they SHOULD display all the text at the very least but I did my best in the time we had available to us to make sure they functioned. The priority was of course the music, however, and matching the scenes to the music as pers Jade Statues' vision for the spaces. The game was sort of planned out by JS and the other collaborators at the time, and I came in enthusiastic about doing my best while knowing full well I had loads of knowledge gaps.
Anyways, since EXECTUVIE TOWERS I've had a LOT more experience honing my skills and attuning my vision for projects I wished to follow through on. My other game VIRTUA BLINDS served as a sort of follow up, also embedded in vaporwave aesthetics and music, while serving as an excuse to learn the skills I hadnt gotten the chance to learn yet at the time. There are other projects on my page as you can see, some of which are more protypical than they are what i'd consider "complete" but you may find them interesting in any case.
As for sending lucy's regards, thanks for that! You can run FASTer by pressing all the letters in the word "FAST" on your keyboard at once. There's also a code for JUMPing higher, by pressing all the letters to the word JUMP at once. There is also LEAP and RUN which offer different heights and speeds. Theres a handful of other cheats too, most of which do silly useless stuff like play a sound effect or change the material of what you're looking at. If you want more of them let me know lol
In terms of my more recent work, I strongly recommend checking out STREET UNI X, I spent 6 years working on it and it's a MUCH MUCH more polished experience and what I would consider a "complete game". It is like a Tony Hawks Pro Skater type game on unicycles (a sport that I am very much interested in and take part in myself). If you don't have the means to purchase a copy you can email me and I'll send you a code for a copy here on itch if you like.
Anyway thanks a lot for your care and attention! I really appreciate when stories like this come up for something I made nearly ten years ago now. It's cool that even this janky and rushed project is still resonating with folks at all.
Also since the project is so old, I've basically given up on updating it, so while I appreciate the feedback in terms of like, things that could be fixed or updated, it's not possible for me to make changes, as much as I'd like to!
<3 daffodil
does developer still remember bout this game? :D
Nope I've forgotten I don't know what this is how did this game get on my profile?! 😱😱😱
My favorite shot...
Sorry if this is a spoiler! Feel free to delete...
amazing developer. would buy all the games if VFS wasn't robbing me
Been trying out the 1.2 builds for a time on my Linux box, and have noticed that while the game in itself feels a bit smoother and faster, some of the funky rendering issues with the paintings in the first hallway and the cleansing pool still remain.
Same setup as before: Debian sid, 64-bit release. Haven't tested the 1.2 32-bit builds but I will do so soon enough.
Loving this game so far but I do kinda wish that there was a native Linux version available. I was playing the Windows version via Wine until the Mono libraries the game needs got updated. Now running the game only gives me this message:
Mono path[0] = 'C:/Program Files/EXECUTIVE_TOWERS_WIN32_1.02/EXECUTIVE_TOWERS_WIN32_1.02_Data/Managed'
Mono path[1] = 'C:/Program Files/EXECUTIVE_TOWERS_WIN32_1.02/EXECUTIVE_TOWERS_WIN32_1.02_Data/Mono'
Mono config path = 'C:/Program Files/EXECUTIVE_TOWERS_WIN32_1.02/EXECUTIVE_TOWERS_WIN32_1.02_Data/Mono/etc'
I'm on it. I'll try and fix a few bugs in the process as well. Thanks for taking an interest!
There you go, friend. If it wasn't for you I probably wouldn't have fixed those bugs quite so soon, and wouldn't have provided a Linux build. Give yourself a big pat on the back! And let me know if you run into any more issues trying to get it to run.
Thanks a bunch for the Linux builds! I downloaded the bundle to test it out, and I'm really happy to see you included both 32-bit and 64-bit executables! :)
So, a bit of feedback and findings:
* The 32-bit build has some rather janky rendering issues; textures don't render properly on the outdoor scenes in the opening room (where the robot receptionist is), and there are also clipping issues where I could walk right out of the map.
* Additionally, music playback doesn't work in the 32-bit build.
* The 64-bit build has no issues with music playback, but some textures aren't rendering correctly. An example would be the paintings in the hallway leading to the cleansing pool; they render with a dark grey texture pasted right on top that obscures the paintings until you practically stick your face onto them. Likewise, the textures in the cleansing pool room itself render a little strange; the back wall renders as a black void or sorts, with only the door frame visible. The cleansing pool also has a couple of funky issues with rendering as you descend, where you can see the outline of the pool's shape above you rendered in black, which vanishes about a third of the way down through the pool.
The testing machine is a custom built box with the following specs:
* Asus Z97-AR motherboard
* Intel Core i7-4790K CPU, 4GHz
* 16GB RAM
* EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics card with 2GB GDDR5 RAM
* OS: Debian, sid (rolling release), 64-bit, currently with kernel 4.3.0-1-amd64.
Okay good to know. I'm aware of a number of the rendering quirks you mentioned, and the ones you mentioned in the 64-bit build are there in the windows builds as well. I'll attempt to address a few of them moving forward. I have no idea what causes the 32-bit linux build to have audio issues but I'll look into it.
Where were you able to get outside of the map?
Right in the beginning room when approaching the robot receptionist. While facing the robot, about a foot away, the rendering seems to freeze and I seem to be able to zoom right past the robot.
As a suggestion (if you haven't already), try using Ogg Vorbis encoding for the music files for Linux, as Vorbis is supported out of the box in most distros.
Not sure what's up with that spot, I'll look into it.
I can definitely make the music and audio all .ogg as well, but that one will take a bit of time.
Thanks for the comprehensive feedback! I hope you can still enjoy the experience amidst the weird issues.
So I wanted to test out the game before contributing money, and I'm glad I did. The concept of the game is beautiful, but the game lags too much. Any time there is a hint of progress being made, everything gets glitchy and stays that way for a solid 15 seconds. I love it, but I can't accomplish anything.
Apologies. Try running the game in the "Express" graphics setting. If that doesn't work, I may have some alternatives on their way.
Hey ! Appreciated the game unti I got stuck after jumping on the horse with the dubloons...
Oh! Okay, noted. I'll fix this for the next update. Sorry about that!
Incredible, I have only just downloaded it, but I will be buying two more copies for two devices. Love
o h y e s , please, thank you! again!!!!!
I really enjoyed the game and the textures were super trippy! If you ever need help with music or any type of ADR or FX let me know! keep it going!
This is probably one of the coolest games that I've ever played. The fact that it was based on an album and that you get to experience the visuals of the music is just fucking genius! You should seriously make more of this kind of stuff!
The kind words are appreciated. We plan on it!