A downloadable game

A couple years ago I wrote a Sega Genesis demo called Retail Clerk '89. I decided to try making a general-purpose adventure-adjacent game engine out of that code. Instead I created a demo specifically intended for speedrunning.

Speedrun Tower is set in a building with a confusing elevator system. The design is loosely described here.

Your goal is to reach the top floor and talk to your co-workers in the fewest steps possible. Unless of course your goal is to visit every floor or view every event in the fewest steps possible. There are four ending based on what events you completed along the way.

This demo was also an excuse to try different approaches for achieving pseudorandomness on the Sega Genesis.

Project Status

Sega Genesis version 1.0 is complete. That means:

  • Fully-playable demo that doesn't crash in any way I've found
  • Tested on real Sega Genesis model 1 hardware
  • So far no "unwinnable" game states have been produced - I don't know if I want to declare it "impossible" though
  • I do not plan any further changes to this version unless a breaking bug is found

I am very tempted to port this to other 68k platforms but there are no concrete plans. I am also tempted to port it to Sega CD but again nothing concrete.

Project homepage: https://huguesjohnson.com/speedrun-tower/

Source code: https://github.com/huguesjohnson/speedrun-tower/

Please report any issues through the Github page.

Download

Download
SpeedrunTower.zip 88 kB

Install instructions

This is a .bin file that should run on any Sega Genesis emulator. It also runs on real Sega Genesis hardware if you have an Everdrive or equivalent. Your mileage may vary on clone systems.