Tower Toppler (From The Matty Matt Show #MAMA0112)
1988 (Atari 7800)

Nebulus was originally released in the UK in 1987
by Hewson for home computers. It was brought to
the states as Tower Toppler starting in 1988 by
US Gold and was ported to the 7800 in May of 1989.
It was also released for NES and Gameboy under the
name Castelian by Triffix Entertainment.
You are in a frog suit climbing up one of eight towers
to stop a mad scientist from controlling the
world from said towers. You can shoot your snowball
gun at certain enemies, or jump over them, but you
can’t do both at the same time. The Pro-Line joystick
may give you problems when controlling this game,
but if you own a standard one button Atari joystick,
you should have better control. Your time is limited,
and you must reach the top of the tower before
time expires. There are no bosses in this game,
so each level ends once you reach the top.
In between each level, you ride your submarine
and stun the fish that come your way in the bonus level.
This is a game I’ve sat on for almost a decade.
Reason being, it’s been wrapped up and I wanted to
unbox it on the air. Unfortunately, when I opened
the box, there were no manuals, warranty cards,
or Atari Advantage poster. I’m not sure if all
copies were like this, or if this was a later
run of the cart where Atari was being stingy
with the extras.
This game actually inspired level design in
other games such as Mickey Mania. Jon Burton
of Travelers Tales released a video directly
stating that the spinning tower in The
Mad Doctor Level was inspired by Nebulus.
A more recent example was in 2024’s
Princess Peach Showtime where, in The
Castle of Thorns stage, Swordfighter Peach
ascends a tower fighting off enemies.
Tower Toppler is a simple game with slightly
complicated controls. But one must remember,
this was originally developed for Commodore 64
and ZX Spectrum, and they had joysticks that
just had a single button, or joysticks that
had two buttons that functioned as one, so some
compromises had to be made. I don’t recommend
using the pro-line joystick that came with
your 7800, I recommend playing with the
regular Atari style joystick. In essence,
this is two games in one, a tower climbing game
and a shoot-em-up. The tower climbing elements
this game has have been improved upon in
later games, but this was still a fun
game to trace the roots of an interesting
game mechanic.