Celestale
Z'Wonder Battle
A tower defense built for ZEvent 2025 by Skytale, the team behind Celestale, and Pixel Crew
The streamers defend their castle against the troops of Alice in Wonderland. And every viewer donation strengthens the next wave. The more generous the community, the more intense the battle.
The studio's most accomplished production
A game built for the largest French-speaking charity marathon, where the donation is not a side feature but the very engine of the game. And the most complete demonstration to date of our game editor.
The event recap
A cooperative tower defense
1 to 5 players defend a single castle together. At its heart, the chronosphere. When its health points reach zero, the game is lost. Everything plays out around this single point, over about 30 minutes.
10 waves, 5 levels
The streamers face 10 waves of troops. The power of each wave depends on the volume of donations received just before. A gauge fills, the wave appears, up to 5 difficulty levels.
An economy to manage
Each player starts with 1,000 coins, and the team earns 1,000 for each wave won. Enough to buy spells, place turrets, upgrade the castle. Gold helps make good choices, it doesn't buy victory.
Built for the live
A tight pace, short games, immediate readability. A viewer who arrives mid-game understands the action at a glance. The streaming format guided every decision.
Donations make the game
Every donation has a direct and immediate impact. The donor's name appears in the chat, and even in the name of the troops that surge forth. The more donations chain together, the more massive the next wave. To handle this real-time flow, we built a brick called Twitch Interact, plugged into the official ZEvent pot via Streamlabs Charity, and an AI-driven rebalancing so the impact stays fair whatever the size of the community.
Built in 2.5 months
The game started from a blank page, with a very short window between approval and the ZEvent. Rather than starting from an idea, the team started from its tool: squeeze the most out of the Skytale Map Editor, and iterate relentlessly until the very last evening.
One night to reinvent everything
A month before the event, the first concept, a 1-vs-1-vs-1, was judged too complex for the live. In one night, the game was reimagined as a cooperative tower defense, reusing nearly 80% of the sets and models already produced.
Tested every day
A playable build every evening, solo or 5-player, to hunt down bugs and refine the balance. The game was tweaked until the eve of the event, and held up even with 2, 3 or 4 players thanks to on-the-fly rebalancing.
Plug and play
Installed in seconds on the standard version of Minecraft, with no dedicated launcher. A tutorial slipped into the intro cinematic makes the game clear in 30 seconds, for viewer and streamer alike.
Alice's world, tailored for the live
An imagination everyone knows, vivid colours, immediately identifiable silhouettes. Each troop stands out with a clear shape and a readable role, so the action is understood whenever you join the stream.
Hot-air Balloon
Piloted by the rabbit, it forces you to tend to your anti-air defence.
Butterfly
Fragile but essential, it heals the troops around it and prolongs the assaults.
Deck of Cards
A flying deck that regularly summons extra minions.
Alice
A health-point sponge automaton that shrinks and speeds up as it weakens.
Card Minions
Loyal to their queen, they make up the bulk of the waves.
Chess Rook
Massive and slow, it advances and protects the troops behind it.
Teapot
Launched at full speed, with one single goal, to reach the castle.
Hatter
Mad, fast, flying on his jetpack, hard to intercept.
Caterpillar
A hookah-smoking snail, slow but precious, that speeds up nearby troops.
The 2,000-entity challenge
Minecraft drops off beyond about 2,000 entities, and each joint of a model counts as an entity. With waves reaching 600 animated troops, we had to be clever to preserve Alice's identity without overloading the player's machine.
1 entityOne teapot, one single entity
Reduced to a single animated element, it darts toward the castle without costing performance. The most radical trick in the bestiary.
A hatter that flies
His jetpack spares us from animating his arms: we keep his mad silhouette for a fraction of the joint budget.
Spells, turrets and castle
The defensive setup is built freely along the lane. Each element has its timing, its cost and its zone of effect. It's the composition that decides the team's resistance.
4 spells
4 turrets
The castle grows
As donations pile up, the team upgrades its castle. Each tier transforms it on screen, taller, more armed, until it's crowned with the Queen's heart, and strengthens the chronosphere, its beating core, just as much.
The starting keep
A compact fortress. The chronosphere is exposed: every troop that gets through chips away at it.
The reinforced fortress
Upgrades raise the towers and ramparts. The defence gains reach, the chronosphere gains health.
The crowned castle
At the top, the Queen's heart. The castle reaches full power and the chronosphere its maximum resistance.
The chronosphere, the heart of the castle
Everything hinges on a single point. The chronosphere's health decides the team's survival: when it hits zero, the game is lost. Every castle upgrade brings a global bonus, and strengthens its resistance.
The Skytale Map Editor showcase
Minecraft is not a game engine. To reach this level of finish, we mobilised our in-house editor, matured over 5 years. Z'Wonder Battle is its most complete demonstration to date, and turns Minecraft into a real space for interactive audiovisual production.
The weekend in pictures
Several leading streamers took the time to discover the game live despite a packed schedule.
Linca
TheGuill84
Julgane
Roi Louis
Golriver
Mathox
As2pik
Nikhof
Co-production & partners
Z'Wonder Battle is a Skytale and Pixel Crew co-production, with TheGuill84 as streamer ambassador, backed by technical partners.
An interactive game for your live stream? See our custom Minecraft experiences