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The Tower on Raspberry Pi

Created September 29, 2025 at 09:05 AM223 views

The Tower on Raspberry Pi

The problem:

The Tower needs to run 24/7 to collect resources and progress in the game. Doing this on your main phone will not only kill battery health, but also constantly overheat the phone, require you to always have a charger nearby, and just occupy your phone in general. This is a nuisance.

Solutions:

  • Spare phone:
    Today many people use a spare phone to run The Tower and bring this extra phone with them everywhere, to interact with the game.
  • Windows computer with android emulator:
    Alternatively, people use their personal computer to run the tower through an emulator such as Bluestacks, MuMu, LDplayer, or Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA). Then to interact with the game when you’re on-the-go, they remote into their computer with something like Chrome Remote Desktop.
  • Mac Mini (or similar):
    MacOS allows running the iOS version of the game natively on the computer, meaning no overhead from an emulator. You could then remote into the computer with the Screen Sharing app, or Apple Remote Desktop.
  • Cloud hosted android emulator (eg. LDCloud):
    LDCloud offers a subscription-based model where they will host The Tower and you can access it through an app. This way the game keeps running permanently.

Considerations:

All the above solutions have drawbacks.

  • Using a spare phone requires you to bring it everywhere with you, ensure it is constantly charged, that the screen is never turned off, and that it doesn’t overheat in your pocket.
  • Using a computer (windows or mac) will permanently occupy that machine, while also having a significant power consumption of running it 24/7.
  • Cloud hosting requires you to spend money on a subscription in a world where we already have way too many subscription-based services, while also taking away your ability to control your environment.

My solution (after being inspired by another r/TheTower user - thanks!) is to instead run the game from a Raspberry Pi. They are relatively cheap (around 150$ for a full setup), and you could always repurpose the Pi to be used for something else if you ever get tired of playing The Tower. The Pi will use only around 5-10W, as opposed to a windows laptop potentially using around 50-80W.

After setting up the Pi, it only needs to be connected to a power supply and have access to a Wi-Fi, then you can run it headless (operating without monitor, keyboard, or mouse) and remote into it for accessing the game.

For anyone convinced by the above, below I have written a guide on how to set up a Raspberry Pi 5 to run The Tower.

What you’ll need:

Links with examples for a US reseller. Total cost in this example $146.75

Additional temporary needs:

  • Monitor with HDMI input
  • Micro-HDMI to HDMI cable
  • Mouse and keyboard
  • Ethernet cable with internet access

Overview:

You will need to perform the following steps to make your Pi run The Tower.

  1. Install Raspberry Pi OS on your SSD
  2. Install Waydroid (a Linux-based android emulator)
  3. Configure Waydroid to run The Tower
  4. Set up VNC to remote into the Pi
  5. Set up a VPN to connect remotely outside your local network

Raspberry Pi OS:

  • Attach your NVMe SSD to the Pi with the M.2 HAT.
  • Plug in a monitor, mouse, keyboard and ethernet cable.
  • Then connect a power cable to the Pi. Hold down shift on the keyboard while powering on. The bootloader should fetch Raspberry Pi Imager over the network and show it on your screen.
    • Choose “Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit)”
    • Storage should be your NVMe SSD
  • Now you can set up your locale, connect to Wi-Fi and run any needed updates

Installing Waydroid:

Follow this guide to install and configure Waydroid: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-waydroid/

Configuring Waydroid to run The Tower:

  • Initially, the device will not be certified by Google Play Protect and thus you cannot install anything from Google Play Store.
    Follow this guide to fix that: https://docs.waydro.id/faq/google-play-certification
  • Install The Tower on Google Play Store.
  • Initially, there a problem with collecting floating gems as touch isn’t registered correctly. You can fix that by opening a terminal and executing the following while Waydroid is running.
  • Reboot the Pi

Remote access with VNC:

Install WayVNC: Run the following in the terminal

sudo apt update
sudo apt install wayvnc
sudo systemctl enable --now wayvnc
BASH

To make the Pi simulate a screen plugged in, even when you’re running headless, you need to do the following.
• In a terminal, write: sudo nano /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt
• In the file that opens, append the following to the end of the line: video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60D
• Save the file by pressing CTRL+X

You can find the IP of your Pi on the local network by writing hostname -I in the terminal.

You can now connect to the Pi on your local network from a VNC viewer, such as RVNC Viewer (available for iOS/Android/Windows) https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/download/viewer/.

To connect locally, add the following config:
IP: The IP you get from hostname -I
Port: 5900
User: your Pi’s OS login username
Password: your Pi’s OS login password

Remote access outside your local network:

An easy way to access your Pi outside your local network, is setting up a private VPN – I have used Tailscale for that (free for personal use)

In a terminal write the following. The second command will prompt you to create a tailscale account that you will need to login from your controlling device (phone/computer) as well.

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up
sudo systemctl enable --now tailscaled
BASH

Run the following command in the terminal to find your tailscale IP address on your Pi: tailscale ip -4

Now, install the Tailscale app on your phone/computer (android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tailscale.ipn), and login with the same account. Connect to your private VPN in the app, and then setup a configuration for your pi in RVNC Viewer
IP: The IP you get from tailscale ip -4
Port: 5900
User: your Pi’s OS login username
Password: your Pi’s OS login password

You will only be able to connect to this VNC configuration while the Tailscale VPN is active – but you can of course deactivate Tailscale when you’re not remoting in.

Final notes

That should be everything. You should now be able to unplug everything except your power supply from the Pi and access it remotely for running The Tower.

For remoting in from your phone: If you don't like the approach RVNC viewer is using of moving a mouse cursor around and then clicking, the app AVNC supports a touch-based control. I personally use both, depending on whether I need precision or not.

Document Information

Document ID:bb7743
Created:September 29, 2025 at 09:05 AM
Last Modified:September 29, 2025 at 04:10 PM
Visibility:public
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