# Tower Defense Games A Review



## MA-Caver (Jun 28, 2008)

Does anyone else play these type of strategy games? Where you have a line of monsters/creeps/whatever! marching down a crooked path towards a base and you build towers along the path that shoot/freeze/electrify/whatever! until the monster/creep/whatever is dead/destroyed and you earn points/coins/mana from it? 
I discovered this (new??) type of game about a month ago. Been playing several variants with increasing frustration not enjoyment. Either I'm doing the game wrong or the designers/creators are skewed in their concept of how the games should be won/played. 
Almost all of them have the skewed concept of spending more than you earn. Meaning every time you buy something it goes up in price the next time you buy it but you still earn the same amount each time you kill something. So basically you can't catch up. 
They also have a problem with making the monsters/creeps/whatever increasingly powerful each time they come out. Well that's okay but not if whatever tower you have with whatever attributes can't make a "dent" in the creature/monster/creep's armor everytime it's hit because you're waiting for the money/mana/points to add up so you can upgrade, yet by the time you get there you spend so much on the upgrade you can only do one tower at a time until you earn X amount (which is larger this time remember) again... meanwhile the monsters/creeps/whatever march closer to their destination. 

These games are potentially a lot of fun but they can get very frustrating the higher levels you achieve. Worst of all... there's no way to contact the designers/creators of these games to let them know how skewed their games can be. Or like I said, maybe I'm just not playing them the way they're meant to be played. :idunno: 

Here are a few that I've played check 'em out. All of them have the spend more than you earn concept however. 

*Flash Element TD :* http://www.pog.com/games/Flash_Element_TD This is an alright game but it's only weakness is that once you beat the final boss that's it. Otherwise if you're bored you can try different configurations just for the fun of it. 

*Flash Circle TD : *http://www.candystand.com/play.do;jsessionid=B117D0F58DF88F8B2B38A19587526B36?id=17995 the novelty of this particular one is that the monsters/creeps go around and around in a circle until they're dead and the object is to keep the number to less than 100 or game's over. Only once have I gotten to level 75 and I can't remember how the heck I did THAT! Basically I average til level +/-35 before the fateful 100 number is reached. 

*Gem Craft: *http://armorgames.com/play/1716/gemcraft This one had to been created by those designers who love playing the Diablo or Warcraft type games since this time around you're a wizard and you make towers and place different colored/powered gems/jewels on them and kill the monsters that threaten your existence. Nice part of this is that each level changes and you can go back and play older levels to build up your score/skill level, but it too is hampered by the spend more than you earn concept. At present I'm "stuck" on level 40 because the end boss at that level has something like 10,000 hit points and my towers are only shooting 14-50 strength shots at a time... do the math. 

*Tower Defense Games:* http://www.freewaregames.net/towerdefense.asp this link has a whole slew of various types of these tdg's Probably the best one is *Master Of Defense* which has great eye-candy, various views and neat upgrades... drawback to it is on the freeware version you can only play up to an hour and then have to buy the "full-version"... considering the quality of the game it'd probably be worth it. It's spend more than you earn concept isn't as radical as the others however.
The site also offers older versions and it's variants. Some are try before you buy and others are simple types of TDG's. 

If anyone plays these I'd like to hear your take on it... and suggestions on others that I haven't mentioned. If you know the secret behind these suckers then by all means share. 
I like them but am getting frustrated with them. They, like I said have lots of potential to be a fun-engaging game... but presently they're written to be impossible to win. ... and that's no fun.


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## Sukerkin (Jun 28, 2008)

I'm sorry I can't help you mate.  I can just lend my moral support to the soapbox that game designers have forgotten how to make games fun rather than just hard.

The increase in hardware capability and engine ease of use seems to have resulted in a panoply of pretty games with no actual game-play to speak of.


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## tahuti (Jun 28, 2008)

Have you tried http://www.kongregate.com/games/undefined/protector

Regarding epic bosses in GemCraft, purple, cyan and green are your friend. Poison is stackable, and cyan keeps boss in place and purple decreses armor when armor drops from over 100 to 15 your other gems actually start dealing damage. Spread some towers around so that boss is at least on 1-2 passes continuosly hit by them, so when armor goes down start dropping bombs and use your damage gems. 
First 10 waves you increase mana to 5k, add some towers, gems still increasing mana pool, goal is to have at least 2x banishment of boss, should be above 7k per pass if you don't have armor, 10 waves before boss, start saving mana.


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