Tower Defense Games
Ok so maybe I am behind the times, but I've first started hearing about this genre over the last few months. Reviews of Ninja Town and PixelJunk Monsters call them "tower defense" games. So two questions:
1. What are the basic features of the genre?
2. What are the most famous tower defense games? (I'm wondering if I've played one and just not known it!)
1. Games where you build towers, trying to keep a stream of enemies from getting across the field to some goal by killing them with your towers. In some games you build mazes of towers, to route them around; in others you build along the sides of a preset path the monsters follow. You can generally build different types of towers and upgrade your towers in some way.Originally Posted by backguard
2. The genre started with user UMS Starcraft maps back in 1998 or 1999. As a huge Blizzard and Starcraft fan, that's where I started playing them. The Starcraft map editor was the best ever in an RTS game up to that time (and still has only been exceeded by Warcraft III's), and with its great power people began to make a lot of interesting types of games, many with nothing in common with the gameplay of the base RTS. Tower Defense was one of those. Starcraft TD (or Lurker D, for ones where you used lurkers instead of towers)) maps generally had one life -- that is, if only ONE monster got through, you lose. Needless to say, they were very, very hard to finish. They were all team games, where a team of players work together to try to keep the enemies from getting through. The genre stayed popular after the release of Warcraft III, and WC3 has a lot of fantastic TD types out there. Warcraft III TD maps began giving you multiple lives, a nice addition... though the difficulty levels stayed high.Also the number of types proliferated, including various types of both co-op and competitive styles. It was only some time after this that the genre started to see releases outside of Blizzard RTS multiplayer... and now there are lots of them, from free web games to handheld games to major console titles to PC retail releases. But for the best variety and the best gameplay, I'd still go with Warcraft III (+TFT) for sure.
My favorite Flash version is this one... it is pretty addictive. http://www.casualcollective.com/#games/DesktopTD
Last edited by A Black Falcon; 03-31-2009 at 09:16 PM.
Makes sense -- so there probably weren't any NES or SNES tower defense games? Is there anything for the PS1 or other consoles?
Some people say that they consider Rampart (the classic Atari Games arcade game that's been on many platforms) a TD game, but I don't really myself... it has some of the elements of one, for sure (you're defending stuff from waves of attacking enemies, using only static defenses), but it's also different in important ways (the Tetris-style wall building, the arcadey cannon shooting, etc). Aside from that, though, there's only current-gen stuff -- PixelJunk Monsters on PS3, Lock's Quest on DS, some retail PC games, etc. Most are SC/WC3 maps or flash games. But for older consoles, Rampart's the closest you will get.
Last edited by A Black Falcon; 03-31-2009 at 09:17 PM.
I'm glad someone asked this, I've seen that genre mentioned a couple of times in recent weeks and was wondering what it was. It sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
For me, TD games are one of my favorite genres. That's all I played on StarCraft. Anyone remember Dirty Tank D or Dirty Cannon D...I was shocked when someone actually figured out how to do that in StarCraft UMS.
Crystal Defenders is the new Final Fantasy Tactics themed "tower defense" game. I just saw it's available on PSN now (in addition to XBLA). I thought PJM was pretty fun, but I'd rather play the FF version with familiar characters/units/items etc.
"One of the ways I gauge a DS game is by recharges. "...Tycho (Penny Arcade)
Yeah I played the demo for crystal defenders. Was good but PJM I thought was way better.
I was ADDICTED to this game. Try this one.
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