Immortal Defense
Jun. 18th, 2007 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tuftearsI've made the acquaintance of a new genre of 'mini-games' lately that I find rather interesting - 'Tower Defense'. You build towers along a set path along which your enemies are forced to advance; your towers can hit the enemies, but they don't usually have the ability to hit you back. They attempt to get through the path to the end, where they can assault your undefended base/civilians/treasure; you try to destroy them all before they can overwhelm you with speed or numbers and strength.
A good introduction to the genre is David Scott's Flash Element TD. At first the struggle is merely to survive; then when you notice other people's high scores, you'll wonder my gosh, how did they get so many points? and start thinking about how to improve your score, by minimizing the amount you spend on your towers while still being able to defeat the enemy.
Turns out there's a space-based version of Tower Defense, Immortal Defense. It works an anime-styled story into the Tower Defense genre, neatly explaining why the enemies would move along the paths helplessly, unable to strike back against your towers.
In this variation of Tower Defense, you don't just defend your path with the towers you build - 'Points', or emanations of your willpower in Immortal Defense. Your very cursor itself is a mobile tower which can bombard the enemies rapidfire, or you can click the right mouse button to charge up a super attack, then release it.
You don't keep your Points from one mission to another; instead, you're given a set number of Points, different types, so in one, you might have several Circuit Points, which fire a destructive line between the nodes, in another you might have an assortment of Strategist Points, which do a percentage of an enemy's health instead of straight damage, making them weak against small ships, but strong against large ones. This reinforces the 'puzzle game' aspect of Tower Defense, where you need to figure out how to allocate your resources to beat the enemy.
The higher your score on finishing a mission, the more money you enter the next mission with, and your score is essentially reset between campaigns. If you replay a mission, you keep the highest score you achieved.
If you like puzzle games and real-time strategy games, this is a great combination! The demo gives you two of the six campaigns to play, and the full version costs $23, but you get a lot of gameplay out of just the demo.
A good introduction to the genre is David Scott's Flash Element TD. At first the struggle is merely to survive; then when you notice other people's high scores, you'll wonder my gosh, how did they get so many points? and start thinking about how to improve your score, by minimizing the amount you spend on your towers while still being able to defeat the enemy.
Turns out there's a space-based version of Tower Defense, Immortal Defense. It works an anime-styled story into the Tower Defense genre, neatly explaining why the enemies would move along the paths helplessly, unable to strike back against your towers.
In this variation of Tower Defense, you don't just defend your path with the towers you build - 'Points', or emanations of your willpower in Immortal Defense. Your very cursor itself is a mobile tower which can bombard the enemies rapidfire, or you can click the right mouse button to charge up a super attack, then release it.
You don't keep your Points from one mission to another; instead, you're given a set number of Points, different types, so in one, you might have several Circuit Points, which fire a destructive line between the nodes, in another you might have an assortment of Strategist Points, which do a percentage of an enemy's health instead of straight damage, making them weak against small ships, but strong against large ones. This reinforces the 'puzzle game' aspect of Tower Defense, where you need to figure out how to allocate your resources to beat the enemy.
The higher your score on finishing a mission, the more money you enter the next mission with, and your score is essentially reset between campaigns. If you replay a mission, you keep the highest score you achieved.
If you like puzzle games and real-time strategy games, this is a great combination! The demo gives you two of the six campaigns to play, and the full version costs $23, but you get a lot of gameplay out of just the demo.
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Date: 2007-06-18 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-20 11:20 pm (UTC)