Here there be Tower Defense discussion

You get the 4 game+soundtrack pack for the same price

bought it anyway, even if it does look like a C64 tower defence game.

edit: plays like one too, but at 40p im not going to complain

edit2: a whole pack of 8-bit games, and really basic 1st gen ones at that.

I bought the pack. The graphics look terrible, but I’m amused enough by the premise. I hope it has a decent soundtrack

This is out of early access. It looks like it uses free to play as a type of extended demo, and then you can buy the rest of it later. I’ve just played through the tutorial area. Game loop is gather resources -> upgrade stuff (equipment, defenses, etc) -> defend base to open more upgrades.

Resources are gathered in the world and respawn. Plants, minerals, mobs all have stuff you need.

Base defense uses towers and you augment them by running around helping. Not sure if it can be done with towers only. Combat is simple, but I did run into a creature that required me to dodge a bit. You can drop down towers while in the world gathering resources to help with more difficult encounters.

I need to give it more time before I know if I like it or not. But since the beginning is free, I suppose that only costs time. :)

I had this on my wishlist - interesting to see it’s going FTP. I typically don’t like those b/c of the grind. I’m gone this weekend - so will try it next week.

I look forward to more of your impressions.

Played it a bit more, and it isn’t grabbing me. The mobs attack the towers and when the tower is destroyed it is gone (you have to craft a new one). There doesn’t appear to be any way to have a tower that isn’t attacked. For every enemy path, I believe the idea is to create a single choke point with a bunch of towers (rather than having towers along the way that weaken the mobs).

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-07-19-wicca-is-tower-defense-with-witches-and-time-travel-and-a-tree-that-kills-people

They awesome developers.

Any new Steam Tower defense games people have tried/recommend?

Was this ever mentioned?

I saw @BrianRubin seemed to like the hour he played of it.

I’ve enjoyed what I played of it and keep meaning to go back to it.

I guess this just came out of early access. From the Ashes of Singularity and Sins of a Solar Empire people.

Well it looks like both @lordkosc and @Effidian have it, so they should be reporting in on how good it is!

Re Siege of Centauri

You plonk down towers in the areas and you just drop any old tower down and it doesnt seem to make much difference what you choose as long as you mix it up by the end. You just cluster buildings in the islands surrounded by the most paths and they kill the mobs.

I’m not to keen on split pathing in TD games, at least to the extent the map looks like a maze, which most of these do.

Im playing normal mode, and will up the difficulty, but so far I’ve only lost once. Despite not really doing much in each game with regards to planning, strategy, thoughtful builds etc.

but its still pretty and polished, the maps dont take too long so favours casual play. Its one of those games I can play and watch telly at the same time. It’s not a regretful purchase but its not the best TD Ive played.

I just want a TD where you actually make decisions. Too many of them fall into the category of “one tower to rule them all” and you can get away with mostly just placing one kind of tower (Defense Grid, Kingdom Rush, MarZ).

Then there’s the other kind I don’t care for: the hybrid TD/action game. In every instance I’ve tried one, each aspect compromises the other and you’re left with a middling action portion meets a middling TD portion. I really wish the X-Morph guys would get a competent designer on their team because that game is a visual marvel that runs like a dream (marred by the very worst flaws of the genre).

I didn’t find that to be true in either of those games. I always found them to be about finding the right ratio depending on the level. And defense Grid is much more about building the right path. Of course I may not be any good at those games and never realized there was one dominant tower type.

I agree! Maybe it depends on the difficulty level.

There wasn’t any path building in Defense Grid that I remember? You just placed towers along shelves next to the paths.

Machine gun towers dominated everything. You did much better as soon as you ditched everything else and just built machine gun towers. An occasional slow tower for long turns/corners, and an anti-air tower or two along a heavy air path.

Kingdom Rush there was very little reason to build anything but the arrow towers. They would upgrade into something that could tackle every enemy type, and even packed a root/slow.

I am not sure about DG1 , but I know in DG2 you could re-route enemies by blocking paths with your towers.

It depended on the level, but quite a few (the best ones, to my mind) allowed pathing control by blocking paths with towers.

The later levels in DG1 were mostly path finding missions if I remember right.

Also you would have been destroyed doing only MG in both the DGs. They can’t handle swarms and don’t do enough damage to the flyers and heavy stuff.