I searched for Gemcraft on my phone today, thanks to this thread, and discovered it’s not available. Advocating for a TD game that’s only available on iOS devices? You guys are jerks!
An older game, but the Fieldrunners series needs to be on here. It’s got pretty much all the “classic” TD elements: both open and closed pathing, upgradable towers, multiple creep types, etc.
I’ll also vouch for Kingdom Rush, and Defense Grid. Both wonderful.
The iOS version isn’t quite the same as the real version, at least by the looks of it. Plus last time I looked it had been updated in a long time. You want the PC version, Chasing Shadows. I think I picked it up last Steam winter sale for about $.99. I have somewhere around 180 hours in it, so it has been one heck of a good value for me.
It is one of those games you have to stick with. First hour or two it looks and feels like a poorly done TD game that is trying to be overly complicated. It eventually clicks and becomes completely addicting.
You can get the latest one on Steam too! I believe the older ones were all on Kongregate? Really fun series.
I’ve played Defenders Quest all the way through and it was really excellent. In the more traditional style TD games the one I’ve probably spent the most time with is Prime World Defenders. The system just really clicked with me and it’s a real pretty game to boot.
I’d love to see more games in the Sanctum/Orcs Must Die/Dungeon Defenders style. I really enjoy setting up the path then getting in there and helping out.
I will follow w this thread carefully, I am a sucker for a good TR game. I too have played more games of Plants vs Zombies than I could say - I own the game on just about every platform it’s available on. Also huge fan of the Defense Grid games, and played a ton of Kingdom Rush on my iPad. I actually own Unstoppable Gorgeous and Orcs Must Die but played neither, yet, and never heard of Gemcraft. Love to hear more!
Thanks for the update, perhaps I need to give it another shot. But at its low I found it such an insult to the original that I couldn’t help but give up on it.
I admit, I usually don’t like tower defense…unless you mix it with something, like TD along with a shmup:
Or TD along with an ARPG:
Both of which I’ve had a ton of fun with, FYI. Especially Deathtrap.
I downloaded this & have played about 15 of the levels so far. They’ve definitely got the TD genre down. I like the sounds and the maps. There’s quite of variety. It’s also pretty darn hard! One level was impossible w/out the harpoon - I banged my head against it, gave up & went & did other levels, got the harpoon and then re-tried it. So much easier.
Nice find. Thanks for the recommendation!
Another convert. Thank you for the heads up on the sale too.
I am a fan of the StarCraft 2 mod Tower Defense Tycoon. Great fun
The Kingdom Rush series is the Kohan 2 of TD games. It streamlines the gameplay by narrowing your choices - four towers with two upgrade paths each, plus a single hero of your choice - but in so doing it helps keep you focused on your overall strategy. In particular, having static tower positions means you aren’t trying to fine-tune tower placements, which I am grateful for, especially on a touchscreen.
I might have to look into this. I picked up SC2 when it was on sale a while ago, and lost interest at the first map. But this reminds me of the Elements TD mod for Warcraft 3 that I really liked, and had forgotten about til now.
Well, I like Sang Froid - Tale of Werewolves a lot, and it sort of qualifies as Tower Defense. They really should get around to making the sequel. “Cough, cough” Anyway, I’m also going to point out I’ve started a run through the game without using any melee, so it’s even more Tower Defense now! I should get around to finishing it, I’m halfway there, but it is getting pretty darn hard.
Even though I loved Sang Froid’s concept, I gave up on it quite early. The whole thing got just too frantic too soon. IIRC there is a big difficulty spike around the moment the towers are introduced and you have to zip across the landscape with barely time to catch your breath.
Dungeon Warfare is $4 on iOS. Works really well on an iPad. So far pretty fun as well.
I bought it on both PC and iOS. So far I like it better on my iPad due to the controls and the actual size of everything on my PC. Either it is too big or the screen is too small. I may refund it on the PC.
I did notice that a new trap will be made available and then after I try it I will get a message on the next map that I now have the new trap. Seems like the timing of the new trap notification is off (I noticed this on the iOS version).
The game is a bit hard. Some of the maps do not allow a good setup using the crates in my experimentation to this point.
Anyone have a strategy to deal with those exploding dwarves. I hate them. :)
I do not understand how to use that javelin trap? It seems to hold them in place? Maybe I need to have it opposite one of the darts. Now I have to go back to the game and try that out.
The javelin trap (I think you mean the harpoon one?) actually pulls the enemy toward them. The opposite of the push wall one, but limited to a target at a time. They are super useful, and can interrupt each others actions (though it may be useful to pull heavier foes that way).
For the exploding dwarves, you got multiple work arounds:
- the simplest is to let them blow the crate up then repair the damage by upgrading it. A bit expensive though;
- another one is to simply put down some recharging traps on the way to the blocking crates, as other spawns won’t venture astray from the main path;
- or you could lay down upon them a crate, which will explode them nicely;
- but my favorite way is to set up the blocking crates in a nice pattern (nothing can cross diagonals, so you can use that to your avantage to create unintuitive zig-zag road blocks which will be much less susceptible to the explosion’s area of effect), and to put a couple of the aforementionned javelin trap on the way. They are very cheap and they will pull the suicide dwarves out of the way very quickly and neatly if you got the hole in the floor to go with it.
I like this game a lot :D
Yes, I meant the harpoon trap!
I agree the game is fun and does seem feel like a full tower defense version of Orcs Must Die. I always wished for a way to only use traps in both OMD1 & 2 and this fits the bill.
Is there an endless version? I think I saw something in the menu somewhere.
Thanks to @Tman for creating this thread. I also love TD games and had never heard of this particular game.
I also liked Deathtrap but I found that it hurt my wrist to play why using my mouse to control my character.
You can run each level in endless mode by activating the last rune on the level set-up.
You need to complete the level with at least 4 runes to unlock endless.
I’ve found endless, at least at my pitiful level (whatever that is), to be very difficult. I see all these pictures online with all these cool traps which I don’t have. Of course, you need to grind to level up and get more jewels to upgrade your traps.
This is really well done. It’s like Gemcraft and Orcs must die had a baby.
Very challenging!