I liked it quite a bit. The builds are meaningful and have you play differently.
No idea, but it was designed for stylus, so should translate to touch reasonably well.
So I somehow missed the news that Dungeon Warfare 2 was out - Scrolling back through, @Bernie_Dy did their best in trying to get the word out.
So I bought it and have been immersed for the last several days. It’s got the same charm, the same challenging maps with so many different features, and even has random map generators now.
And it’s still pretty tough - so many things to choose from early on, you’re not sure where to start. I asked some q’s on the steam forums, that helped a lot.
It sure seems to be evolving into the complexity of Gemcraft with runes to increase XP, modifiers and a complete skill tree that has 3 primary branches!
Great game if you haven’t already picked it up.
Yup. I got it during the sale I linked and I’ve been sucked into its world. Early on it is tough, it’s really a game that rewards grindng to level up, which I have mixed feelings about. I prefer the Defense Grid approach where you have everything and it’s about the strategy of how you want to build towers, but it’s still pretty engaging and once you’ve gotten a few of your favorite traps leveled up it gets more fun.
It’s definitely bigger than the first game, and yes, much more Gemcraft like.
Just catching up in this thread. Wow, so Gemcraft is even better than Defense Grid and the Kingdom Rush games? I’ll have to check it out.
Hmmm, it has a low rating on the Google Play Store compared to other games. Only 3.2 stars overall. Maybe this is better on PC, not on the phone?
Edit: Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam seems to bear this theory out. Probably designed for PC/mouse/keyboard. not touchscreen.
The mobile game is basically a very light version from what I understand. Not really the same game.
I also dug further into the negative reviews and discovered that the mobile game is free to play, with lots of ads. So that’s another reason for the negative reviews. I looked around, and there’s no pay version that you can buy on android. It’s either free to play with ads, or nothing.
I’m not sure I’d say it’s better, because it’s quite different, but it is one of the top 10 IMO.
You might want to check out the GemCraft thread here on QT3 for some good intro & starter tips.
As I understood it when I looked into mobile Gemcraft years ago, the mobile version was licensed out to some random unknown dev, which proved to be an ill-advised move.
Oh wow, I remember that thread now. I remember thinking that game sounded way too complicated for me. Hmmm. Maybe it’s a good tower defense game, but just not for me. I have to admit, I have associated with tower defense games the feeling of a laid-back stress free activity, and maybe that’s not an association I should hold onto.
Heheh, yeah, same here. I’m always trying to find the easy cheap solution, as befitting a laid back stress free game, so of course I usually tried all machine guns in Defense Grid on many maps, but was unsuccessful. I’m guess @Infested_terran only tried the early maps. That also explains why he didn’t think Defense Grid had any turret-maze gameplay (since that happens later in the game).
I don’t think so. I prefer less grind.
I bounced off Gemcraft the few times I’ve tried it, my eyes dislike the graphics immensely.
Gemcraft can be as laid-back and stress free as you want. One of the things it does better than any tower defense game I’ve ever played is let you manage your own risk/reward level, and it does it on two levels. First at the point where you set up your game, and second as you’re playing. If you want a laid-back experience, this is your huckleberry.
The complexity, however, might still be an issue. It definitely rewards players who want to get down into the weeds with numbers and optimization and min/maxxing.
That’s definitely where it best earns its indie cred. :)
-Tom
You don’t need to grind though. Level too hard? There are about 30 more to choose from at any given time, and as Tom said, you can adjust the difficulty and find your sweet spot.
Maybe I’m confusing it with another one. I thought this was one of the ones where you probably can’t get the max rating on your first try and you need to come back after unlocking stuff. Is that Dungeon Warfare?
Yep, that’s not Gemcraft. You get experience and fragments, not a rating. Experience is multiplied by your difficulty setting, which has multiple variables you can change.
Geez it’s been ten years since I’ve played it cut me some slack if I don’t remember the level layouts.
I specifically remember blazing through the campaign on 85% machine gun towers (slow towers on wide turns and AA on flight paths were the only exceptions). In fact, it was the later levels I was stuck on until I scrapped tower variety and just went all in on machine guns. The end-game was a breeze once I did that. I think it was the later level waves began changing up enemies so often that several different types of specialized towers became an inferior choice to the general purpose machine guns.
Maybe they’ve made changes and rebalanced stuff since 2009?
Massed concussion towers, cannons and a few AA will get you through any level on DG.
All this talk got me back plying DG this morning. Started over with the story and don’t really remember any of the maps. I like using a mix of towers rather than just spamming “the best” ones.