Is Defender Chronicles the best tower defense game of all time? Of all time!

I think so!

Firstly, you guys add “tomchick” to your OpenFeint accounts so you can see my awesome Gamerscore for this game’s achievements. Okay, it’s not awesome now, but it will be. I like this game for many of the same reasons I like Patapon 2 and it’s probably sucked up more iPhone battery life than any other game.

In the interest of addressing some interface complaints Hugin raised in the monstar iPhone games thread, I’d like to kick off this thread with a few responses.

What the extra click gains you is the ability to play on the iPhone. If you didn’t have that extra confirmation click for building or upgrading, you’d be accidentally building and upgrading defenders all over the place when you’re just trying to scroll the map. It’s a matter of basic functionality on the iPhone and there’s no way around it. So suck it up and get into the groove of quickly tap-tap-tapping to build and upgrade. It’s not hard.

The game rewards you when you lose or quit out of a mission, so it’s assuming you want to actually log your earnings before starting a new game. This is pretty much how any game works when it gives you xp rewards.

Since many of the maps span several screens, even when zoomed all the way out, it seems perfectly reasonable to show you the point of greatest danger when you’re starting a level. Where would you have the camera start?

Also, the enemies aren’t “milling around” for no reason. That’s where you look to check the composition of the next wave. They’re staging down there so you know what’s coming.

As I said in the other thread, that’s okay if you don’t like the game. But you’re missing a totally sweet forest for a couple of inconsequential interface trees.

-Tom

I just picked this up. Hopefully I can get some time in tonight.

You just sold me a game. (and I only entered this thread to roll my eyes at the tired Kanye reference)

It’s not a Kanye reference if Tom didn’t tell Fieldrunners he was going to let it finish.

Also, Kanye references will never be tired. cf. battle dancing, fucking that chicken, thanking Arthur, and not showing me that at this point in time.

 -Tom

I so missed a sale and am patiently waiting for another. $5! Madness!

This is demonstrably untrue. Other TD games on the iPhone (Tower Madness, Sentinel, Fieldrunners, Seven Cities, etc) allow for both screen scrolling/resizing and 2-click upgrading with no problem. The iPhone (I don’t know if this is coded on a per-app basis or is inherent to the touchscreen tech) is actually really good at discerning the difference between touches to swipe and touches to click on something, as you can also note if you use the web browser.

The game rewards you when you lose or quit out of a mission, so it’s assuming you want to actually log your earnings before starting a new game. This is pretty much how any game works when it gives you xp rewards.

If I want to cash in XP rewards from an aborted run, that could easily be a menu option, just like they give to let you go to the main menu. But as a practical matter, if I want a quick restart a handful of XPs from the previous run aren’t going to make a difference most of the time. I’d rather not have to go through 4 screens minimum just to restart a level.

Since many of the maps span several screens, even when zoomed all the way out, it seems perfectly reasonable to show you the point of greatest danger when you’re starting a level. Where would you have the camera start?

I already know the point of greatest danger, it’s where the red arrows and the milling dudes are. It’s just a pet peeve of mine, when the camera for map based games forces a zoom in to a point beyond what’s normally playable.

Also, the enemies aren’t “milling around” for no reason. That’s where you look to check the composition of the next wave. They’re staging down there so you know what’s coming.

Yes? I didn’t complain about the milling around. As you say, it functions as the “next wave” box for this game.

As I said in the other thread, that’s okay if you don’t like the game. But you’re missing a totally sweet forest for a couple of inconsequential interface trees.

And again: I’ve told you twice now I don’t think it’s a terrible game. I just don’t see what’s exceptional about it, and the clunkiness of the interface/presentation, (including as I mentioned before the difficulty of seeing how your Defenders are doing because of the obscuring view overlap, and having no way of knowing how many waves a level has, and the weird decision to make you pay for basic information about your own units) compared to the large number of other good quality TD games out there, makes it a game I wouldn’t bother to recommend, let alone praise as the best TD game I’ve ever played.

ETA: As a side note, is the headline in the review really meant to say “iPhone: the best tower defense game on any platform”, instead of “Defender Chronicles: the best tower defense game on any platform.”?

To me it sort of reads like the game itself is named “iPhone”.

I suck at this game. Can someone give me some basic strategy tips? I was able to make it past the first 2-3 maps, but now I just get slaughtered.

Am I supposed to pause the game, look at what’s coming, then tear down my towers and replace them with needed ones? I spend so much money upgrading them, it seems like a bad strategy.

For instance, I find that I have to balance my archer towers with my knight towers so I can deal with any threat. Eventually, there will be a huge influx of slime. My knights are useless against this much slime. Should I then pause the game, rip down 5 of my level 5 knight towers and replace them with archer towers? Then when a tank wave comes, do the opposite?

Well, having read the entire review now:

  1. Pretty much the standard set of choices and decisions in the TD genre.

  2. Fast forward and pause aren’t quite universal features in TD games, but they’re awfully common.

  3. I won’t get into a big argument about visuals. Defender Chronicles has good ones.

  4. As you note, the previous 3 reasons aren’t saying much, given how common they are. Okay, the RPG stuff. Sure, that’s an interesting feature.

  5. State effects are also pretty common. Off the top of my head at least 4 other TD games I have on my iPhone right now feature them. And of course health bars are bog standard.

  6. I’d argue you can replay a level in just about any TD game in a variety of ways, changing up your strategies, but again, I’ll concede the RPG element stands out.

  7. The flip side of this is that the game is really grindy (something I didn’t notice when I was first playing it. It better reward you for every time you play it, because it requires you to play it over and over to earn the points you need to progress eventually. The RPG aspect giveth, the RPG aspect taketh away.

  8. Open Feint is just one of several social network/leaderboard/achievement type networks available for iPhone. Open Feint, Plus+, Crystal, AGON, Cystal, Gameloft, Scoreloop, etc. Open Feint and Plus+ are the big two right now. And several other TD games use one or another of them.

  9. See above. In general, score tracking and medals and whatnot are hardly unique.

  10. And one more time, lots of game get updates and additions. New units, new maps, new gameplay modes, and of course bugfixes and balance tweaks.

None of your reasons make Defender Chronicles a bad game, but almost none of your reasons make Defender Chronicles stand out particularly either. You seem to be pretty excited about stuff a lot of other games have. It comes off as if you don’t know too many TD games or don’t know the iPhone gaming scene all that well (well, this in conjunction with that really odd list of games you thought were supposed to be hot or recommended in the other thread that pretty much no one else knew or recommended).

ETA: Okay, having gone back, it seems you saw the feedback about those other iPhone games and took another pass and tried some other things you liked better, so forget the previous criticism. (Not that you have to like iPhone games, just that that first batch was odd to base the judgment on).

Tom, you’ve got numbers on your UniWar icon.

Hugin, the Defender Chronicles piece is part of an ongoing series about iPhone games. If you’d ever been to the site before, you would have seen that I routinely do recurring entries about particular games called “Game Diaries”.

Awesome. Please point me to these other replayable tower defense RPGs! I can’t wait to try them!

Yeah, I suppose I might have more nitpicky interface complaints – that don’t even make sense – if only I knew more tower defense games or the iPhone gaming scene.

 -Tom

Gotcha, it’s more of a category thing. No problem.

Awesome. Please point me to these other replayable tower defense RPGs! I can’t wait to try them!

Cute wording. I have no idea what you define as replayability. If you define it as “having RPG elements”, then of course Defender Chronicles stands alone. You gloss over that I said most of the other things you like about the game are pretty typical.

Yeah, I suppose I might have more nitpicky interface complaints – that don’t even make sense – if only I knew more tower defense games or the iPhone gaming scene.

-Tom

As I said, I noticed you went back and gave the scene another pass, so that particular criticism was withdrawn. Will you acknowlege that, nitpicky or not, your whole thing about “the third click is necessary to make it work on the iPhone” is just plain wrong?

Even worse, the Octalwar game is down to 0:00. Tom, that means we can skip you and ensure your doom, if we were so inclined.

Actually, what I’m glossing over is your strange misconception that I somehow think those things are unique to Defender Chronicles. It’s not a list of things no other tower defense game does. It’s a list of things that I like about the game that – taken together – make it stand out.

So you think they put an extra tap in there for giggles? Seriously? Or that they’re just clueless? Ah, the irony.

Tell you what, go play the game and imagine it doesn’t require a confirmation tap. I’ll wait. Go ahead. See for yourself.

Are you back? How did it go? Did you notice that if that confirmation tap wasn’t in there, you’d have accidentally built or upgraded a whole mess of buildings that you didn’t mean to build or upgrade, particularly when you were trying to scroll the map down? Or how about the fact that tapping different building types shows you their area of effect, which is something you might want know when you’re building? Weren’t you the one whinging in the other thread about not getting some sort of timer for how long an upgrade takes (another non-issue, because it’s simply a brief pause while the defenders go into the building to re-outfit themselves, which is just enough to making upgrading a tough choice in the heat of battle).

In short, it sounds like you have no idea what you’re talking about and you’re just making specious complaints for the sake of it. Which is your prerogative, of course, but it’s a silly way to approach a really good game.

-Tom

Tom. Read what I’m saying: There are several existing TD games on the iPhone that work just fine like that (including showing ranges). I listed a few in my first response. If you want to say the third click is not worth complaining about, hey fine, I’ll concede the point for sanity’s sake, but your notion that the third click is necessary because of the nature of the platform is just wrong. Clicking on screen elements vs scrolling the screen is something a ton of iPhone apps handle elegantly already.

What the hell is even going on here?

Best tower defense game? I don’t see the words “The Space Game” anywhere in this thread or in the article.

So what you’re saying is that you still don’t understand the basic issue?

You suggest it’s somehow an oversight that the developers require a confirmation tap. But without the confirmation tap, players would accidentally build and upgrade structures because of how you interact with the iPhone screen.

For instance, when I just now took my turns in UniWar (DAVE LONG ARE YOU READING THIS?), I wanted to scroll down the list of players. Instead – oops! – I called up a player’s info. No big deal when I’m just messing around with info screens. But in the heat of a tower defense game, it would kill the game even more than your weird aversion to a third tap.

Look, it’s your complaint. Own it. Run with it. Hone your “DC is nothing special” axe on it. Because it’s a valid complaint insomuch as anything that bothers someone can be a valid complaint. But don’t expect those of us who actually know how the game works not to call it out for being pedantic.

-Tom

Pedantry slap fight is in effect! I can’t promise it won’t lead to battle dancing.

 -Tom

What I’m saying is, there are other tower defense games. On the iPhone. Right now. Like Fieldrunners. That handle all of this in the traditional way. Plus screen scrolling. And they work fine. The third click doesn’t destroy the universe or make baby jesus cry, but it’s certainly not necessary. If this comes down to dancing I’m taking Billy Zane as my corner man.