Turtle, Turtle, Turtle: RTSes for Basebodies
How to prevail against waves of attacking tower defense games
5/15/2009 6:39 PM | 6 Comments | Page 1 of 4
There are about 13,272 tower defense games out there. Do not try to play them all. You cannot do it. I know this for a fact. I ran out of steam with about 13,262 to go (it helped that 10,000 of them are on the iPhone and I don't have an iPhone). In the process, I came to the conclusion that tower defense games are like playing excerpts from real-time strategy games. You simply cut to the chase. A tower defense game is nothing but basebuilding and then a swirl of activity. You don't fuss with a complicated economy, tough choices about booming and rushing, scouting a map, or the intricacies of using attack moves. Tower defense games are RTS fast food.
But even if you don't like them -- count me in that group, for the most part -- there are some worth playing. I'll give you my intel report in a moment, but first, let me offer a bit of advice to tower defense game-makers who might be too busy to play the 13,272 games that will be their competition. Here's what it takes to make a good tower defense game.
1. I can't be expected to just twiddle my thumbs while the game plays itself.
This is mostly why I don't like tower defense games. In an RTS, being attacked is just part of the game. But in a tower defense game, it's the entirety of the game. So once I've dropped my towers and the waves of attackers start attacking, make sure you give me something interesting to do. Move a little man around, as in
PixelJunk Monsters? Collect resources, like clicking on sundrops to collect sunbucks in
Plants vs. Zombies? Or just watch the money roll in until I can upgrade my towers, which is what most tower defense games seem to expect? A good tower defense game needs to be interactive even after the towers are dropped on the map.
2. Pacing. And also: pacing. Pacing, too.
Tower defense games are traditionally very slow in terms of unfolding the gameplay. You start with a turret. Then you get a turret that goes to level 2. Then you get an anti-air turret. Then you get a turret that goes to level 3. Then you get an artillery turret. Then you get an anti-air turret that goes to level 2. Then you get an artillery turret that goes to level 2. Oftentimes each step will be an entire 10-minute scenario. If you're going to unfold this slowly, you need to keep me very, very entertained.
Plants vs. Zombies is very slow, but very wacky. Too few tower defense games trust their players like full-fledged RTSes do. In a full-fledged RTS, if I lose patience with the way the campaign dribbles out the units so as not to confuse the more casual players, I can just play a skirmish game. Instead of protecting me from being confused, your tower defense game should let me jump into a full game when I feel I'm ready.
3. It has to look good. Or, if good is too much to expect, it has to look different.
Since the gameplay in most tower defense games is pretty soundly established, you might as well pull out all the stops for the visuals. Unfortunately, since many tower defense games are created by a dude in a basement, this isn't always a viable way to do it. Here's where you have to get creative. And no tower defense game has risen to the occasion better than
Immortal Defense, which is simultaneously one of the best-looking tower defense games I've ever played and the one with the simplest graphics. More on that later.
