Defender’s Quest [Game Saturday]

Today’s game of the week is called Defender’s Quest. It is more of a long demo game than a full game though, so keep that in mind. Defender’s Quest at its core is a tower defense game with role playing elements. You are still fighting waves of monsters with your towers in every map, but instead of playing with anonymous defenders, you are playing with characters that level up, have skill trees and equipment.

You start each map with all of your characters which you can place on the map. Your one and only goal is to keep them away from Azra, your lead character. Azra, while not fighting actively, has a repertoire of spells at her disposal to aid in battle.

You start the game with a single melee class which only gets you that far. New characters are recruited in town, and sometimes awarded during the story telling in between battles.

Each character has a skill set available to that class. The berserker for instance gets a double-cut early on in the game which hits two enemies passing by when executed.

Your sorceress gains PSI power during battles which can be used for spells, summoning more characters to the battlefield or powering up characters. When you power them up, they grow considerably stronger.

Characters have attack, armor and health values that you need to keep an eye on. Especially health – and armor items – become important later on when enemies start attacking your characters either in melee or range.

Your characters gain experience with every battle they fight, and the occasional level up awards one skill point that you can spend to improve an existing skill or learn a new one. Skills are divided into active skills, like the berserker’s double hit, and passive skills like swiftness which increase abilities passively.

You can equip each character with a weapon and armor, to increase their damage and resistance. These items become more important later on in the game.

Some maps allow you to select a challenge level with considerably stronger enemies and greater rewards. Rewards usually get you more experience and items that you can equip your characters with.

Defender’s Quest all in all is a solid game that does a lot of things right. If there are things to criticize, it is the low variance of enemies that you encounter on the map. The developers have released a full version of the game which boasts more maps, character classes and five additional acts to play through. The full version retails for $6.99 currently, and you get $2 off when you visit the purchase page from the Kongregate website.

Hands of War Tower Defense [Game Saturday]

I still love the tower defense genre despite the fact that I have not seen a good game come out in quite a while. Hands of War is a Flash browser game that does a lot of things right. It comes with a hero character, skills, a leveling system and options to variate the difficulty level of each map you play which increases the replay value considerably.

When you first start the game you are asked to pick your class from one of the three classes available. Each class has distinct advantages and disadvantages. The warrior class for instance does a lot of damage but has not nearly the reach of the ranger class or the firing frequency of the mage class.

Once you have selected your class you are thrown right into battle. The game does not start until you hit the next wave button, so no need to haste here. You always place your character first on the battlefield, and then other towers that you can buy with gold.

Once you have placed your towers you can start wave after wave. You can either start each wave individually or let the computer send in wave after wave automatically.

Your main task is to complete each level with at least one life left. You get better rewards and more experience if you do not lose a single life though.

Your regular towers get experience over time which you can then use to upgrade them. Upgrading makes them more powerful. Once towers reach level 4 you have the option to add a special ability to a tower’s arsenal which costs a lot of gold but is usually worth the investment.

Your champion gets experience after the battle. Level ups can be invested in a talent tree and attributes. Both are divided into champion and commander talents and ability. Champion related skills always improve the champion, while commander abilities the troops. This reaches from adding poison damage to the champions attack to improving the base range, damage or attack speed of all units by 1% per point spend.

Each level up rewards you with new units or unit upgrades as well. You begin the game with only two selectable units and increase that initial stock to eight during the game.

Graphics are not really top notch but functional enough to enjoy the game. The leveling system, level selections and upgrades make this game enjoyable.

Head over to Armorgames to start playing Hands of War right away. If you have played the game, let me know what you think of it.

Zombie Defense Agency [Game Saturday]

I love to play all sorts of tower defense games. From classic flash based versions to new interpretations like Orcs Must Die which I recently bought on Steam. Today’s game is a flash based browser tower defense game. Zombies and other creatures pour into the level and try to reach the exit. It is the player’s task to prevent this by building towers in the level that attack and block the entering enemies from reaching the exit as players lose a life whenever that happens.

The player has only a few towers to select from in the first levels of the game. This changes later when updates become available. Zombies enter in at least one but often multiple entrances and leave the map through one or multiple exits which are usually indicated with arrows. There is also some debris in the levels which act as natural borders that zombies cannot pass.

It pays off to look at the layout of the map before placing towers. It is often possible to block parts of the map with cheap towers to direct all zombies through a narrow opening for maximum effectiveness.

Towers range from cheap basic towers to lightning, fire, minigun and laser beam towers. Each tower has a distinctive attack pattern, range, firing speed and damage.

Towers can be upgraded if the necessary upgrade has been selected by the player. Available for selection are new towers, additional money or global tower upgrades. All towers benefit from the latter.

It is up to the player and play style to decide which upgrades to select. It is not possible to go back to select different upgrades at a later time though which makes it important to make the right selections.

Defeating zombies earns money which can be invested in new tower placements or tower upgrades. The game has a total of 15 different maps that unlock gradually and become increasingly difficulty to master. Enemies become stronger, map layouts more difficulty and wrong tower placement often result in a loss. Players loose one life if a zombie reaches the exit, if 20 zombies reach it is game over. Game over only means that the map was not won and needs to be restarted to progress to the next map.

The game becomes repetitive halfway through, which can be mainly attributed to the lack of “interesting” new zombies and the lack of a story. Another element that is missing is a fast forward button to speed up the gameplay.

Still, the game is fun to play especially for users who like the tower defense genre. You can play it over at Free Web Arcade. (via)

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Demonrift TD [Game Saturday]

I love Tower Defense (TD) games. Last game that I played quite a bit was Orcs Must Die, a Tower Defense game with action elements that you can purchase at Steam or Xbox Live. Demonrift TD is a free browser game that you can play in all modern web browsers if the Flash plugin is installed. The player’s task is to defend the kingdom of Emaeron from daemonic attacks.

The game itself consists of two parts. Part one takes place on a strategic map of the country. Here you can use resources to improve cities to increase resource generation per turn or to receive advantages during the battle phase. It is furthermore possible to hire better troops or improve the abilities of existing troops.

You have got a certain amount of action points at your disposal per round which you can use to buy improvements or to wage war.

A click on one of the cities connected to your empire opens the second phase of the game, the tower defense phase.

You begin with a set amount of resources that you can spend buying troops. Your troops can be placed on the hexagons displayed on the map. Your task is to keep the demons from reaching your stronghold on the map. Only swordsmen and archers are at your disposal in the beginning. Once you get the training hall you can unlock new unit types such as knights or golems.

It takes a moment before units begin to appear near the towers (huts) that you have build. You can upgrade the huts several times which always adds another unit of that type to the hut. One of the problems that you may run into is that archers will stop shooting at close enemies. It is therefor advised to position the archers in locations where this won’t happen to often.

I like the combination of a strategic turn based game with tower defense elements. While I would not compare it to a great game like Total War or Empire I’d say it offers enough variety to keep you entertained for a while.

The games is on the other hand not overly strategic, especially the tower defense part lacks variety in the long run.

Visuals are on the other hand stunning, especially the hand painted graphics that are displayed before battles.

You can play Demonrift TD over at the Armorgames website.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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Post tags: armorgames, demonrift, game saturday, td, tower-defense