Tower Defense: The Best and the Worst
I love Tower Defenses (TDs). Some of my favorite games of all time are TDs, like Kingdom Rush and the Bloons TD series. But what makes a TD good? What even is a TD. Well…okay, let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start.*
Tower Defense:
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Tower Defense is a subgenre of real-time strategy video games, where the goal is to stop the enemies from reaching a specific point on the map by building a variety of different towers which shoot at them as they pass. Enemies and towers usually have varied abilities, costs, and upgrade prices.
The first TD was probably Rampart, released in 1990 by Atari Games. In Rampart, the player is in control of a set of castles, which they must defend, by alternately shooting at attacking ships (or other players), and repairing any damage done to them within a time limit. Surrounding this castle is a wall, made up of small blocks, completely surrounding a region of the board. This area is considered the player’s territory, and it may contain one or more castles, and any number of cannons. The maintenance of this territory is the primary focus of the game. Once the player defeats the opponent, the player can execute the commander, by walking the plank or beheading. The minigame Fort Condor, which appears in Final Fantasy VII may have inspired the modern TD genre, because it has lots of items in it related to other TD games, such as hiring mercenaries to fight, and then placing them strategically.
The modern TD game in most parts can be seen as a reflection of another TD, Kingdom Rush . In Kingdom Rush , you build Towers at strategical points to Defend your base/the end of the road.
*Sound of Music. Look it up.