Hey, #TowerDefense enjoyers, go check out From Ashes, Bloom. You're a shadowy tentacle monster protecting the world tree from loggers. You plant other trees to help.
It doesn't have the depth of #Thronefall (which still looks amazing and keeps getting improvements to add complexity and variety) or story like #Arknights but for a simple free tower defense, it looks like a gem.
Go play it for those of us who can't play games on PC anymore.
I just watched RCE play the coolest looking #TowerDefense game that I've seen in a while. It's called #ToyShire and is made by some Turkish indie devs who just put a free demo on GOG [edit:] and Steam.
Mechanically, it looks pretty similar to a lot of the genre. You have fixed points where you can place and upgrade big beefy towers between waves. During waves, you can deploy units which are slightly mobile but can be damaged by enemies. Solid enough based on the handful of units and towers they've shown off so far but that's not what sells it, the aesthetics are.
You play as Kevin, a boy playing with little green army men. The visuals and environment completely sell that premise. Kevin pulls towers out of his jacket. The paths on the map are made of toys, plates of cookies, furniture, and dirty laundry strewn about the floor. He comments on stuff as it's happening the way a kid playing with his toys might. A jenga tower getting knocked over by his cat can change the path enemies take. And he can make up rules when he has an idea for something cool (the finale of the demo shows it off well).
You get a bit of a feel for who the kid is when you'll see stuff like the BRIO train set being in more built in one stage than when you last saw it. There's a ton of potential for environmental story telling there.
Going back to the visuals, video game graphics have caught up to the point where this is what I imagine the Toy Story 1 tie in game wanted to look like. They are highly detailed models but are unnaturally shiny and the whole thing is bright and colorful.
I don't know if enough Twitch streamers will pick it up for it to get popular since it doesn't look like a great game for that right out of the box but it's absolutely worth checking out.
I'm glad to hear it's on Steam. I knew that they had a page but wasn't sure if they had a demo because I couldn't see it from my phone.
From what I've read, #Bloons TD6 is still the reigning champion of the genre for a reason. It has a cute art style and there's more depth to it than most of the genre. Though, get the Netflix version if you can. It loses a few features but has all microtransactions removed. I have enjoyed it but got more info Neural Cloud and Arknights so I don't have the time for another game that updates frequently.
I might complain about #Arknights when I get mad at it but it's still a great TD game most of the time, though it's not traditional by any stretch.
I've seen enough people recommend Defense Grid, Steam World TD, and Kingdom Rush that I suspect it's organic popularity instead of ads.
One other TD on PC that I learned about from RCE and seems worth checking out is #Thronefall. It's new (maybe still early access? I'm not sure). You control a medieval fantasy king but the enemies you face vary outside of that niche while still looking consistent aesthetically. Terrain has a much bigger impact than most TDs I've seen. Hills, narrow passage choke points, zig zags, waterways, and line of sight all play a role preventing you from spamming the same strat on different stages or with different conditions. One tip: investing is key to victory. I'm used to TDs where overwhelming force early usually creates a snowball that enemies can't overcome. Thronefall really wants you to barely scrape by on the skin of your teeth to invest in revenue generators early, then you have enough money to crush later waves.
I liked #GrizzlyGames previous game #Islanders. Sadly their newest title #Thronefall didn’t click with me at all! Admittedly, I’m not huge on #TowerDefense in general, but the execution here is kinda rough! The compromises it makes to be controller playable, harm the overall experience quite a bit. Commanding your troops is fiddly, and the constant back and forth between the front line and your buildings is annoying. Also, why do destroyed buildings magically rebuild after each wave? 🤔