Hmm, I happen to be good at a lot of things, but video games are ironically not one of them. I wish I could be good at League or OW or CS or something like that, but unfortunately I’m not, and also I don’t have time to practice. But I do happen to love the games I am somewhat good at, even if they’re not as impressive as the aforementioned titles. Today I just felt like talking a lot about tower defense games and osu!, so I’m going to.
Technically I’m not that good at osu! because I’m still struggling to improve to maps more challenging than high 3 and low 4 star maps, but I still enjoy it a lot. Just the satisfaction of clicking the circles and scoring virtual points. Understanding and learning new patterns, and marveling at my automatic ability to recognize and execute rhythms as I see them for the first time. Long combos tense me up and the fail sound triggers me. Add in the element of aim and I feel like I’m actually doing something skillful. (For some reason my mouse is on insanely high sens and I’m good at it and it’s fun.) (Also I have access to a tablet but I can’t be bothered. I’ll bother some day and see whether tablet aiming is fun too.)
Half of my plays are probably offline, as it is a game I can play any time. It’s just satisfying to play, easy to open and close, easy to commit to playing a map really quick. I can enjoy nice music (most of the time) and try to enjoy the circles when I don’t enjoy the music. I honestly don’t understand the ranking system and I don’t want to, because I don’t want to be entrapped in an obsession with pp and full combos. That can make you unnecessarily emotionally entangled and rather angry. I get satisfaction out of simply beating my own high score. That’s another thing I like about osu!, is that it’s a largely individual journey based on your own self-improvement, and the comparison to other players out there is too swimmy to matter on a micro level (a characteristic that running shares, roughly).
Moving on to tower defense games, if there’s any games that I’m familiar with, it’s flash games. There are so many genres of games encapsulated within flash games and they’re easy to access and switch between, since they are based on the web. There are some really good platformers, there are some awesome meta-gaming achievement games, and I’m a huge sucker for a good puzzle game (usually with a side of horror). Flash games also have RTS games of their own, one kind of which is tower defense.
I hope I do not err or leave anything out when I say that the three most famous TD flash games are Bloons, Kingdom Rush, and GemCraft. I rather dislike Bloons, so I’m not going to talk about that one. Balloons aren’t satisfying to pop, monkeys aren’t very amusing or cool, and the approach and defeat of balloon enemies is not comprehensible to the point that it feels neither strategic nor satisfying.
GemCraft is a wonderful series, currently containing four games. The game that I have spent the most time on is GemCraft Labyrinth (The Lost Chapter). I believe the game’s story is interesting but weak, but I appreciate the tone that it and the graphics lend to the game. However, the game itself is a delight–it is a wonderful balance of mechanics and difficulty (you know how game developers tend to complicate the later games in a series with wonderful, but more complex mechanics, which are cool and fun but just make the game more…complex). However, more than anything, it is an extremely long game. The game doesn’t get old, even though the difficulty increases at a slow rate. Each time you feel as if you are using all the resources you have to thwart the monsters, and you feel in control of everything strategically. You learn the battle amulets and make sure you achieve every easily-obtained battle amulet every battle. Every field you clear feels satisfying, as if you have won a hard-fought struggle. And of course, there are long-term achievements to work towards as well. Every so often, there is a boss battle with a pylon, in which you have to choose the best intersection of ramping up power by letting the battle go long, and cutting it short because your scaling has fallen off. I am proud to say I have actually completely beaten GemCraft Labyrinth once to the extent of not having the paid pass, so excluding two fields. It was so much fun and so satisfying when I finished, because the game is truly a marathon of time committed. Check it out.
I have barely ever touched either Chapter 1 or Chapter 0, but on my recent re-attachment to Kongregate, I have begun Chasing Shadows (Chapter 2). According to some of the Kongregate comments, etc. it seems as if there are more complicated mechanics to come, but it promises to be a very long game as well with a lot to unlock. So far, I have gotten through about six or so hextiles and most things are still similar to Labyrinth, so I having fun owning the game as the GemCraft expert I am. 😛 Hopefully as the game gets increasingly complex I don’t get frustrated with the amount of things that are going on at once. I prefer to focus on the management of towers for one task, killing monsters, rather than a diverse set of tasks to be completed. One interesting thing so far in this game is that walls are 1/4 the size that they used to be. I think it’s an improvement.
Kingdom Rush is another fantastic tower defense series, currently with two games, Kingdom Rush and Kingdom Rush Frontiers. Compared to Labyrinth, the mechanics hedge you in a little bit. You have less options for your decisions (there are only four tower types and the points at which you may build your towers are predetermined, as compared to GemCraft where you can pick virtually anywhere to build). However, this doesn’t reduce the strategic satisfaction of the game at all, in my opinion. Each tower has a clear purpose: archers are high dps and irrelevant to magic armor, and mages are slower and more powerful and irrelevant to physical armor. Barracks can not only stop enemies so they can be shot at, but can help bunch them up for area attacks from the bomber. Determining the best arrangement of these still feels like it matters a lot despite the limited options. The bright and lined art matches the character of meticulously designed very well, I think. Each level is carefully and exactly programmed and designed for a precise and specific challenge. There is more room for easter eggs and themed bosses and levels. Your journey through the kingdom feels progressional; as the enemies get more difficult, you also become more powerful. There is also the very simple element of reinforcements and fire rain powers, which keep you engaged at all times, and give you opportunities to shut down the one or two enemies that squeak by.
I believe that I have beat both of these games before, but I’m guessing that I first beat Kingdom Rush on ArmorGames, because I do not have the Kongregate achievement to show it. As for Frontiers, I think I beat it when it came out on Kong, but there is no completion achievement, only one for also completing all the extra challenges. I have recently begun both of these games at once and I have been switching between the two at random to keep them fresh. I’m slowly but steadily going to be aiming for full completion on both, hopefully with all challenge levels and as many achievements as reasonable within obtainment of all stars.
Well that went long. Anyways, I love tower defense, clearly. Real-time strategy that is slow enough not to stress you too hard yet engaging enough to press you enough. Thank you for coming to my word dump about almost nothing at all. Gotta love me some good ol’ unoriginal ideas.
bTackt 