Monday 17 October 2011

Tower Defence :Smartphone App genres 2

In a previous posting we explored  the endless running genre. Now a few weeks on we turn to another
Staple in the AppGamer's diet: Tower Defence.
The premise is again a simple one: there is a set route that an enemy will travel down and your base. You lay various defences along the route to take out the attackers, if they make it as far as your base it's game over. Simple!
Historically originating as internet browser based games it wasn't long before developers realised that the genre would convert very well to the smartphone based platforms. Gameplay can be slow and methodical or thick and fast. Within the simple premise there is lots of scope for strategic play, with different unit types, slow, heavy firers  or fast, quick firers amongst others. A lot of creativity can go into this type of game with different time periods or themes predominating . Some good current examples are Handygames wild west scenario, Guns and Glory and it's WW 2 based sequel Guns and Glory WW2. The cute graphics and chirpy soundtrack bely the fact that the game(and indeed genre) can be deeply strategic. A Machine Gunner to take on a squad of infantryman: Simple. But what about micromanaging  three rifleman; two tanks and a grenadier when thirty different enemies ranging from dismounted infantry to heavily armoured fighting vehicles are about to descend down upon you en-masse all following different routes across varying camoflauged and or covered terrain-not so simple then is it!
That's why we love Tower Defence Games.