Friday, January 12, 2007
Free Game: Flash Element Tower Defense
Curse you, Damion, for providing me with this link late in the evening when I actually intended to get something done!
If you like Tower Defense missions in RTS games, well, here you go... in Flash. Simple, straightforward, and annoyingly addictive:
Flash Element Tower Defense
UPDATE: Woot! Finally beat the game, albeit with only 9,858 points. My upgrade path was fire -> Interest Rate -> Interest Rate -> Water. I didn't bother placing any water towers until the first of the bonus levels, and never did end up with any wood or combo towers. But going into the bonus levels I think I had just under 4,000 gold saved.
UPDATE #2: The game has been modified *again*. Now the air-only tower is more powerful, and there are three boss levels (making those high-damage, non-splashing attacks like the wood tower more potent). I won it with ease thanks to three extra levels of time to invest :) I made around 14,000 points this time in my first try, and then 17,799 on my third...
UPDATE #3: The game keeps changing. It now has an extra level beyond the previous "last" level. New score: 27045, and I survived until the end. Pretty much wall-to-wall fire towers.
UPDATE #4: Just shy of 100K. Ah, well. I could probably have cleared 100K if I was stingier with the towers during the last level - nothing survived past the bottom loop. This time I upgraded interest rate ONLY for the first three upgrades.
Labels: Free Games, Game Announcements
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:53 PM (Permalink)
Comments:
Links to this post:
<< Home
Yah. Pretty cool game. The only thing it's missing is a save function. I wonder if you could do that in ActionScript using cookies or something?
Yeah, it's very frustrating having to go through ALL of the levels each time just to re-try the final bonus levels.
I keep losing on the very last bonus level (at least it SAYS it's the final bonus level).
I keep losing on the very last bonus level (at least it SAYS it's the final bonus level).
The key tactic seems to be to identify the three points at which the towers can have two attack turns. The center looks like the obvious candidate, since you can hit enemies for so long around. The game mechanics (perhaps "cannon AI"), though, tell the turrets to "hit the thing furthest in front which is within your range". This results in the lead lemming taking the most damage, and those towards the rear taking the least.
If you structure your towers so that they will be able to hit enemies on one pass, and then a few moments after they pass, hit them again on the other side, you'll experience the most success.
Other things I picked up in WAY too long spent playing today:
* Towers may take 4 spaces visually, but they actually only take 2 spaces. You can "stack" turrets in ideal places and double their density at key choke points (there are really only 3 choke points with a clear delineation between first round of attack and second round of attack).
* You get your first wood at round 7. If you get the Fire upgrade, just two fire towers will hold off the next 4 waves of attackers without you purchasing any upgrades.
* Trade in your cannons from round 1-7 in order to get enough gold to afford your Fire Towers and still have plenty left over towards developing your fortune. The amount of gold you have has a very strong impact on your final score, until the last round. In the last round, your gold is irrelevant; beef up those towers! The enemies have 30,000 HP each!
* If given the choice, it's generally better to add a new tower than to upgrade an existing one, as long as you can fit it near the choke points so it gets a second whack at the things that walked past once. You can crunch the numbers on this yourself, or just trust that I did so with my calculator and stopwatch. Yes, I'm a powergamer! Get off my case!
* Don't upgrade just so you can defeat the boss in one circuit. Take a death instead; if you can defeat the boss in two go-rounds, you can generally defeat the next wave easily.
* It's easier to beat the game with just hordes of fire towers than any other way.
* You get a total of four upgrades. The easiest and generally highest-scoring path is Fire, Interest, Interest, Interest. You can have 20,000 gold in the bank by the final round and still beat the game handily taking that route. Some players claim to have more effective strategies; none involve the Combo Tower.
* The Combo Tower is still dang cool, and I like building it.
What a fun little game! My $5 PayPal is on its way to the author!
If you structure your towers so that they will be able to hit enemies on one pass, and then a few moments after they pass, hit them again on the other side, you'll experience the most success.
Other things I picked up in WAY too long spent playing today:
* Towers may take 4 spaces visually, but they actually only take 2 spaces. You can "stack" turrets in ideal places and double their density at key choke points (there are really only 3 choke points with a clear delineation between first round of attack and second round of attack).
* You get your first wood at round 7. If you get the Fire upgrade, just two fire towers will hold off the next 4 waves of attackers without you purchasing any upgrades.
* Trade in your cannons from round 1-7 in order to get enough gold to afford your Fire Towers and still have plenty left over towards developing your fortune. The amount of gold you have has a very strong impact on your final score, until the last round. In the last round, your gold is irrelevant; beef up those towers! The enemies have 30,000 HP each!
* If given the choice, it's generally better to add a new tower than to upgrade an existing one, as long as you can fit it near the choke points so it gets a second whack at the things that walked past once. You can crunch the numbers on this yourself, or just trust that I did so with my calculator and stopwatch. Yes, I'm a powergamer! Get off my case!
* Don't upgrade just so you can defeat the boss in one circuit. Take a death instead; if you can defeat the boss in two go-rounds, you can generally defeat the next wave easily.
* It's easier to beat the game with just hordes of fire towers than any other way.
* You get a total of four upgrades. The easiest and generally highest-scoring path is Fire, Interest, Interest, Interest. You can have 20,000 gold in the bank by the final round and still beat the game handily taking that route. Some players claim to have more effective strategies; none involve the Combo Tower.
* The Combo Tower is still dang cool, and I like building it.
What a fun little game! My $5 PayPal is on its way to the author!
My mistake the first few times I played was building combo towers. They pack an awesome punch, but with the combination of water and fire towers, each hit from a fire tower can easily do thousands of hit points of damage per hit at a much higher fire rate - and the monsters are slowed to the point that they are within range for a long time.
I generally try NOT to sell any towers, so I try to economize and only use towers (after Fire becomes available) that will be useful in EVERY round. So after round 7, I EXCLUSIVELY use fire towers until the bonus rounds (after the last immune creatures show up), at which time I add water towers to the mix.
For a single map and very limited options, it's an amazingly fun little game.
Post a Comment
I generally try NOT to sell any towers, so I try to economize and only use towers (after Fire becomes available) that will be useful in EVERY round. So after round 7, I EXCLUSIVELY use fire towers until the bonus rounds (after the last immune creatures show up), at which time I add water towers to the mix.
For a single map and very limited options, it's an amazingly fun little game.
Links to this post:
<< Home
