Genre: Tower Defense
Year: 2014
Developed by: Hidden Path Entertainment
Published by: 505 Games
Platforms: PC, XBOX One, PS4, Switch, Mac, Linux
#126
Feeling Like: Go with the flow
I recently hosted a roundtable discussion at work. We have a Summit every six months or so, where we fly every remote employee in for a week’s worth of brainstorm sessions and teambuilding exercises. My topic was time management, what it is, how to istmprove it and to see what my fellow colleagues did to prioritize tasks and complete assignments before the deadline.
Flow state came up often, and what we could do to get into it more often.
The definition of flow state!
The flow state is the experience of being so absorbed by an engaging, enjoyable task that your attention is completely held by it. You generally lose sense of time, self-consciousness, and anything that doesn’t have to do with the task at hand. In flow, you feel as if you could keep doing whatever you’re doing forever.
I mentioned in my intro that the easiest way for me to get into a flow state was by playing a Tower Defense game, while listening to a podcast. Time barely exists. I am in concentration nirvana.
I played Defense Grid 2 for 11 hours over a period of a day and a half. I was utterly hooked.
The genre of Tower Defense speaks to me. They’re instantly endearing – the mechanics are usually very simple to learn, the challenge ramps up at a fair pace, they’re usually cheap to purchase and have a ton of replay value. I like the loop of setting up your towers, watching the carnage, and then reacting accordingly. It makes sense to me. I like how I don’t/can’t get lost, or need to look up walkthroughs. It’s fully open to experimentation and it simply requires a few attempts to work out which towers to focus on, which enemies to focus on, and where to build your towers. Magic.
Even look at my Steam profile was enough to consider re-installing it and going for all the achievements. I could do it. I could do it right now. It’s so tempting. Any excuse to dive back in, it really is one of the few games I “miss” after it’s over.
It could be that the genre is in a strange place. You could argue the genre itself was never more than an expanded mod from StarCraft and Warcraft 3 to begin with. Rampart in 1990 could also be considered the innovator of Tower Defense, but I’d never heard about it before until I started this write up. It’s not really a huge money maker, most games pertaining to tower defense are on the cheap side, smaller scale and rarely have voice acting or hyper realistic graphics. I can’t think of a single “big budget” or “triple a” studio that has tackled it. Final Fantasy 7 Remake had the excellent Ford Condor mini-game which sort of had the look, but not the mechanics of a Tower Defense. X-Morph in 2017 had full on voice acting and a story and is probably the most graphically intense one I’ve played, but that was also six years ago. I think 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim may meet the criteria, but the combat sections are more of a Tower Defense/RTS hybrid. Anytime I search for a “best tower defense games” it’s littered with sublime examples that I’ve already played (Kingdom Rush, Defense Grid 2) or ones that I turn my nose up to because of how they look.
I should know by now not to judge a cover by its book.
Defense Grid 2 has everything I’m looking for in a Tower Defense game – a wide variety of towers to purchase, upgrades, incredible maps, sleek visuals and even some characters to care about! It’s not StarCraft, but the talking heads/AIs more than provided enough interest for me to add another layer of enjoyment. Story usually doesn’t even exist in Tower Defense games, so when it’s put in I consider it the cherry on top.
But the real hook is the fact that you have great influence over the aliens’ path and how they approach your core. Many of the areas aren’t just linear hallways, but large sections interspersed with laneways. For a cost, you can build multiple blockades, creating zig-zag paths and choke points. It’s this freedom that enticed me immediately – it’s not just a matter of placing a tower here, or there. It’s a matter of creating the path yourself, then deciding the best hallway of death to subject your enemies to.
Every stage felt interesting and unique in some way; there’s even the matter of height and angles to consider, adding even more strategic choices. I also liked how if the enemies make it to your core and snagged one, you get a chance to get it back as they still have to go back the way they came in order to secure it. In essence, this doubles the runway for you to set up danger zones and correct any mistakes.
I always know there’s a big budget RPG, or action adventure on the horizon. Mario and Zelda are ever-present. Shooters are never going away. But I don’t know when the next Tower Defense delight is coming. I’m keen to try They Are Billions but any of the Bloons or Gemcrafts don’t really do it for me. I’m worried that eventually I’ll run the well dry and I’ve already experienced the best that this type of game has to offer.
Still, it’s hardly a bad prospect to replay a gem like Defense Grid 2. There’s enough achievements and challenges to satiate an addict like myself, particularly if I have hours of podcasts to blow through and I start to get the itch to mow down hordes of evil using my perfectly placed, automated turrets.
Man, I love Tower Defense.
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