Seven Tower Defense Games You May Not Have Heard Of

The App Store has no shortage of games, both originals and classics. One popular classic is Tower Defense. Today I will talk about a few Tower Defense games that you probably have not heard of (i.e. not Fieldrunners).

7 Cities TD ($4.99 Introductory Price)

7 Cities TD brings a storyline to tower defense. There are 7 cities (hence the name) that you must protect. There are also different towers and powers that you can unlock by beating levels. Even on the easiest difficulty, 7 Cities is very hard. Instead of upgrading with money, in 7 Cities you must use the special blue gems to upgrade. To get these gems, one of your towers must level. Leveling is not the same as upgrading, though. Your towers will level themselves when they get to a certain amount of kills. You can also collect these gems when a bonus wave comes. When a new wave is about to come, 7 Cities will tell you what type of armor they have: Light, Medium, or Heavy. The heavier the armor, the harder they are to kill. This game may sound very complex, but once you have played it a few times, the only complex part is figuring out a good strategy. 7 Cities provides hours of gameplay with its campaign (that can be played on three difficulties), and to top it off, its graphics are beautiful. This gives it a lot of bang for the buck. The only real issues are: it has no free play (although you could consider trying to beat a level free play), and it is very difficult, even on easy.

Grade: B+

Besiegement ($3.99)

Besiegement uses the same campaign idea as 7 Cities, but also goes a bit further. It provides 20 levels, and 10 things called challenges. The levels are a little bit different from those in most tower defense games. In each level, the enemies just go where you aren’t, and where there are no obstacles. The game forces you to allow them a path, but other than that you can go pretty much anywhere. This, for the most part, makes the game easier. Unlike 7 Cities, you can use money to upgrade your towers. The challenges work just like regular levels, except you cannot let any enemies escape. They also have restrictions on both you and the enemies. In some, you can only use certain weapons, and in all, there is only a certain type of enemy. Besiegement also allows you to store up to 5 profiles, so both you and your friends or family can have their own campaign. Although Besiegement is not extremely hard, it provides many levels and challenges, and also has great graphics and animation. It also provides a means to make it harder; you can increase and decrease the speed at which the enemies move. So, even though there’s not a campaign for each difficulty, you can make it a lot harder for yourself. Unlike in most other Tower Defense games, Besiegement does not let you zoom in on your map. Like 7 Cities, Besiegement does not have free play.

Grade: B

iTD ($1.99)

iTD is one of the closest to original tower defense games you can find. It’s simple: there are 3 maps you can play for each of three difficulties. There is no campaign or goal other than just playing as long as possible (trying to get a high score). There are four types of towers: Snow, Lightning, Bomb, and Laser. Like Besiegement, you use your money to upgrade the towers. As the game goes on the enemies get harder. Instead of using boats (like in 7 Cities) or real-looking enemies (like in Besiegement), iTD uses classic shapes and colors. Similarly, instead of using anything that looks like a tower, iTD uses blocks with pictures (as can be seen in the icon above). Like in both of the above, at the top of the screen iTD shows you the next enemy type. Even though it does not tell you the difficulty of the next enemy type, you should expect it to be stronger. Even though iTD keeps track of your scores, there is no way to view them without actually playing, which can be quite annoying. You also only have one profile, which doesn’t matter too much because it’s not campaign style. If you are looking for classic Tower Defense, with no campaigns or extras, then you will like iTD.

Grade: B-

Mote-M ($0.99)

Mote-M’s main difference from the other tower defense games mentioned is its difficulty meter. Instead of there being many different levels, you just drag a slider to choose a difficulty from 1 to 10. Of course, it goes up in increments of 1/2, so this does not provide infinite difficulties. Once you have selected a difficulty, you choose one of four Filed Types: Top-down, Across, Diagonal, or Sandbox. Like a few others, there is no defined course; instead, you define it yourself. Mote-M also brings another interesting feature: when green arrows appear around a square, you can put any tower on it for free. Like a few others, instead of actual tower-like figures, Mote-M just uses squares with dots that tell you their type. You use money to upgrade to new levels also. The level of a tower is shown with the circles in the bottom-right side of the tower. One of the best parts of Mote-M is its graphics. It runs extremely smoothly, and just looks clean. I have not had any lagging yet, even when there are many enemies on the field. Don’t let the $0.99 price tag make you think Mote-M is inferior to the others, because it provides great gameplay and graphics, and would be well worth $3. The only major issue with it is limited maps, but that is easily solved with the difficulty slider.

Grade: A-

Retro Defense ($3.99)

Retro Defense is the closest to original tower defense you can find, from the graphics to the board. However, this is not necessarily good. The game freezes up for a second every so often, and it lags most of the time. I have also found that sometimes after clicking a button, it freezes up for a couples seconds. I am not sure if this is all part of the retro-ness, or just a major bug, but it does get very annoying. Even though it’s supposed to be retro, that doesn’t mean that the animation has to be. Retro Defense provides many maps, and tells you the difficulty of each one. It also shows you the total waves, and the most waves you have ever defended on the map. If you are a big fan of retro games, or just retro tower defense, this is the game for you. If not, then you will definitely want to look elsewhere. For $3.99, this really is just for retro fans.

Grade: C

TapDefense (Free)

For a free game, TapDefense is very full-featured. Like Besiegement, it has both a challenge mode and a campaign/levels mode. Like 7 Cities, it has a high-score view where you can view all your high scores for any level. You can also see the high scores of people who have submitted their scores. In TapDefense, you start out with 3 types of towers, but there are 4 others that you can unlock. Unlocking in TapDefense works a lot like upgrading in 7 Cities — you collect halos (which are different from money), and then when you get enough (1 or 2), you can unlock a new tower. TapDefense also includes one really cool feature which none of the others have: interest. Not only do you receive money for killing the enemies, but you also get interest on your saved money after each round. If you want to increase your interest rate, you use your halos. When you are playing a level, if you click on an enemy, you can see its details, such as speed, name and health. Although this means you cannot target enemies (click on one, and it becomes a priority to all towers), it is still a pretty cool feature. Although TapDefense is free, it still packs a lot of features and many hours of play. It should be tried by anyone thinking of purchasing a Tower Defense game, because it is probably enough for most of us.

Grade: B

The Creeps! ($1.99 Introductory Price)

The Creeps provides a much different story than many of the others. Instead of defending a base, or something like that, you are defending a kid from monsters in the closet. To choose a map, you get a nice cover flow view, which is a feature that none of the others have. Like Mote-M, it has very smooth animation and looks very clean. One feature it has that only a few others have is targeting, but it goes a bit beyond just that. On each map there are pre-set objects, and you can target these too. So, if you want to build a tower where there is already a gravestone, you just target it, and all of your towers in range will try to destroy it. Like the others, you can upgrade your towers, which makes them perform better. Although it only has 10 levels at the moment, the developer promises that many more will come (the developer also promises sound). Another thing it has that many others don’t is accelerometer-based super-towers. These are towers that you use the accelerometer to activate. For $1.99, The Creeps offers great graphics and fun gameplay. However, some may find it a little too easy, but that may change in future updates.

Grade: B

share permalink ping 4 Comments